Timothy Hutton
TNT has already signed the Timothy Hutton drama Leverage for a second season, but the show's team of crack con artists will have to make it through Tuesday's season finale (airing at 10 pm/ET) to get there. Last week's episode ended with Hutton's team leader, Nate, feeling betrayed by Sophie, the master of accents played by TVGuide.com celebrity blogger Gina Bellman.
Hutton, a 1980 Academy Award winner for Ordinary People, talked to TVGuide.com about what the team will face next season, how Nate is handling the reappearance of his ex-wife (Kari Matchett), and his character's growing reliance on booze.
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Gina Bellman, Leverage
Hi everyone, sorry I slipped under the radar last week. Couldn't face your comments after Sophie behaved so appallingly in "The First David Job"! Not really — I had lots of real-life stuff going on, such as moving house and getting ready to go back to the U.S. to shoot Leverage Season 2. It's a lot of work packing up and leaving your life and responsibilities behind for six months. We don't even know for sure which city we're going to shoot in; there's a short list of two cities with completely different climates, so what to pack?! Actually, last year I completely overpacked. I forgot I'd be in costume most days and vegging out learning lines and doing laundry on weekends. I could have managed with just one bag of jeans, T-shirts and sweats. My long-suffering boyfriend ...
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Armin Shimerman, Jonathan Frakes, and Brent Spiner
When Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes signed on to direct an episode of TNT's Leverage, he agreed to helm one of the drama's most complex episodes yet: one where Timothy Huttons team of cons for good causes help upset an attempt to rig a trial.
But Frakes also beamed in a few friends to turn the set into a mini-Star Trek convention, recruiting The Next Generation's Brent Spiner and Deep Space Nine's Armin Shimmerman and Kitty Swink for key roles.
The once-and-perhaps future Commander Riker also hinted about the possibility of getting involved with J.J. Abrams' reboot of the Star Trek franchise, and his acting role on the soon-to-be scheduled Fox drama Persons Unknown, from The Usual Suspects and Valkyrie writer Christopher McQuarrie. And intelligent guy that he is, he took a moment to praise his wife, Genie Francis, for her recent performance in the Hallmark Channel's The Note II: Taking a Chance on Love.
Frakes' Leverage episode, "The Juror No. 6 Job," airs Tuesday at 10 pm/ET.
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If you want some fun, check out this video on TVGuide.com to see our reaction to getting a second-season pick-up! Dean Devlin told us we all needed to gather to do a group interview for the season finale. I was in London, Christian [Kane] was in Nashville and Tim [Hutton] was in Paris. Just getting all the time zones synched was a feat in itself! It was really sweet of Dean Devlin and Michael Wright of TNT to want to bring us all together for the big announcement and the reactions are priceless. I look a bit stunned. All of us have had a chance to catch up with each other and we can't wait to get started again, so stay tuned!
I'm sure you've all noticed over the course of the season that ...
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"The 12 Step Job" was the last episode we shot before the season finale.* We were all feeling a little bit sentimental and nostalgic. We knew that on the finale we were going to be pumped up about working with Dean Devlin and John Rogers again, and celebrating the long journey we'd been on together, so in some ways this episode was the lull before the storm.
We had a great guest star to cheer us all up. Drew Powell is a funny and talented actor who we all really clicked with. In fact, Drew and Beth [Riesgraf] were already pals and it turned out that Drew and I ...
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Hi to all of you watching Leverage and checking out this blog. Your comments mean a lot to me. I've been back in London for several weeks now so have been unable to see the episodes airing and have not been getting the usual feedback from friends or people I meet. I keep thinking an American tourist might recognize me and say, "Are you Sophie Deveraux?" but it hasn't happened yet!!
"Snow Job" was shot in the height of the summer in ...
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Most of this episode of Leverage takes place in an airplane. Tim [Hutton] and I get to sit in the First Class section of the set, which is a big relief, because when filming in a confined space, you want to be as comfortable as possible. We're using a real interior of a plane constructed in the studio. Some shots require the cabin doors to be closed so it's a bit like sitting on a 12-hour flight day after day with the added stress of squeezing past equipment and stepping over cables with hot, bright lights burning into you.
There are a lot of extras playing passengers and crew. Most of the women, including Beth [Riesgraf] and I, are wearing fluffy slippers ...
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This episode is a more comedic script than the rest of the shows. Everyone has a fun character to play and some great one-liners. Tim [Hutton] gets to dress up as a priest, which Beth [Riesgraf] and I both agree makes him seem strangely attractive. We're filming in a really over the top house. It makes me wonder how a location scout pitches for a 'mafia style, vulgar, nouveau riche house' without offending anyone? This is, after all, somebody's home, albeit someone who has an upholstered leopard skin mini-chaise for his dog.
I had a little car crash on the way to work. Someone was ...
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Beth Riesgraf in "The Stork Job."
I love the script for "The Stork Job." It's a big emotional episode for Beth [Riesgraf], but there's really cool stuff for all of us to do. Comedy, big action sequences, car chases, and a massive explosion. The explosion was set up at the San Pedro docks. I was hanging out in Tim [Hutton]'s trailer when someone came over and said. 'They're about to set off the explosion. Do you want to go watch?' Tim had to talk me into it. We got there just in time to slip into the video tent and slide in beside the director. The explosion was huge with ...
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One of the things you have to get used to, working on a TV show, is filming out of sync. Although this episode airs [several weeks into the season], it was actually the first one that we shot. One of the things you have to be acutely aware of when shooting episodes out of order is your character's relationship with the other characters. Luckily, in this episode it's not too relevant since we don't relate to each other much. The characters are almost exclusively focused on the "job."
The action in "The Bank Shot Job" takes place in one day, mostly in and around one location: the bank. The benefits of this ...
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