The Point Radio: The Good And Bad Of Milo Ventimiglia

From HEROES to GOTHAM, Milo Ventimiglia has played both the good and bad sides of the coin. So where does he land in his latest project, ABC’s thriller series WHISPERS? Milo talks about that and just how he picks the right roles. Plus we talk to the creator and stars of SyFy’s DARK MATTER who tackle the big question of just how close is the TV show to the comic.

We’re back in a couple of days with sexy, liberal radio queen Stephanie Miller, plus a visit to the set of TYRANT and a look at SyFy’s new series, KILLJOYS. Follow us on Twitter now here.

Transcript

The Point Radio. It's my prob. We're back with the cast and creator of Dark Matter to talk about how the show's put together and how it really does relate to the Dark List comic series. Plus, Milo Venamilia has played both sides of the coin, good and bad.

And now, he's in a new ABC series called Whispers. Where does he land here? Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. From heroes to Gotham and well beyond, Milo Venamilia has given us some great roles. And now, he's landed a new project on ABC called Whispers. I asked him to describe the show. The Whispers, it's a show brought to the world by the world of Steven Spielberg,

based on a Ray Bradbury short story. And it's kind of this unknown, unseen enemy that is influencing our children and what that entails and kind of how terrifying that can actually be. It's been said that the best way to scare people are with clowns or kids. And this one centers a lot of imaging on the ladder.

So I asked Milo in the horror genre today, is this being overused a little bit? I mean, I think it depends on what you're talking about. You're talking about a marketing campaign to get eyeballs onto a show, or if you're talking about exploitation of kids or anything like that. I mean, I deal in art.

I'm in a business that is there to tell stories and make people feel emotions and things like that. So I think, you know, as long as things are respectful and done in the proper way, and, you know, I'm kind of a big fan of not showing too much in a kind of Christopher Nolan kind of way, you know, showing what's necessary. And then just letting your imagination run.

So where does this character fit in? My character is Sean Bennegan. He's an American Air Force fighter pilot who goes missing while on a secret mission and resurfaces sometime later, completely different than who he was in his previous life. He's now covered in tattoos, doesn't know who he is, a bit of amnesia.

Following this kind of path of destruction where all of a sudden he's just, he's around these major events that are happening where death is taking its toll. And for playing such compelling both good and bad guys, I asked Milo how he manages to choose these particular roles. I guess it just kind of goes in my gut.

You know, I get presented with what I get presented with, and, you know, and I just like any other actor, I go on an audition and I read much fight for roles, and sometimes you get them, and sometimes you don't. But for me, I always go back to the writing. I go back to the script. I go back to the words on the page, and that's what I try to focus on.

And then in what I do with my job, make it honest, make it truthful, make it real, make the experience of watching what this character is going through that we can all relate to, even the bad guys like our friend Jason Lenton on Gotham. So among the parts he's done, is there any character he'd like to revisit? You know, I think they, in my honest opinion, I feel like they all have their shelf life.

They all have the time that I get to spend with them, and that's kind of it. A good majority of them, I'm happy to shake off by the end of it, as opposed to hanging on to them and continuing or wanting to revisit. I don't know if there's a character that I want to revisit so much as just myself. I think I get to revisit my own character every so often after I've portrayed somebody in a place to pretend make-believe.

What about a dream role? Anything you'd like to achieve that's still not happened yet? It goes all over the place. I don't think there's particular roles so much as there are people. You know, you mentioned Christopher Nolan earlier, guys like Zack Snyder, you know, directors like them, or you know, getting the opportunity to work with Frank Deron or writing sense, you know, as I did before. You know, working with friends, working with close friends, you know, I have a production company,

so always trying to find opportunities to work with people that I've known for years, you know, since the college days or whatever. But no particular role that I'm dying to play or wanting to play, you just kind of have to take what comes your way when it comes your way. All right. He's an ambitious guy. So what's next for Milo? Either in front of the camera or elsewhere? More in the office, we'll call it. That's nothing on the directing front for producing, sorting out the third season of Pet Squad Files, the CWC. And the fourth season of Chosen for Sony's Crackle, that at the moment, we just finished a movie called Devil's Gate, the great director of Playstob.

And, you know, just kind of data time, you know, just kind of figuring out what's next. I think it's kind of the hinge on if I'll be back on a TV set with whispers or from kind of a free agent. You can see Milo's pet project chosen right now on crackle.com and new episodes of whispers every Monday on ABC and see more of that too at ABC.com. Busy, busy, busy. Here's what the latest is in the world of pop culture. The summer movie season finally woke up.

Ticket sales are hot and all it took was a trip back to Jurassic Park. Jurassic World posted the second best opening in movie theaters ever in North American history, bringing in some two hundred four million dollars over the weekend. Interestingly enough, the first film, twenty two years ago, topped about 50 million for its opening weekend, which was actually the first film to ever do that. So records were set on both ends of the timeline around the globe. Jurassic World came in with the second biggest overseas opening of all time, second only to the Harry Potter finale, this time with three hundred and a half.

And overall, for the three day weekend, it became the best worldwide three day opening in movie history, bringing in some five hundred and eleven point eight billion dollars in ticket sales. Amazon's latest release will be Catastrophe, a new comedy from the UK from comedian Rob Delaney. You can catch it for free on Facebook for a couple of days this week if you go to Amazon's Facebook page and then it becomes part of the Amazon Prime video streaming. Service lineup. It tells the story of an American man, an Irish woman who struggled to start their relationship after she gets pregnant. Another giant leap for comic book sales in comic stores in May this time, when compared to last year, they were up almost 20 percent when you lay them side by side.

Graphic novel sales, not again so good. Still just a little flat, maybe even down a half a percent or so. But the biggest news is the fact that Marvel exercise their dominance in a way they haven't done in a long time. So passing just about everybody, especially DC Comics in the list, will run down the entire numbers for you and tell you some more surprising facts to coming up in just a little bit. Always on the edge, sci fi and the series Defiance are again taking another step toward interactive, this time making it available with something special for those who own the LG Smart TV.

If you have the sci fi sync for LG Smart TV app, you can also pick up series trivia and participate in polls to while you watch the show. Of course, Defiance began season three a couple of days ago. We've got series star Grant bowler along in a couple of days to catch us up on what's going to be ahead for the show this season. Somebody called Kevin Smith. It looks like Netflix has come to the rescue again, this time reviving to grassy, which was dumped.

It was we reported to you a couple of weeks ago with a cancellation that left a lot of fans, well, less than happy. The new run of episodes will be known as the grassy the next class and they'll hit Netflix for streaming availability early in 2016. There were those folks who at any age finds it's still fun just to pick up a handful of Crayolas and well color. You've got a chance to do so on an adult level with three projects on the way from Marvel. The first of which will be the Avengers Age of Ultron coloring book, which is actually designed for adults and it'll be two more along the same lines as well.

Coming up early in February of next year will be little Marvel by Scottie Young. The coloring book, of course, it features those particular incarnations of the Marvel universe. And then later on in the year in April, there'll be the Marvel Civil War coloring book as well. All be available in bookstores and comic shops to the point. Another big jump for comic sales in stores when you compare it to where it was in May of 2014.

May this year saw a 20% increase over just 12 months ago and at the top of the list, Marvel with a dominant 40% of the market share. Well, eclipsing DC that came in at 25% just a little bit over that at number two. The other big jump came from Boom Studios who surpassed Dark Horse to hold down the number five spot for comic publishers. And when you put it all together, well, here are your top 10 best selling comics for the month of May in comic book stores, starting with two DC titles. And that's pretty much it for them at number 10. Convergence number six and number nine, convergence number five.

Number eight, bestseller Marvel's Darth Vader number five at number seven. Old man Logan number one. A force number one was the sixth best selling title. Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars number one was at number five. At number four, Star Wars number five. At number three, Secret Wars number two. And then from Boom at number two, Bravest Warriors, Tales of Holodron number one. That due to some outside sales force that pretty much helped bring that title into the top 10.

And boost the boom up as well when it comes to the percentages of publishers for the month. Number one best selling comic though for the month. Back to Marvel, first issue of Secret Wars number one there and number one on the list too as well for Marvel for May in comic stores. The point, the point. A new sci-fi series Dark Matter is based on a comic book of the same name published not long ago by Dark Horse. But how closely does it follow those original stories? We talked to executive producer Joe Malozzi.

You can expect to see all of it. Actually, the comic book was based on basically the pilot that we had envisioned. So, you know, it's almost, you know, if you read the first two issues of the comic book, it's almost word for word. The first episode of the series and an episode of the issues three and four of the comic books are very close to episode two. So, you know, in terms of spoilers, you can actually get a sneak peek at episodes one and two by reading the first two issues of the comic book or, you know, collected in a paperback. But then after that, all bets are off. So how would Joe describe the show? You know, I would describe it as a slice by series with a cable.

Sensibility, you know, I've always been a big fan of cable shows, twists and turns, surprises that always leave you at the end of the episode going, oh, my God, I can't wait till next week. And, you know, you get on the board, you discuss them or you go to work and you know, the person you talk about in the morning, that's the show I wanted to create. So, you know, something that a lot of a lot of set ups, but a lot of payoffs along the way, you know, the mystery at its heart. It has a sense of humor. It's kind of a fun, shit-based sci-fi series, which is something I think fans have been dying for. But at the end of the day, it's really about the characters and this great group, this great, you know, group made up of this crew.

And, you know, I've often said viewers tune in for the hook, but the state for the characters. And we've got a incredibly colorful bunch of characters in the show. And the reaction so far? One of the things that I was really heartened by was, you know, just getting reactions from people who watch the show for the first time. And they all respond to different characters, which is great.

And, you know, you know, the sound guys and the editors, you know, when they first watched it, they all responded. They loved Jodell's character. You know, there were those who loved Roger's character, who loved Anthony's character. I mean, you know, those two early reviews, you know, really super positive views, they were, they loved Melissa's character. So, you know, it's an assessment of the fact that there are so many colorful characters, very, you know, different characters, but also a testament to our fantastic cast who brought them to life. As the project came together, actors got their scripts pretty close to when the scenes were shot, learning about the plot and their characters almost at the same time we do.

So how does that work from a performer's point of view? We talked to star Melissa O'Neill. I actually loved it. Being a first time performer on television, I didn't really know what to expect. And I thought that it was such a lovely thing to encounter that we were going through what our characters were going through at the same time, you know, we were we were discovering what was happening and how to interact with each other in the exact way that our characters would be doing it. You know, we were just piecing it together as it came to us. But I think that there's a great bit of truth, you know, that's happening on screen.

That, you know, we've all done our homework to prepare our characters as much as we could. But there's honesty that's happening there as we navigate that. Beyond that, the basic concept does offer some challenges to the actors. I think that's one of the greatest struggles that we have with the concept of this show as our characters is that, you know, we wake up and we are who we are in that particular moment. And then we're confronted with these facts about who we were and how do we walk through our lives having everybody else who we don't remember know who we are, know what we are capable of and treat us like that.

You know, how do we move forward into that kind of a landscape? It's very interesting, I think. As some know, Joseph has a connection creatively to the Stargate franchise. We were curious as to whether any of those familiar faces might turn up here on Dark Matter. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We brought David Hewlett who played Rodney McKay.

He plays a part of K-Board Caltech who is the team's handler. But Tori Hagedson who played Elizabeth Weir on Stargate Landers is going to be making an appearance as Commander Delaney Shroopold, one of the corporate ships, the commander of one of the corporate ships. And I have a couple of other guest stars in mind for season two that I can't reveal yet. But, you know, definitely, you know, Stargate fans are in for a treat in that respect. Sci-Fi.com is your hub for everything, Dark Matter, and there are new episodes every Friday night, only on Sci-Fi.

That's up for the podcast right now, but we do have a lot coming up. We visit the set of the new series, Pirate. We talk to radio host Stephanie Miller about being sexy and liberal. And there's more on the way with the new Sci-Fi series called The Killjoys. All that and more will turn up on websites like ComicMix.com, MichaelDavisWorld.com, GiveThePointRadio.com, and the iTunes podcast directory.

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook under The Point Radio. And we'll see you right back here in a few days. GetThePointRadio.com!