The Point Radio: Ralphie Vs Smaug – Happy Holidays!

The second film in THE HOBBIT trilogy is here and we talk with director Peter Jackson, new cast addition Evangeline Lily and the Man-Who-Is-Smaug (as well as Sherlock and Khan), Benedict Cumberbatch. And who doesn’t love A CHRISTMAS STORY? Breaking against child star tradition, “Ralphie” (Peter Billingsly) has done great in his career (IRON MAN!) and is bringing the classic holiday story to the live stage. THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

The Point Radio Hey it's Mike Rauf. Forget about George Bailey. My favorite classic Christmas character is Ralphie and I bet he's yours too. We'll find out what's going on in his life, how successful he is and how he's bringing his story to Broadway. And we talked to Peter Jackson and the cast of The Hobbit, the second installment in theaters right now. But where do we go from here? Let's get to The Point.

This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. In the latest installment of The Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug, the role of the monstrous title character went to actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who handled not just the voice but also the rigorous motion capture acting as well. And he said the whole process began with a little trip. Yes, I did go to New Zealand. It was hugely, hugely helpful.

I started off with Peter and Fran and Philippa, just the three of them and me, which was a privilege in itself because of how large everything else is on this film to have their sole attention. And we were in the mocap stage. So it began as a physicalization and both voice, face and bodywork, the whole thing. So that's how I kind of discovered him via my dad who read me the book when I was either six or seven. I've really got a ring. And I keep saying this. I've said this for two days and not found out.

But I was young. I was younger than eight when I went to school. So it was a bedtime treat at home. So that was my first bit of research. And then I went to the Reptile House at London Zoo and had a look there. And yeah, then we just it's so beautifully written in the book and it's so well illustrated in countless editions of the book. And then with Peter's input and our rehearsals and just playing like a kid really in this incredible freeing volume as they call the mocap stage meant that we could kind of go anywhere with it.

So very, very helpful. I sadly I met hardly any of the cast. Richard, I met once. I crossed over with people as they were coming back to do, I think, their third stint, I think. But yeah, and Martin, I didn't spend any sort of lifetime with Martin, which was sad. But no, it was fine. It's fine. And we know each other quite well. So we kind of second guessed in a weird way our performances and some to some degree, I guess.

But yeah, we didn't I didn't cross over with anyone. I mean, if I've had scenes with people I haven't even met yet. So that was that is bizarre. Just as you'd expect there'd be a few challenges along the way. Well, it's obviously more abstract. It's only going to be a sort of impression of something that's a serpentine reptile that can breathe fire and fly.

And because I'm a limited biped mammal, I'm sorry about that. But Peter knew that when I auditioned. So we work with my we work with my sort of negatives and try to turn them into positives. But one of the reasons one of the ways I did it was trying to squeeze my legs together just forgetting the fact that they were legs trying to feel that as an elongated body crawling on the floor with my elbows. And I'm not using my hands as claws and sort of over articulating my neck and shoulder to the delight of any physio who was unlucky enough to try and heal me afterwards. And yeah, just just just throwing myself at it with a kind of kid like imagination and their brilliant expert guidance.

And it meant it was it was a really fun way to work. Director Peter Jackson told us that he has one particular process in bringing actors together with the cinematic state of the art that's so much a part of these movies. I mean, what I tried to do is any time we were on a green screen stage with a lot of, you know, just bits of set and a little green screen, I would try to bring in the conceptual art. Yeah, we're going to be or John Howe or one of the way to workshop guys had done so that we, you know, I was able to at least let the guys know what was going to be back in the green screen behind them. But yeah, I mean, look, it's ultimately, I mean, they other guys can answer, but it's like, it's the power of the imagination.

It's just as you know, there's a suspension of disbelief. Really, you are just as the audience. We are asking you to believe in a world that elves and dwarves and dragons and orcs exist. You know, when you're on the stage, you have to you have to also be in that same mind frame. You are in that world.

No matter what, whether it's green or whatever, if there's a tennis ball that's supposed to be schmell, you know, you're still being the same. The same thing. Really new to the series, actress, Evangeline Lilly, who actually came out of retirement for the role. What's so strange about retiring at 30? I think that's most people's dream.

I that's it. That's I was I had retired into what I thought would be a life of quiet motherhood and writing and didn't really plan on taking any more acting gigs. It had been about at least five years since I had taken a meeting or engaged in a new project. I just wasn't I was sort of off the grid, so to speak. I was so far off the grid that when Pete, Fran and Phil were trying to find me to get a hold of me about this role, they couldn't reach me.

And somebody on their production team just coincidentally used to work with my partner. So he got a text message one day saying Peter Jackson is trying to reach Evangeline. Do you think she might be able to pick up the phone, please? And and so so they did eventually get a hold of me. And of course, because the Hobbit was my favorite book as a little girl and the Sylvan Owls were my favorite characters in the book.

And it would be a dream come true to play one. I jumped at the opportunity. I picked up the phone very quickly. And then they said, your hair does not in the book. And I took great pause as a great fan of token.

I kind of gulped and went, well, what? Everyone's going to hate me. And it didn't take long for them to completely convince me. And of course, Evangeline went through some intense training, but she had a little background that helped her. Yeah, I went through five different types of training.

I did weapons training, stunt training, movement training, dialect training and language training. And in the weapons training, there were two different weapons. I had double daggers and bow and arrow. Believe it or not, I used to teach archery to little kids at. Yeah, Peter didn't know that either.

I had a kids camp when I was a teenager. I used to teach archery, but I'm not a good marksman. And you know, I think that one of the great gifts of CGI and working in the imagination is that you can imagine that you're much more talented than you really are. And if you can imagine it, then it can appear as so with Peter Jackson's magic CGI brush.

And then, you know, seeing myself for the first time on screen as an elf. Like there was it was a double edged sword because I am a real token geek and I had dreamed about being an elf since I was a little girl. So there was an incredible amount of sort of satisfaction and dream realization that when I first got to see myself as an elf. But I'm also unfortunately an actor, which means that I'm very self-critical and it's very hard for me to ever give my anything that I do a stamp of approval without having the

appendice that says all the things I did wrong and what didn't work. But just the ears and the wig and just the actual visual is was was was very, very exciting. When the Hobbit project was split into three movies, there had to be some changes in the way the story was told. But as far as the characters themselves, did anyone benefit from the possibility of expanded screen time? We asked Peter Jackson.

It's interesting question. I don't think any character really benefited from that decision. It was like we I mean, we didn't really change a lot. We made that decision after we had shot. We made the decision to I mean, after we had shot most most of the film.

I mean, it was it was a decision based on what we had shot and we just thought, you know, what? We're going to have to you know, we're going to have to somehow cut a lot of this stuff out or we can reshape it. And then we did some more shooting. We did 10 weeks of shooting this year as well. Pick up shooting for the second and third film.

What it does is it allows you to to let these the characters drive the story because in a in a novel, you know, the the the writer of the novel is the is often the person who narrates the story, who kind of takes you on the journey and and talking his voice is obviously fantastic at doing that. You feel like he's right beside you telling you a bedtime story. But in the movie, you don't want me on screen talking about what's happening.

So in a film, you know, the discipline on the film is you have to have the story told through the dialogue of the characters, through the actions, I do want you on screen telling you what's happening. We'll just do that privately back in your hotel room. Don't worry. I'll read you a bedtime story. No problem. But you know, the I you just you just want you you want the this your narrative of the film to be told through

through either the dialogue that your characters are saying or the actions that they do. And so we you know, that's really why we ended up wanting to give it the sort of the depth and the characters and explore some of the character depth that we had done on The Lord of the Rings, because I'm also I was also acutely aware that, you know, there is going to be ultimately when these cycle of releasing a movie each year is done, you know, you're going to end up with six films.

The unexpected journey being the beginning and return of the king being the end. And I did want to have a unity. You didn't want to make the Hobbit feel any any more simple or any less. You know, I mean, we just wanted it to feel like it was the same. The Hobbit desolation of smog in the theaters and IMAX right now. We go with the latest in pop culture. Golden Globe nominations are out and a few surprises there,

for example, in the best TV comedy or musical category. Brooklyn Nine-Nine turns up as well as girls along with the perennials like Modern Family, Parks and Rec and Big Bang Theory for best TV drama, House of Cards and Masters of Sex, both from Netflix and Showtime for actresses in a TV drama. Interesting to know that Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black picked up a nomination could be an interesting night of surprises when the Globes hit NBC on January 12th.

Hey, it's all fun to us, but according to the NSA, games like World of Warcraft and Second Life might have been used by terrorists. According to New York Times in 2008, the NSA warned that online games might attract terrorist networks to communicate secretly or use the games to plot attacks as well. This was released in some documents that were leaked by Edward Snowden over the recent months. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that any of this ever took place and a spokesman for a while said that spies don't have

permission to use the game for these purposes while still going strong with just under a billion players at the end of this year. And there are 33 million players on Second Life currently. JJ Abrams collaborator Drew Goddard, who you know from Lost and Alias, is going to write and direct the pilot for the Netflix original Daredevil series, part of the new Disney and Netflix deal made earlier this year. There'll be 13 total episodes of the series and it'll begin in 2015.

Just before she gears up for New Year's Eve, Kathy Griffin has set a Guinness World Record for the most stand-up specials by any single comedian. Her 20th televised special, Kathy Griffin Record Breaker, will be on Bravo coming up in a few days. And of course, there's plenty of repeats and plenty of chance to see all of her past material, also in Bravo and of course with your cable providers on demand service. Daniel Tosh isn't going anywhere, at least not far from Comedy Central. They've renewed his series Tosh.0 for seasons 7, 8, and 9.

The show does finished up season 5 and season 6 is now set to premiere on Comedy Central in February. It's a happy memory to end up the year. The cult favorite show, Happy Endings, canceled back in June by ABC. After this three seasons, it's going to get a marathon on VH1. All 57 episodes will begin New Year's Eve at 8 p.m.

They'll be available also on VH1's TV Everywhere app. And the repeats will then run on a regular basis during the new year. And the current Batman title from DC, the Zero Year Dark City arc, was set to end in Batman 28, but now there's going to be a delay and it's a delay of a good kind. Creator Scott Snyder along with Greg Capullo announced on Twitter a few days ago a one month delay in the conclusion to the epic Batman origin story. But what they're going to do is craft an entire issue in between that will take place six months in the future of the current DC universe.

That means there'll be reveals on all sorts of big surprises that'll be coming to the universe in the spring and the summer of the new year as well. And they again promise lots of shocks. It's being dubbed out as a six months later issue. It'll be in Batman 28, which will be in stores in February. And then the Zero Year story arc will conclude in Batman 29, said to be in stores in March.

Every generation has their particular Christmas classic film. And for a lot of us, it's the movie A Christmas Story from the 80s. In case you wondered, Ralphie grew up to be a pretty successful television producer. Peter Billingsley, though, is involved in taking a few steps back and bringing a retooled version of A Christmas Story to a new venue. First, however, we talked about how that original film was not a big box office blockbuster.

Well, it was not a blockbuster at all. In fact, it came out in 1983, so 30 years ago, and it did okay at the box office. Not a big hit. And back then, no real cable or video, no major light for a movie. So I just figured, all right, well, that was it.

It was fun and some folks saw it. And then year after year, it just kind of kept repeating and finding itself on the television and cable and wound up with the 24-hour marathon, which is now in TDS. And so from there? Yeah, you know, there had been a lot of ideas to maybe remake the movie or things like that, which are not great ideas. I don't think you remake a good movie.

And so I had not really thought of doing much of anything in my career as moved on and became a film producer and just didn't really think to do anything with it. But then the notion I had heard of A Christmas Story the musical and I got excited because to take so many of those iconic scenes and blow those into song and dance, for example, when a dad went to Leg Lamp, it becomes a Leg Lamp kick line. So it's like, oh, you can take all the emotion, the energy and the fun of those scenes and really break them into song and dance. That got exciting for me. So it started in Kansas City about four years ago at a repertory theater.

Then went to Seattle and then to Chicago and then last year to Broglick and we're back in New York City to share. Even with so many great actors creating iconic roles in the original film, Peter and his partners have managed to be sure that equally appealing actors are now on stage. That includes Dan Lauria as the job of the narrator. Yeah, fortunately, the die hard fans of the movie have really embraced it and they love the musical. It's a show that stands on its own.

And, you know, listen, I'm blown away every time I still see the show by the talent of the people. You know, there's there's there's singing and there's dancing. There's so many kids in it who do the same and these were not any skills that I've ever had. And so I think in that format, you're excused very much for not playing the character exactly the same way that it was, because obviously there's a lot of other skills kind of required in it. Now, you have the amazing Dan Lauria, right?

Who's doing the the Jean Shepherd, the narration, Dan Lauria, the iconic TV's iconic dad who was in the weather years and with the dad on that. And he is he's playing the Jean Shepherd role. Really, the show starts sort of in a radio booth and you get to see it. And then he moves through the stage and he narrates the show. And there's there's really no one better to have in that role than Dan right now.

The production is a New York tradition, but soon the rest of the country is going to get a turn. Yeah, we'll be starting to spread out nationally over the next few years. And, you know, the show was nominated for three totalies last year. So it's a terrific show and we'll be placing it a lot of theaters around the country. So that for that, you know, run from kind of Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Hopefully the new tradition will be to go see Christmas towards the musical. All right. I had to take a fanboy moment to talk about another one of Peter's projects. It's among my favorites. Dinner for five.

Any chance for more? That's cool. You said that. Yeah, I think that there there we did 50 episodes of dinner for five and there is now some talk of it actually coming back. So hopefully in the next year, you'll start to see some more some more shows come out.

And the rest of Peter's future plans. Well, you know, I produce a lot of films with Vince Vaughn and still work with Jon Favreau and this and I have a TV show on PBS called Sullivan and Son that's going into its third season next year. And Dan Lauria plays a father in that as well. So I get double time with him and I'll be directing a film called term life with Vince early next year. If you're anywhere in the New York area over the holidays, catch a Christmas story, the musical right now, the theater of Madison Square Garden.

It runs through the 29th and you can get more information at theater at MsG.com. That's it for right now. A couple of big stories. So coming up, including a look at the new DC comic special from the guys of Robot Chicken and the cast of psych is along to talk about the musical episode to all that on the way. But in the meantime, keep up on pop culture 24 seven right now at get the point radio dot com.

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