The Point Radio: OUTLANDER Is Coming – Soon!

For OUTLANDER fans, the wait is almost over. The mega big book series hits the Starz Network in just a couple of weeks (with a sneak preview on August 2nd). Producer Ronald Moore and author Diana Gabaldon talk about the road from book to camera. Plus actor Jay Hernandez, from the Fox summer hit GANG RELATED, talks about making good choices in acting roles and Marvel revives Tony Stark’s ego.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It's Mike Raub with a wait for Outlander fans is almost over as the series is set to premiere on the Starz Network in just a couple of weeks and nobody's more excited than producer Ron Moore and author Diana Gabaldon and they both share the excitement with us coming up. In the meantime, we also look at the series gang related and talk to series star Jay Hernandez and get set. Here

comes Iron Man's ego again. Let's get to the point. This is the point. The Point Radio. Get the Point Radio. The wait is almost over for the legions of Outlander fans waiting to see their favorite book series finally translated to television. It's been a long process especially in the casting that began with actor Sam Ewan chosen as lead character Jamie and I talked about that process with Outlander creator Diana Gabaldon. I didn't actually choose Sam Ewan by the way the casting

is all actually done by the people who know how but they did call me and tell me they thought we're so excited we found Jamie and I said well that's great you know who is he and they told me the name and they said we're sending you the audition link so you can see him. I said great but I was on the road I was driving to Santa Fe with my husband and so I'm googling Sam Ewan on my iPhone as we drive. I'm thinking you have to be kidding. It's IMDB photos do not do him justice

and in fact some of them are truly bizarre but mostly they said you know we want someone who could believably play a 22 year old virgin which was a big concern of mine actually and I said well yeah I buy him as a 22 year old virgin. I said he doesn't look like he has hair on his backside let alone the dangly bits and so I was a little concerned but I got to where I was going and brought up the audition tapes and sort of peeking through my fingers not sure and five seconds in

and thinking he doesn't look anything like his photos he looks great five seconds more he was just gone and it was Jamie Fraser right there you know I was just flabbergasted because I never thought they'd find anyone even close and yet you know this is what actors do actors are magic and what their magic is is to embody someone that they aren't you give them the broad physical outlines of resemblance but beyond that it's exactly and then he can do it. Production is in the capable

hands of Ronald Moore who's done everything from Star Trek to of course Battle Sarcalactica and I asked him how he got involved with this project. I've just kind of pursued it for a while I uh my wife and my producing partner separately loved these books and we were having dinner in Vancouver about five or six years ago and just talking about well what would be great projects to do and passion projects and they both realized that they both love these books and they just start

talking and then they said you have to read these and I said okay so then they gave it to me and I read it and I was very taken with it it was a great story like the central character I love history I love historical fiction so I really responded to the period I like the twists and turns I was continually surprised by events that were happening and I could just see it I thought well this is a great show and so tracked down the rights holder a man named Jim Colberg held the rights and at the point when we first reached out he wanted to do a feature version. I said I don't really think it's a feature I think I don't know what the two-hour version of this story is I think it's a show but okay and so he went off and kept developing and every year we would literally call and check in and say how's the feature going and say well we're not there yet but we're getting there and last year he finally called and said you know maybe it is a TV show after all yes and so then gave the books to Sony television put the deal together took it out pitched it and stars snapped it up so it was great. The Outlander series has been hugely popular for years so why did it take this long to hit television? Yeah no people have been wanting to make a movie of Outlander for the past 23 years we would get two or three inquiries a month usually through my agents and people wanting to make a movie now most of these people have no experience and no money which puts them out. So you don't want to do an option with people that you don't trust to handle the material respectfully because once you've signed the rights you know it's too late they've got total control. Ron told me that part of the plan for success was finding the right network partner. One of the great things about selling it to stars was when we sold it to them Chris Albrecht himself sat down and read the book and it's a sizable book and he read it and he loved it and he was very taken with the material and he said to me trust the book make the show for the fans and trust that anyone who has not read the book will just be swept along in the story like everybody else which you never hear that nobody said like she said usually you know these people buy a book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the book and they say well we bought it for the cover of the

cover and we don't really care what's in it and do whatever you want and no stars fell from the get-go that look there's a fan base we like the book we want to service them and everyone else will come along for the ride just trust and take your time with it don't reinvent it and that's exactly what I want to do so in the writers room we always start with the book version of events we have the dialogue I have the dialogue and separate files in my computer I have my Kindle version in my computer I can always go back to the scene and we always start with the book version of events we do change things we do very some stuff but usually for some reason there's always like a reason why okay that's not quite layout in an hour or we want to expand something that might be there memorable really memorable scenes in the book that are actually only like a half a page and you realize I'd like to have more of that and so you expand that and you put things around and change slightly you know are things that we might add you know and the book opens in in verness 1945 the war is over and they're on their second honeymoon but she had this experience in the second world war in a field hospital so I want to show that so we open show Claire in the field hospital in World War two saving somebody's life and see her doing the thing show the woman you know visually see her capable smart struggling hardship see what she's already gone through which really sets the stage for how she's able to sort of adapt to this set of circumstances so yeah that's not in the book but it's implicit in the book and it's within the scope of what could have been in the book and all the way through we're always if we add something or change it we're always getting back into the lane of where the story is taking us because the job is not to reinvent the material it's to just realize the material considering where things stand right now with Game of Thrones I was curious as to whether there was enough outlander material to keep up with the pace of producing a regular series we have a lot of lead time here I mean slow as I am he's got I've got a equal lead on him at one book per season you know we got a we got a well I'm not too concerned pretty much a season by season like you know book a book a season is kind of a good way to go about it the third book is very big and that might be where we maybe we have to split that over two seasons but I should have such problems and figure that out when we get there but right now season one sixteen episodes is we can definitely tell that the complete story of the original.

Outlander premieres on stars in August and you can see a free sneak preview of the first episode beginning August 2nd at stars.com. You know what to expect here it's the latest in pop culture among everything else that marvel is changing and reviving there's the return of Tony Stark's ego it's all in a new series called superior iron man that will launch in a couple of months it's written by Tom Taylor and allegedly Tony Stark regresses to his pre superhero personality as you'll recall he was a narcissistic ego maniacal profiteer and that's pretty much where the series is going to take him. How it affects the rest of the Marvel universe will have yet to be seen Daredevil does appear though in the first issue of superior iron man which will launch in November in comic stores. Bad news of Microsoft in addition to cutting some 18000 jobs more importantly they're also shutting down the Xbox entertainment studios. Now that does not mean though that we won't see the end of the documentary signal to noise in the digital series Halo nightfall in the Halo TV series as well.

Those will all continue at least for the first season or so no word yet on whether those might move to another platform after Microsoft locks the doors fresh on the heels of the announcement that Thor is undergoing a gender change. There's a little less radical upheaval going on over in Captain America as we told you. Captain America 25 will be the last issue with Steve Rogers as cap and then after that there'll be a new series launched called the all new Captain America with the Falcon taking up the role. Sam Wilson becomes Captain America with the power of flight but no super soldier serum to help him out the same creative team will remain and again the new Captain America series launches in November. Another value property might be headed to the big screen Archer and Armstrong is struck a deal with the Sean Daniel company and there's even a script so far for the project written by Ben David Grabinski.

The Daniel company was involved in best man's holiday back in 2013 and also has the upcoming Ben her and mummy films on the way. Archer and Armstrong would be the third value and property to be developed for the big screen followed up by shadow man and bloodshot both of who had projects announced earlier this year. So after a decent month for graphic novel sales and comic bookstores how do they do in the big bookstore change well it's pretty interesting a total flip as far as what titles are on the list. With attack on Titan being five of the top 10 best selling graphic novels and bookstores over the month of June and number 10 is walking dead volume 20 attack on Titan volume nine is that number nine saga volume one from image comes in at number eight Naruto volume 65 from this is a number seven. And then attack on Titan volume three at number six and attack on Titan volume 12 the number five.

Now the volume of saga this time volume three and number four Marvel comes in one time with the marvel encyclopedia updated and expanded hardcover but that's actually from another publisher but we'll give it to marvel anyway number three. And the top two best selling graphic novels in bookstores in June attack on Titan volume one at number one attack on Titan volume two at number two ABC has decided they're going to stick with the traditional premiere week to kick off their fall season. In the September beginning on the 22nd with the premiere of forever and the next night on the 23rd agents of shield premieres for its second season with another episode of forever to follow. And once upon a time begins its new season on September 28th Marvel kicks off the return of the Star Wars property to the marvel umbrella with Star Wars the original marvel years it's a new hardcover omnibus edition of the original Star Wars comic book series from back in the 70s. It features all 44 issues as well as the Star Wars annual and work by Howard Chacon Roy Thomas Archie Goodwin Chris Claremont and so many others as well.

It runs nearly 900 pages it checks in at about 125 bucks and will be available in stores in change. The point the point while comic book sales not that great over the past 30 days in stores graphic novels at a pretty good month they were up over 8% in June when compared to June of 2013. And a big number one surprise too as well as you look at the list which by the way is pretty much predominantly independent publishers the entire list of the 10 best selling graphic novels in stores for the month started number 10 with saga volume two from image. Injustice Gods Among Us volume two from DC at number nine and number eight the first injustice Gods Among Us volume again from DC at number seven Batman and Robin volume three death of the family superior Spider-Man volume six the goblin nation comes in at number six saga volume four is the number five best selling graphic novel and saga volume three comes at a number four both from image. Velvet volume one before the living and also from image at number three night a living Deadpool second best selling graphic novel and the number one best seller of the month in comic stores after life with Archie from Archie comics.

Actor J Hernandez is one of those guys well you've seen everywhere from movies like crazy beautiful with Kristen Dunst to Friday Night Lights with Billy Bob Thornton and on TV with shows like Nashville and last resort. Now he's part of the cast of the new Fox series gang related and I asked him to fill me in on his part Ramon Rodriguez plays a gang that love thinking he plays a member of the gang task force and he was raised by my family which is the Acosta family and my father is the head of a gang called Los and halicos and so he his allegiance lies to us and he's working with us secretly filtering information from the gang task force when she works on take he's trying to take out the exact people that he's working with. And that he grew up so his allegiance lies with us but he's also sort of developing this relationship with the cops and finding himself you know sort of a member of that new family and I play the son of the main guy of the gang his name is Daniel Costa and I'm trying to legitimize the family and I started bank and you know I'm trying to help the community and it seems like my last name keeps on pulling me to the back to the darker side of things. I'm trying to figure out why variety of film and TV roles behind him I asked him what draws him to a role and how does he know which one will really work for him. Yeah a lot of times you know it's about connecting with the character and finding something in there that that you just like you know it's it can be difficult because you never know what the finished product is going to be like but you know a lot of times you bet on quality if you're working with a quality director and you know their work. That's one thing with the writer or you know the DPs cinematographers that kind of stuff so you look at the whole package and you say do I think this is going to work do I think this is you know something people would be into and then you look at the character and just make that decision you know it's it's not easy sometimes it's hard to turn down.

Things when you know they can be financially rewarding and you know but ultimately you think well maybe there's not the right move for my career so it's you know it's kind of a it's kind of a chess game and you know I fortunately I've been I've been. I've been lucky enough and I suppose smart enough to to make the right decisions along the way movies what feels best you know 20 I've been doing it long enough that I remember a time where I thought you know it wasn't you know people didn't like TV the way they do now I feel like you know there's so much talent. There's so many great filmmakers and actors are television show makers directors that that have moved on to television that's where a lot of the more interesting material is so it's the movie business as a whole has changed and I think for me now I love television and then the difference between a film and television show is the film you know you know your whole character art you know exactly what's happening from beginning to end. So every every sentence you speak is already written down a television show it's just like open dynamic ever evolving thing that happens and your character is on this trajectory but you don't really know where it's going to end and that's the exciting thing about a television show kind of it's a moving living thing. And I think that's a really interesting thing. I think that's a really interesting thing. I think that's a really interesting thing. I think that's a really interesting thing. I think that's a really interesting thing. I think that's a really interesting thing.

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