bel article sur Mandy Patinkin et Dead Like Me :
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,274|82142|1|,00.html
Mandy Patinkin's latest character is dead, but that doesn't mean he can't enjoy life.
On the new Showtime series "Dead Like Me," which premiered June 27 and airs Fridays, Patinkin plays Rube, the boss of a team of undead grim reapers, whose job is to "pop" the souls of the soon-to-be-deceased. In the case of this particular group, it's those people who are about to die by violent means.
"He's the father figure," Patinkin says. "He's the boss. He's the nemesis. The thing I love about Rube, the bottom line is, he has fun. His job in life and in death -- well, I don't know what his job in life was, but I would guess that he was having a bit of a struggle having fun in life. He does not intend to make that same mistake in death."
Patinkin hasn't done a great deal of series television. His longest stint was playing the mercurial Dr. Jeffrey Geiger in "Chicago Hope."
Asked why he thought of Patinkin for "Dead Like Me," series creator Bryan Fuller says, "Um, because he's Mandy Patinkin. He oozes talent from every pore in his body, not just singing and acting, but just as a creative person. Sitting in his trailer, we'd be breaking stories. Every time I had a conversation with him, I walked away inspired."
In the mythology of "Dead Like Me," certain people, when they die, are offered the job of grim reapers. They get a rapidly healing physical body (which has a different face when seen by the living) and the chance to stay in the world until they collect a requisite number of souls. Then, the job passes to the last dead person on their list.
"We don't really shepherd people," Patinkin explains. "The way the mechanism works, there are different departments in the undead. We are the undead who are in charge of violent death. Other people are in charge of natural causes and other kinds of death.
"We do not make the accidents happen. The entities that make the accidents happen are called 'gravelings.' I do receive a list of names and places every week of whose souls will be collected. My job is to hand out little yellow Post-Its to my team of workers. I'm essentially the foreman.
"If a car is going to hit you, before you suffer that violent death and get mutilated, we try to pop your soul so that your soul is spared that event and, also, the physical nature of your being is preserved. So when you move on, you're in good shape.
"Then, once we've popped your soul, it's a very minimal amount of time before you're taken to the pretty lights, essentially, where you just go on."
The newest addition to Rube's team is George (Ellen Muth), who died at 18 after being struck by flaming space debris. She was pretty unhappy in life, and learning that death doesn't offer relief from living is not sitting very well with her.
George keeps trying to wiggle out of her new responsibilities, and it's up to Rube to keep her on the path and show her the joys of the afterlife. "The idea of playing someone who really knew how to enjoy life to its fullest and have fun was incredibly appealing to me," Patinkin says.
"Then, I try to impart that to the young generation in a way that isn't heavy-handed, but in the same way that a father tries to tell their kid something, but knows the kid won't ever give them the acknowledgment that they received the information. But the father then hopes that it will land somewhere outside of his vision.
"I don't know much about Rube at this point. We learn as we go along. In a television show, it unpeels slowly, the onion. What I did find out is he loves to have a good time, that he tries to tell other people who are a little down in the dumps to smell the roses and have some fun. He tries to tell them not to take death so seriously, that it's just a job, and see the funny in everything. "He loves silent movies. He loves to eat; he loves to cook; he loves living in the undead world."
Shooting only 13 episodes after the pilot, "Dead Like Me" also has allowed Patinkin, a Broadway singer and recording artist, to continue his busy concert career this past spring.
"I would shoot Monday through Thursday in Vancouver," he says. "Then, every Friday, I'd get on a plane, travel for 13 hours, stay in bed all day Saturday, sing on Saturday night, get on a plane, travel 13 hours back to Vancouver, get there Sunday night, shoot Monday through Thursday.
"I thought it would kill me, but it had a surprisingly calming and easy, steady Zen-like effect."
Patinkin splits his time about 50-50 between acting and singing, balancing concert performances -- as many as 40 to 50 a year -- with acting jobs.
"I miss working with other people," he says, "because in concerts, it's just my piano player and myself on stage, and my crew. So, I love the ensemble of a TV show, with all the other actors and the crew. It's a real family."
With theater credits including "Sunday in the Park With George" and "Evita," Patinkin is planning a return to the stage.
"I've been missing doing the classics," he reveals. "It's something that I've let go for years, and it's something I love and was trained to do. So I said, 'From now on, I'm going to do a classical play every year.'"
So, at the end of July, Patinkin heads to the Williamstown Theatre Festival in western Massachusetts to begin rehearsals for Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," in which he plays Dr. Thomas Stockmann. The play runs on the festival's main stage from Aug. 20-24.
"I'm really looking forward to it," Patinkin says. "This is the first time I'll play there."
For now, he is relishing the message of "Dead Like Me." "You have a finite amount of time here, don't waste it. Even if it's a cloudy day or you're living in darkness, fight like hell to find the light."
ainsi que la famille déjanté de georgia/george/wathever...
) J'aime bcp, ô surprise!
