BY JAY BOBBIN
Betsy Brandt
BY JAY BOBBIN
James Corden knows a lot about the Tony Awards
OF ‘LIFE IN PIECES’ ON CBS And the show has those moments, too, and I think that’s what makes it a little bit different ... especially for a broadcast-network comedy. It can be broad and crazy and funny, but it also has really grounded moments that, just as a viewer, I think helps the show go the distance. I want to know what happens to these people.
Q: I see that James Corden will host the Tony Awards again this year. Didn’t he win one himself? – Sue Bailey, via e-mail A: He did, indeed ... for an adaptation of an Italian play that largely introduced him to American audiences, “One Man, Two Guvnors,” which he helped bring to Broadway in 2012 after performing it throughout England during 2011. Corden first hosted the Tonys in 2016 (a year after he debuted as host of “The Late Late Show”), then presided over the Grammy Awards for the two years after that.
Q: I enjoy Paul Giamatti on “Billions,” and I know he won an Emmy for “John Adams,” which I watch when HBO repeats it every year. When was that miniseries made? – Pat Donnelly, West Palm Beach, Fla.
What do you think about the future for “Life in Pieces”?
In this business, I don’t count my chickens until I’m having egg drop soup, but I can’t even stomach thinking about this show not going a few more years. It’s a really, really fantastic group.
As “Life in Pieces” starts its fourth season, does its several-stories-per-half-hour format still satisfy you?
You want to be economical, because you only have so many minutes to tell the beginning, middle and end of whatever story you’re doing. I’m always so satisfied when I watch it – I’m like, “It’s over already?” – and I think that’s what you want, especially with a comedy. That half-hour just zips by you, but even in the quiet moments, there’s so much happening.
James Corden
“Breaking Bad” is such a unique program in television history, how do you reflect on also having had that acting experience?
I loved playing Marie, and I still miss her and love her, but I didn’t want to keep playing her with different names. A lot of times, people have the reaction, “Oh, do that on my show, too!” I had never played a character who was anything like her, and I loved her great and not-so-great qualities and I embraced them all, but I felt like I did that. And I was really happy with where she got to at the end of the show.
A: The actor played one of America’s founding fathers in 2008, and though he had been gainfully employed for more than a decade at that point – with memorable turns in such movies as “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Sideways” and “Cinderella Man,” the latter earning him an Oscar nomination – the recognition he Paul Giamatti earned as Adams put his career on another level. Giamatti has worked virtually nonstop since, in films from “Rock of Ages” and “12 Years a Slave” to “Saving Mr. Banks” and the recent, acclaimed “Private Life.” He also kept his hand in television by appearing on “Downton Abbey” and “30 Rock” and in the HBO drama “Too Big to Fail” before starting “Billions,” which now is in its fourth season.
Send questions of general interest via email to tvpipeline@gracenote.com. Writers must include their names, cities and states. Personal replies cannot be sent. BY JAY BOBBIN
Muskogee Phoenix/Tahlequah Daily Press
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Answers:
Clint Eastwood
1) From which prison did Clint Eastwood’s real-life alter ego escape, according to the title of a 1979 film? 2) At the site referenced in the previous question, who played the renegade general threatening to launch a missile attack in “The Rock” (1996)? 3) In the classic 1963 movie “The Great Escape,” who had the iconic role of the POW known as “The Cooler King”? 4) Which two stars’ films together included the prison comedy “Stir Crazy” (1980)? 5) In which 1962 biography did Burt Lancaster play Robert Stroud, who became an ornithology expert while serving a life sentence? 6) Name the movie in which, in different versions, Ali MacGraw and Kim Basinger each played the wife of a newly paroled convict. 7) William Holden won a 1953 Oscar as an American POW in a Billy Wilder-directed comedy-drama. What was its title? 8) The movie in the previous question generally is credited with having inspired the 1965-71 sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.” Who played Hogan? 9) What was the name of the Australian-made television serial, seen primarily in the 1980s, about female inmates? 10) Who wrote the stories on which the prison drama movies “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile” were based?
1) Alcatraz 2) Ed Harris 3) Steve McQueen 4) Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor 5) “Birdman of Alcatraz” 6) “The Getaway” (1972 and 1994) 7) “Stalag 17” 8) Bob Crane 9) “Prisoner: Cell Block H” 10) Stephen King
Questions:
Breaking out
April 14 - 20, 2019