All posts by Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

Eureka: Up In The Air

Last night's episode of Eureka, Up In The Air, has my favorite moment of the entire season in it. I don't think it played as clearly in the edit as it read in the script, but it's when Carter gets so incredibly excited for a traditional bank robbery investigation, and then finds out from Andy that the bank was, literally, robbed. As in: it isn't there any more. When I read that in the script, I laughed so hard, I peed a little. In fact, I just had to go ahead and put on an adult diaper for the rest of the episode, because Colin's physical comedy was so perfect.

Even though we shot it a year ago, this episode stands out in my mind quite clearly because on the first day of production, during the first run through of the first setup for the first shot, I twisted my ankle so severely I had to walk with a cane for a month.

Remember when team Bravo is running those tires? Set dressing put them on uneven ground, and I was first in line, so while I was attempting to high-step through them, hold my sides, stay the correct distance from Felicia and the camera while rehearsing, I didn't see the slope underneath me. I'm not the most coordinated person in the world*, and I was probably at -10 or more to make this one … so I ate shit. The crew all thought I was having a laugh (I have a certain reputation for comedy on the set), but I guess something about the way I was writhing in pain on the ground convinced them that I was serious, and not just committing to the bit.

So, to review: we haven't shot a single frame of film on this episode, and now I'm hurt so severely I can't stand up unassisted. The entire day is about us doing physical activity, and I'm in every single scene.

That sound you heard was the production manager having a heart attack.

The show, as they say, must go on, so we did some minor rewriting, changed the blocking on some scenes, and generally ensured that Doctor Parrish wouldn't be doing any physical activity**. In fact, if you watch the first scene with the three of us, you will see that I'm bent over, giving the impression of having just run the tires. In reality, someone from the crew is supporting me so I didn't put any weight on what was my rapidly-swelling ankle. When Fargo comes out of the tree and it looks like I walk away? I actually take one step, grab my cane from a PA, and take one more step so I'm completely out of frame.

Ah, the magic of making movies!

This episode also has my favorite pure character moment of the season in it, but it was cut up so much there's no way anyone in the audience could see it: when we're in the GD rotunda with Carter and Henry, talking about my Higgs Disruptor, Joe Morton and I had this exchange that I just loved. Doctor Parrish is talking about how his Disruptor is signed, but the authenticity of signatures from that era is questionable. You can barely see it, but during rehearsal, Joe and I realized that we're both scientists, and we're talking about a piece of antique equipment that was signed by Higgs himself! We decided that, being nerdy scientists, we'd get excited about that, and temporarily forget that there's a bunch of antimatter hanging out above Eureka waiting to deliver an Earth-shattering KABOOM***. Carter sees this, puts us back on track, and we figure out that he needs to go Up In The Air****.

It was exciting to us, as actors, when we found these beats during rehearsal, because we turned a scene that was pretty much an infodump to the audience (that set up the third act) into something that was an infodump with some real character moments behind it. In the final cut, though, a couple of lines were lost (I'm almost positive that the show was running long), and while the intention is still there, the exact character beats aren't. I'm sure this is a little Inside Baseball, but I learned a lot about who Parrish was during that scene, and how he feels about the people he interacts with at GD and in Eureka. Those little unexpected moments where I get some XP like that are one of the greatest joys for me as an actor.

In fact, this episode was when I finally got completely inside Isaac Parrish's skin and mind, and knew exactly who he was. I'm grateful to Colin, Joe, Felicia, Neil, and our director Alexandra for making all of that possible, because I could relax and enjoy being Doctor Parrish for the rest of the season.

Finally: Fargo is such a wanker! Way to abuse your power and force Isaac to do inventory so you get another shot at the girl, Doug. This isn't over. #TeamParrish

If you have any questions about this episode, please ask them in comments. I'll do my best to respond to them today.

 

* DEX is my dump stat.

** Doctor Parrish will be appearing at Kamp Krusty August 23-30.

***Doctor Parrish also owns an Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator, but he won't show it to you until the third date.

**** <familyguy>AHHH! There it is. </familyguy>

on birthdays and making beer

Anne and I took the train up to Santa Barbara for my birthday, and it was awesome. Because I've complained about Amtrak employees who were dicks in the past (K. Williams on the southbound Surfliner to Comicon, I'm looking in your snotty, sarcastic, condescending direction), it's important to me that I compliment everyone we interacted with on this trip, both Northbound and Southbound. The conductors were friendly and helpful, and so were the ticket agents in Santa Barbara. I love the idea of train travel, and I especially love going along the California coast. I always want to ride the train up to PAX, but I never have time … one day though, I'm totally going to do that. I'm not sure what it is with Amtrak, but I always feel like I'm flipping a customer service coin, and I don't know if it's going to land on "friendly" or "asshat". Someone at Amtrak should do something about that, because I'm not the only person who feels this way.

While we were in Santa Barbara, we ate lunch at the Santa Barbara Brewing Company, where we had their IPA. As a fledgling homebrewer, it was probably more exciting to me than it should have been that I could watch their brewmaster tending to his beer, but Anne patiently listened to me while I pointed out every piece of equipment, and explained what it does. When I drank my IPA, I'm pretty sure I could taste Cascade hops, too, which made me stupidly excited because Ryan and I used Cascade hops in our IPA.

A lot* of people have been asking me how the homebrewing is going. The short answer is, pretty good, even though we made some mistakes with our first batch. Once it conditions in bottles, though, I think we're going to have a very drinkable beer.

I'm going to speak in beernerd right now, so if you may want to skip this paragraph if you aren't at least conversant in homebrewing. The longer answer is that we definitely screwed up our California Pale Ale in two pretty big ways: we boiled too long, so I think we boiled off a lot of fermentable sugars, and we racked to secondary about a week too soon. I've taken gravity readings the last two days, and it seems to have settled down right around 1.020. I know that's not where we want it to be, so we're going to let it sit for another week and hope that it drops. Right now, our potential ABV is only 4%, which seems low to me (but the Googles told me that most CPAs sit around 5%, so that's not too bad.) The really important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that it tastes really good, and even though I don't think it's going to be exactly what we were going for, it's still going to be a tasty beer. It's still a little green, but it isn't bitter at all, it isn't too sweet, and the color and texture are terrific.

Ryan and I had so much fun brewing our CPA, I ordered two all-grain 1-gallon kits from Brooklyn Brew Shop: an IPA and a Porter. I figured that it was just one gallon, so if I completely screwed up the all-grain process, it wasn't that big a deal … it turns out that it was incredibly easy, just as much fun as the first batch, and we used the lessons we learned from the first batch to prevent repeating the same mistakes. We won't bottle that until around August 8 (Anne's birthday, for those of you scoring at home), and I can't wait.

I can tell you, from my personal experience, that making beer is incredibly easy and incredibly fun. They say that if you can make oatmeal, you can make beer, and they're totally right. Oh, and the best part of doing an all-grain beer has been using the spent grains to make doggie biscuits for Seamus and Riley, and two loaves of bread for the rest of us. I made this one last night, and had a slice with breakfast, and I have a loaf of rosemary that's rising in the kitchen right now that will be ready in time for dinner tonight. AWESOME!

The funny thing (to me) about this whole experience is that I was always intimidated by the idea of making bread. But I figured, "Hey, I can make beer, and bread is pretty much the same ingredients assembled in a different way. Why not try it?" There's something tremendously satisfying about combining a bunch of ingredients that don't look or feel anything like the food I turn them into, and then eating (or drinking) it. It feels sort of … magical, I guess.

I AM A FOOD WIZARD! COWER BEFORE MY SILICON SPATULA OF SCRAPING! MUWAHAHAHA!!

Um. Sorry about that.

Yesterday was Ryan's birthday. He turned 22, and a whole bunch of people on Twitter joined me to wish him #HappyBirthdayRyanWheaton. It was pretty amusing to me that I had to write my happy birthday message to him in a way that would make it clear to 1.8 million people that it was, in fact, me writing it, instead of him.

Before I get to work, I have two quick things:

1) Felicia and I are back on Eureka tonight! Come see us on the network-formerly-known as Sci-Fi at 8pm. #TeamParrish

2) DriveThruRPG and Bards & Sages are teaming up for an awesome charity sale called Operation Backpack. Check it out:

August usually means back to school shopping for most Americans. But each year, thousands of children living in homeless shelters and foster care return to school without even the most basic of necessities. Operation Backpack, a program operated by Volunteers of America, helps provided these needed supplies to our country's most vulnerable students and gives them a chance to continue their education.

In an effort to support this wonderful project, Bards and Sages has partnered with other independent authors and publishers to create a special charity ebook bundle. 100% of our profits from this bundle will be donated to Volunteers of America to support Operation Backpack.

This special charity collection includes seventeen independent speculative fiction titles with a retail value of almost $50. A complete list of participating authors can be found on the Bards and Sages website under the Charity tab.

This collection is comprised of two zip files, one containing PDF files and one containing mobi/kindle format files.  Both files contain the same titles, simply offered in different formats.

Oh, did I say two things? I meant three things. 3) In case you missed it, there's a new Humble Indie Bundle.

That's all for now. See you on the Twitters, the Tumblrs, and the Google Plusses.

*Or alot, if you prefer.

Spock is not impressed that it’s my birthday

During w00tstock last week, I mentioned that I was turning 38 this week.

After the show, Anne told me that I was, in fact, turning 39. In the few seconds that it took me to do some math, I lost a year of my life.

Apparently, this is the sort of thing that happens when you get to be my age, which is … 39.

So happy birthday to me, NASA, Geddy Lee, and everyone else who was born on July 29th, especially those of us who escaped from our mothers in 1972.

Spock is not impressed that it's my birthday

io9 really liked Glimpse! Go Team Eureka!

Alisdair Wilkins at io9 really liked this week's episode of Eureka:

"Glimpse" is my favorite episode of the still young season 4.5 – it had a great central threat, it did some nice, light work on the various relationships, it had some good jokes, and it gave plenty to do for the two main guest stars.

Yay! Go Team Eureka!

Oh, there's also this (he said, as nonchalantly as possible):

But really, this episode was almost completely stolen by Wil Wheaton, making his return as Dr. Parrish. One of the best ways to shake up a show like Eureka is to bring in a character whose energy completely contrasts with that of the cast. In previous cycles, that's generally meant bringing in someone mysterious and possibly sinister – James Callis last year, Eva Thorne before that – but Dr. Parrish is something else entirely: he's just a massive asshole. Wheaton is pretty damn brilliant in the role, giving no quarter to Fargo or Carter in his interactions with them while also revealing just why he's so thoroughly antisocial. His brief flirting with Holly was also great, being charming in the way that only a dude who is a total dick can be, and bodes very well for the mooted love triangle between Fargo, Holly, and Parrish.

Thanks, Alasdair! I think you're going to be very pleased with the rest of season 4.5.

EUREKA: Glimpse

Last night's Eureka, Glimpse, was my first episode as a non-enraged-by-the-enraginator-device Doctor Parrish. I had completely forgotten about Fargo's commercial for the Astraeus project at the top of the show; when I saw that, the excitement of shooting the entire season came flooding back to me all at once.

We filmed it so long ago, I don't remember much about it, but what I do recall, quite clearly, is how worried I was about finding the right "pitch" for Parrish's arrogance and irritation with everyone around him. He's supposed to be a guy you love to hate, a thorn in Fargo's side, and if he's just a straight out dick, I think we get tired of him really quickly.

The first scene I shot was actually at the beginning of the episode, in Café Diem, when I present the banana slugs to Fargo and Holly.* I was actually performing Parrish for the first time (remember, in All the Rage, he was only "normal" Parrish in two brief scenes before the enragenation enraginated), and I didn't really have a feel for his character beyond the notes I'd made in my script. Luckily for me, our producer Matt Hastings was on set that day, and I asked him to watch the choices I made during rehearsal. Matt assured me that I was portraying Parrish the way the writers and producers intended, and over the course of that day, I settled into him. Watching it last night, I saw a couple of moments I'd like to change, but that's just part of being an actor; I have to watch my performances with a critical eye, or I'll get lazy and stop learning.

Wasn't Felicia magnificent? I remember having so much fun with her and Neil when we shot the stuff in his office with Stan Lee**, but I had no idea that the three of us would grow so close over the next couple of months. I can't wait for Eureka viewers to see how the relationship among us develops in the weeks to come.

I also remember shooting the scene where Colin gets all that slug gel dumped on him. It was at the very end of a very long day, and none of us expected as much slug gel to come pouring out as we saw on TV. Erica and I were off camera for dialog, and I remember laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my face. He kept improvising lines like, "you — you're a bad, bad person" and "I … I thought we were friends," and [mournful sobbing]. By the time that take was over (and we only got one), the entire crew was laughing as hard as Erica and I were.

My favorite scene in this episode, though, is the scene with Carter and Parrish in the police station. Colin and I found this relationship between the two of them where he is patient and understanding, while Parrish thinks he is just a stupid hick who doesn't know a damn thing about anything. That relationship plays out in future episodes, and it's something I just loved discovering.

Did you notice that Parrish set aside his arrogance and irritation and tried to work with Fargo when it was clear that GD was about to get all explodey? If you blink, I think you'll miss it***, but it was an important, if subtle, character modulation for me. Parrish thinks he's the smartest guy in the room (and he's usually right), but even he knows that there's a time to set personal bullshit aside and stop the world from blowing up.

If you watched the show last night, I'd love to hear what you thought about it. I'll also do my best to answer any questions you have about it … and I hope you'll join me on #TeamParrish.

*For those wondering, the "slugs" were actually made out of figs and dates. You never really got to see them up close, but they looked totally gross, like they really were dried slugs. Parrish ate some in one scene that was cut, and they actually tasted pretty good.

**ZOMG STAN LEE.

*** Don't blink, you fools! The Angels have the phonebox!

 

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