PALEY CENTER FOR MEDIA, THE: PALEYFEST FALL PREVIEWS 2017: EPIX: BERLIN STATION {LONG VERSION}
Summary
One in a series of seminars presented as part of The Paley Center for Media's 2017 Fall Preview PALEYFEST events in Los Angeles. This evening celebrates "Berlin Station," the dramatic suspense series about the spies and officials working at a CIA station in Germany.
Host Rene Reyes (executive in charge of production, The Paley Center for Media) offers opening remarks and introduces the second season premiere, "Everything's Going to be Alt-Right," which is then screened in its entirety. (For synopsis and credits, see ACCNUM 130632.)
After the screening, Jim Halterman (West Coast Bureau Chief, TV Guide magazine) moderates the following panelists: executive producer/creator Bradford Winters; and cast members Keke Palmer (April Lewis), Ashley Judd (B.B. Yates), Leland Orser (Robert Kirsch) and Richard Armitage (Daniel Miller).
The panelists touch on such topics as: the experience of watching the finished episode for the first time; building upon the events of the first season in a new "subject arena"; reflecting Germany's 2017 election cycle and depicting the rise of the far-right in a "European context"; the "broken morale" of the agents four months after the events of the first season, and how Yates will rectify the situation in her leadership role; embracing a "neo-classical" spy-drama feel; the actors' relief are shooting in the spring, as opposed to the first season's winter setting; Judd's enjoyment of the "botanical diversity" of springtime Germany; Miller's internal conflict and Armitage's curiosity about "how good of an actor" his spy character is; Miller's "quite antagonistic" relationship with Case Officer Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans) in season two; scouting locations for Hector's remote villa; Kirsch's struggle to accept his new boss after the departure of close friend Steven Frost (Richard Jenkins); Judd's interest in Yates' identity as a female leader and how she empowers her staffers; Palmer's views on April's youth and "newbie" status; her many amusing driving scenes with Orser; Valerie's (Michelle Forbes) story arc in season two and her surprising bond with Josef (Heino Ferch); Winters' interest in bringing the many characters together in an "orbit" around a common story; the challenges of bringing the character of Frost, now a civilian, back into the story; shooting far from home and how Judd "commuted" between Germany and her home in Tennessee, including her remarkable imperviousness to jet-lag; Palmer's bond with her castmates, particularly Orser, over missing their families; how Armitage "obsesses" over the scripts; his fondness for Germany and empathy for its political climate, given his personal views on "Brexit"; the writers' "gift" to the actors of an 800-page research document; Armitage's habit of building a "solid foundation" of his characters' backstories and personal lives; Orser's sense that his personal life frequently "crashes into" his acting work; Judd's "litmus test" for Winters and the other writers; and her gratitude for their inclusion of her ideas about Yates' backstory, including her decision not to have children.
Details
- NETWORK: N/A
- DATE: November 30, 1999 6:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:27:56
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 130615
- GENRE: Seminars
- SUBJECT HEADING: N/A
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Rene Reyes … Host
- Jim Halterman … Moderator
- Bradford Winters … Panelist
- Keke Palmer … Panelist
- Ashley Judd … Panelist
- Leland Orser … Panelist
- Richard Armitage … Panelist
- Heino Ferch
- Michelle Forbes
- Rhys Ifans
- Richard Jenkins