September 2008 News Archive

We just hung up the phone with Swoosie Kurtz - and it's difficult to imagine an actress being warmer or more generous with her time than this Pushing Daisies star. She made it sound like it was an honor to speak with us!

Trust us, Ms. Kurtz, the honor was all ours.

Below, the actress answers questions about her initial reading of the show's script, how long it might stay on the air... and if Aunt Lily is headed for prison this season:

What was your reaction when you first read the script for Pushing Daisies?
I was instantly attracted to it. I had never read any writing like this in my life... Over my career, I've been lucky enough to enjoy an embarassment of riches when it comes to good writing - really, I've been blessed, as the first thing I look for in any part is good writing - but this was so vivid. It was just genius on the page and I thought: 'I can take this and soar.'

[Creator Bryan Fuller] had me by the bottom of page two, with Digby's death. I was crying, I was laughing.

I had to go back and check cover to make sure... this was a TV pilot?!? On a network?!? I just thought: 'I've got to be a part of this! I would be so proud to be a piece of that pie!'

What kind of message do you think Pushing Daisies sends?
It's far out, yet it has values we can all relate to. Fairy tales are primal in many ways: bad guys get killed, true love really does live happily ever after. There are basic emotions on the show - unrequited love, loss, sexual tension - and they are so real and true. The human condition is the part of the show I can really relate to.

In the presence of death, Pushing Daisies is such a celebration of life. Especially in these cynical times, on the brink of financial collapse as we are, it just gives you such hope in humanity.

Three cast members - yourself, Ellen Green and Kristin Chenoweth - possess extensive Broadway experience. How has this shaped the characters you play?
These characters have to be heightened, not naturalistic. Our experience helps make them grounded. We all have that ability to be heightened, but still be real.

Is there any fear that the high concept of the show will limit how long it remains on the air?
Not to me. On the show, antyhing can happen, and it does! It has legs because the more [Ned and Chuck] go on, not being able to touch, the deeper their love gets for each other. It's more complex and more intense.

What's in store for season two?
Vivan goes on several dates with a very bad man, who I want to wipe off the face of the planet because he knows way too much about my past. In the process of trying to keep him quiet, I MAY go to prison. There's that threat, at least, as we're in the process of shooting those episodes right now.

Remember when we told you that a future episode of Pushing Daisies would be centered around a bizzaro world of our favorite crime-fighting trio?

According to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, Orlando Jones, Michael Weaver, and Ivana Milicevic have been cast as a band of Norwegian detectives that bear eerie similarities to Emerson, Ned and Chuck for an episode set to air in November.

In "The Norwegians," the three flee their home country looking for bigger, better crimes to solve, which makes things mighty difficult for Emerson and his untouchy-feely sidekicks. Sounds incredible.

Remember, of course: the season two premiere of Pushing Daisies airs tomorrow night!

Jennifer Elise Cox is set to guest star on Pushing Daisies.

The actress, who in recent TV seasons has ad-libbed on shows such as Lovespring International and 10 Items or Less, will always known as big screen's Jan Brady to movie fans.

She'll appear in an episode titled "Robbing Hood," portraying a widow. We can't wait.

We're one week away from the season two premiere of Pushing Daisies.

We can't wait.

In fact, let's not wait! Here's a clip of Olive Snook from the episode title "Bzzzzz!"

Our thanks to Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly for the following Pushing Daisies spoiler:

Question: Who does a girl have to sweet-talk to get a little Pushing Daisies scoop? -
Ausiello: It's me, and I'm especially proud of my extensive argyle sweater vest collection. Start talkin'. Meanwhile, I'll keep up my end of the bargain by revealing that in what promises to be an especially fanciful episode, Ned, Chuck, and Emerson will -- shades of Seinfeld -- meet their Bizarro World selves. How bizarre will alterna-Ned and Co. be? Pretty damn - they're all Norwegian.

We can't wait to meet Bizarro Emerson.

Bzzzz!

It's more than a sound, it's also the name of the Pushing Daisies season two premiere.

Here's an extended look at the episode, which airs October 1:

ABC has released the official description for the second episode of season two of Pushing Daisies. It's called “Circus, Circus."

Ned, Chuck and Emerson search for a missing teen (guest star Hayley McFarland as Nikki Heaps) who’s run off to the circus... a circus where people keep turning up dead. Meanwhile, overcome with guilt, Lily pays Olive a visit at the nunnery.

Chi McBride and Lee Pace are on the set for "Circus, Circus."

With the news that Chuck's father is actually coming back from the dead - or was never dead to begin with - it would be safe to assume that that touchy subject (you know, how Ned sort of killer him and all) wouldn't cause a problem between Ned and Chuck in the future, right?

Wrong.

In her latest Q&A session, Kristin from E! Online says a rift will form between these two characters in season two:

You would think that the upcoming return of Charles Charles (Chuck's dad) to Coeur d'Coeur might solve the problem of Ned having supposedly offed Chuck's dad, but on the contrary, I'm told the circumstances of his return will probably cause the greatest rift we've ever seen between the Ned and Chuck. 

That makes us sad.

Our thanks to Blast Magazine for this recent interview of Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller.

Let's highlight a few things he had to say about season two of our favorite show...

You guys got cut really short last year. How did that change the story progression?
You know, there’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing this year that we were going to do in the first season, but I think what really helped us is the fact that this is the second season and there were some stories the network was really nervous about like “I don’t know if that’s a first season story or if you should save that for second season.”

It really actually helped us to come back with the second season so we could do some of the stories they were nervous about letting us do in the first season, since we had such a short first season, we got to do right away in the second season. It also really helped us kind of get perspective on the show.

When the shut down happened, when it was like “Pencils down” from the Writer’s Guild, we were almost at the end of our scripts anyways, so we were scrambling to get another script ready, and then the shut down happened, so we didn’t have to worry about that. So a lot of those ideas we kind of got back-burnered but the specific episodes; we redid like one or two of them and there are still quite a few that we want to do from last year that were going to be part of the first season.

The good thing is that we were just able to get perspective. So we took a step back from the show and being on break and working the terrors of production gave us a chance to just stop and say “Okay, what’s the story that we want to tell?”, “Where are these characters going?” It just gave us the necessary breathing room to chart out a second season which I am really proud of and very excited by.

I think the writer’s strike allowed us to not get trapped in the sophomore slump of shows and you feel kind of a lag in the creativity because you see it literally go right from one to the other, and in this case it really allowed us to recharge our batteries, consider what was working on the show and maybe what was not working as well and just have a much more invigorated approach to the second season.

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Don't wait until October 1 to get a glimpse of the Pushing Daisies season premiere.

Here are a trio of pictures from the fun-filled episode titled "Bzzzzz."