Lee Pace
News (Page 2)

Lee Pace is featured in a recent Miami Herald article.

The piece begins by focusing on the spiritual journey undertaken a couple years ago by the Pushing Daisies star. He checked into a meditation retreat after he returned from filming The Good Shepherd in London.

How come?

"... probably to detox for the amount I drank while I was in London," the actor joked. "One of the things that they work on with you there, is that you can let go of anything. You just let it go. You sit there for hours during the day just meditating and being quiet. Your back hurts, you get tired and hungry and the whole point of the practice is you just let it go...

You can really bring that into life. You can let anything go, bad feelings about things, attachment to things that aren't useful to your life. You can just let it go."

Many actors are so absorbed in the parts they are playing that they never correlate the roles with their lives. Pace is not one of those. In fact, his role as the magical Ned in ABC's whimsical Pushing Daisies has accelerated his interest in the meaning behind the words.

Ned can miraculously bring people back to life by the mere touch of his finger.

"I do think I've been away from spirituality since I left home at 17," Pace said. "So now I think I'm coming back to it in a way I hadn't before. I'd forgotten it's an important thing to give thought to your morality and how you intend to live your life."

Click here to read the full article.

On the verge of becoming a household name due to the success of Pushing Daisies, Lee Pace reflected on the show with TeenTelevision.com.

Here are excerpts from that interview:

TeenTelevision: If you really had this power, who would you touch to bring back?
Lee: Wow. My grandmother because I loved her very much.

TeenTelevision: What about the show really intrigues you?
Lee: I'm really excited about the procedural [detective] elements to the show. It wasn't the thing that initially attracted me to it. I thought the love story would be really fun. But, with the minds that work on this show, I think that procedural element is going to be really awesome. The episodes that I've read so far, every one takes you into this really cool, kind of bizarre, splashy world.

They are all totally different, all exciting. There's a neat adventure to it. The first episode is about Ned getting excited about the adventure, getting out of The Pie Hole [where he works], excited about breaking free and starting to live his life.

TeenTelevision: You were born in Texas and lived as a child in the Middle East so how did you get into acting?
Lee: I got to a point where it was the only thing I knew how to do and I was in high school [in Texas] and I auditioned for Julliard and got in. I did a couple of monologues and had a meeting with them. I don't know how they picked me. They said, 'you now have to go back to high school and get your diploma' so I did.

Lee Pace isn't exactly complaining that Pushing Daisies is receiving such critical praise. But there is one drawback to such acclaim: pressure.

"If I'm feeling good, I'm very grateful for that," the actor recently said in an interview with Zap2it. "Some days, though, it makes me nervous, like, 'Oh, God, I hope we don't mess it up.'"

We doubt they will. Meanwhile, the actor took readers inside the character of Ned a bit.

"From the beginning moments of the pilot, (Ned has) created a place that he understands," Pace said. "He can give people fresh pie and goodness and be a generous person within a small world.

"Then he brings Chuck back to life, and his entire world is blown open. He learns something new, I think, in every episode about how to enjoy his life, how to make other people's lives a better place. That's the big psychology, I think, behind his gift, in that ... it's a tricky one, one that comes with a consequence and a dilemma."

Speaking of Chuck - or Anna Friel, the actress that portrays her - how does this British star feel about really making a splash in the United States?

"I was a little bit frightened because I never had done quite this style of acting before, where it's a little bit and there's a lot of comedy involved," she said. "But I thought, 'I'm going to choose the thing that scares and challenges me the most.' I loved the whole fairy-tale essence of it all, and I thought it was the most exciting script I had seen in a very long time.

"Chuck is just a wonderful character. I mean, she makes honey for the homeless and she's been raised by these two extremely mad aunts and learned several languages and read thousands and thousands of books. That's a great start for a character."

The following interview with Lee Pace is taken from the same E! Online feature that named the actor as a Newbie We'll Love...

How did you get involved with Pushing Daisies?
I've been doing movies for the past five years, and I wasn't really looking at doing television until this year, but I did work with Bryan Fuller on Wonderfalls, and I heard through the grapevine that Bryan Fuller had a new show, so I got a script from the manager. I read it, and I thought, this is actually really, really good.

Then I talked to Bryan, and he told me, "You know, I kind of wrote the character with you in mind." And I was like, Oh, wow, that's never happened before.

That's so amazing.
Ned reads like the way I speak; we have the same speech patterns. So, I called my agents and my manager and I said, "I think this is really worth doing."

So, they fought you, or you fought them, or both?
Both. I remember one of them saying, "Doing television right now would be a deeply regrettable move." I just kept thinking, You know, if I'm tied up not doing movies for six years that means the show is a massive hit. And if that's the problem I'm dealing with six years from now, then I'll take it. I'll take it. But what really kind of tipped the scale is that it's good. Barry Sonnenfeld is directing it!

And the cast is great.
Every element has fallen into place. Everyone on the cast and crew gets along really, really well, we enjoy working together.

This show is love!
It's about love and life. It's about someone who can bring people back to life, but who can also inadvertently kill people. What I think we're going to see Ned gain through the course of the series is an appreciation for how good it is to be alive. That's the addition that Chuck makes to his life - it's good to be alive, it's good to be out of the Pie Hole, solving these cases. He learns how good life can be, how important this gift is.

America will love Lee Pace.

So says a feature on E! Online, as the entertainment site counts down fresh faces on fall TV for the country to get excited about.

Here's what it says about the Pushing Daisies star:

Who He Is: The star of ABC's critically acclaimed dramedy Pushing Daisies, Lee Pace is best known so far for his work as Jaye's big brother on Wonderfalls, an earlier show from Daisies creator Bryan Fuller, and for his turn in the Showtime film Soldier's Girl.

Where to Meet Him: On Pushing Daisies, of course, the story of Ned, a gentle pie baker who just so happens to be able to resurrect the dead. Unfortunately, his power comes with strings attached, and as a consequence, he is forever forbidden to touch the love of his life: a girl named Chuck (Anna Friel).

She was dead once, you see, and he brought her back to life by his magic touch, and should he ever touch her a second time, she would die forever, never to return. Ah, the road of TV love never did run smooth.

Why You'll Love Him: He's smart, sweet and thoughtful, not to mention dead sexy.

Lee Pace may be a relative unknown at the moment - but that should all change once Pushing Daisies becomes a hit.

Therefore, we wanted readers to get to know this actor a bit more before he's a household name.

The actor was born in Oklahoma, but spent parts of his childhood living overseas with his family. While studying in the States, he got involved in regional theater and was accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School.

Early on, Pace was a stage star, featured in plays such as Romeo and Juliet, King Richard III and Juliu Caesar. After receiving his BFA, Lee made his professional stage debut in the off-Broadway play The Credeux Canvas.

A year later, it was on to television and the Showtime original movie A Soldier's Girl, based on a true story. Pace received was nominated at the Golden Globes, Gotham Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards for his portrayal of transgendered nightclub singer Calpernia Addams.

In 2004, Pace landed a role on the Fox dramedy Wonderfalls. While the show gained a cult-following, it only lasted half a season. The actor's reputation was cemented, however, and he went on to star in well-received features Infamous and The Good Shepherd.

Lee Pace Awards:

Golden Globe
2003 Best Supporting Actor (TV Movie): A Soldier's Girl
Independent Spirit Award
2003 Best Actor: Soldier's Girl

Pushing Daisies was a hit at Comic-Con in July. During that time, the Televisionary sat down with a few of the show's cast members.

Here's a look at what Lee Pace and Anna Friel had to say:

Q: How did you get involved with Pushing Daisies?
Pace: Bryan [Fuller] created the part with me in mind. I was not looking to do TV this year but asked my manager for a copy of the script and called Bryan up, who said, "I wrote it with you in mind." I really wanted to work with Barry [Sonnenfeld, who directed the pilot]. While the pilot is great, it just keeps getting better and better with the episodes I've read already.

Q: What excites you most about the series?
Pace: Really, the character's relationship with Chuck and the psychology of the character. Getting to mine life and death in a profound way. Also, with the show's procedural element, every eight days, you dive into a new world. The episode we're shooting right now is a total caper with a Scooby-Doo feel.

Q: What are the challenges of playing a semi-comedic character?
Pace: Basic acting works. Ned doesn't think he's funny so it's about playing the reality of the character. He's not cracking jokes. It's about the pathos of the moment and the idea that it's the reality of being able to touch something and bring it back to life. There are moral obligations with Ned's condition, an appetite for life and death. Chuck makes him feel like life is good, especially because we only have one life.

And here are a few words from Friel...

Q: Why did you decide to make the leap to American television?
Friel: I had sixteen movies under my belt, Broadway, and the West End and wanted to broaden my palette of work. I came over to LA to change agents and it happened to be pilot season. I read the pilot script and was struck by how joyful and playful Chuck was. I didn't want to play the girl on the arm of some guy and US television creates the best hooks for its characters.

Q: How similar or dissimilar to your character Chuck are you?
Friel: I'm much more anxious than Chuck. I worry about things and certainly don't wake up every day feeling that it's a fresh start and a beautiful day. (Though I should.) Unlike most of the roles I've played in the past, I wasn't able to channel that mood and anxiety into the character and had to get into a different frame of mind. As for similarities, Chuck lets me express the fun, quirky side of my personality. But there is one big thing that's not similar. Unlike Chuck, I'm not American.

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Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller shared a whopping piece of insight with Playbill.com recently:

Lee Pace almost didn't portray Ned.

Originally, the new series "was going to be a spin-off of Dead Like Me. Then I left, halfway through the first season, to do Wonderfalls, which only lasted four episodes."

However, that series starred the Pushing Daisies male lead, Lee Pace, for whom Fuller wrote the part of Ned.

"His agents declined, but his manager went around them, and told [Pace] that he should really read the [pilot] script," Fuller said, saying Adam Brody was next offered the part of Ned, but "he was not looking to do another series immediately." relates Fuller.

Fortunately, Pace's manager got involved - and the rest, soon enough, will be TV history.