DD, Natascha McElhone, and Chemistry
(Parallels to The X-Files)
Felt a little like The Twilight Zone reading about another green-to-tv British actress sharing chemistry with DD.
Goes to show that some aspects are inherent to the business (and art) of acting, no matter who you're across from.
October 3, 2012:
Californication Stars Redefine Chemistry
Sometimes chemistry surfaces in a gaze, or even a glance. It’s true for the self-indulgent novelist Hank Moody and his longtime, long-suffering love/baby mama Karen van der Beek, the on-again, off-again nexus of Showtime’s sexy, LA-centric comedy Californication. And it’s true for the actors who play them, David Duchovny and Natascha McElhone. “Even just the looks they throw each other,” says the show’s creator, executive producer and sole writer Tom Kapinos. “It’s like you believe that this is a couple who have been in love for a long time and can’t quite shake each other.”
The difference, of course, is that Hank and Karen’s magnetic attraction is fueled by a rocky but always intertwined history, a shared child, codependence, and mind-blowing sex. Duchovny and McElhone’s spark comes simply from two actors savoring each scene—funny, sexy, or sad—they share together....
“Natascha and I have just been able to have a very easy working relationship, and I didn’t know that was going to be the case because I didn’t know Natascha and I didn’t know anything was going to work” says Duchovny, whose only insight as to why their particular back-and-forth frisson succeeds is because they make it work. “People talk about chemistry. I always think it’s your job to make it happen if it’s not there, to create it—that’s what an actor is supposed to do.”
McElhone doesn’t try to analyze it too deeply, either. “How do you define chemistry anyway?” she wonders aloud in the British accent she casts aside for the character. “You can’t really analyze it for real. You can’t break it down into its component parts. And if you do, then of course it’ll evaporate,” she says.
“We don’t hang out or have an overly established, entwined friendship so it keeps it really about the work, which is pretty great,” she adds, admitting that at the end of the day both actors generally retreat to their respective families. “We mostly connect as our characters. And I love it like that.”
Whatever they’re doing, it’s working....
“Hank is in love with this woman, he messed it up and he can’t quite get back to it, but that’s what he wants more than anything else. It’s enormously tricky, but somehow in the casting we got it right. I knew we had it right with David, and then Natascha came along and from the pilot you knew they had something.” [Tom Kapinos] says from the outset his leading man “fit so seamlessly into what I wrote in the pilot, a lot of people said, ‘Did you develop this for David Duchovny?’ That wasn’t the case. The script existed way before he [came along], but it’s just one of those really nice, serendipitous examples of actor meeting material and it all fitting together. I just kept writing Hank the way that I knew him and he kept fitting right in there. That said, I started to hear little things in my head that were the way David might do something,” says Kapinos.
“Natascha is a more traditional example of me watching what she was doing, and that definitely informed the character over the years,” he adds. “She was able to give you the sense that she was just slightly out of his league and he was always going to be shooting for her and she would keep him at arm’s length. Somehow we just lucked out there. You go out searching for that and it’s hard to put exactly into words what you’re looking for, but we definitely got it right with those two.”
Evan Handler, who plays Hank’s literary agent and best friend, Charlie Runkle, breaks it down: “They’re both awfully attractive, aren’t they? That never hurts. And look, they’re both good at what they do.” But Handler admits he’s surprised Hank and Karen’s will-they/won’t-they dynamic still fascinates. “It’s been puzzling... to all of us, really. David and I said at the end of shooting the pilot, ‘That was a lot of fun, but how do you get a season out of it?’ Then we said the same thing at the end of the first season: That was a lot of fun, but how do you do more?’ We always kind of laugh that we kept saying that—and yet it’s been more and more.”
BONUS
There were also viewers who felt Karen was getting the short end of the stick and should leave Hank (sound familiar?):
Alternately, McElhone says she’s unchanged by walking in Karen’s hippie-chic shoes—for the most part. “I mean, other than having to do an American accent! Maybe that slightly changes my syntax.” But she’s discovered that many other people feel her character’s romantic travails acutely. “I remember after the first season, someone came up to me, literally took me by the shoulders and shook me and said, ‘You have to leave that guy!’ I was like, ‘It’s okay, I’m not with him. And he doesn’t really exist. It’s a character.’ They’re so attached to it that they overidentify with her plight and they want to rescue her. It was kind of cute…but not really.”
Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... Lucifer (S02E10) Quid Pro Ho Airdate: November 28, 2016 @foxtv Ratings: 4.088 Million :: 1.10 18-49 Demo Share Score: 7.75/10 **********SPOILERS BELOW********** I'm almost at a lack of words here. We've very much established the more that 'Lucifer' embraces it's over-the-top nature, the more we absolutely love it. I feel like I say it every episode, but to compare much of S1 with the insanity of everything that has gone down the instant that S2 has started, it's like night and day. It's safe to say, we ALL unanimously love 'Lucifer', especially in the Spotlight Saga household. I normally play the role of the well-stated critic, but I'm in a place where I need someone, anyone, to reach out to me and tell me that just because Amenadiel was ordered by God to come down and 'bless' a couple, which would make Chloe Decker some sort of divine being (a notion I expected from the beginning, possibly a Nephilim, just not quite like this), it doesn't mean that in some weird way that Lucifer & Chloe are related... Like he's technically Uncle Lucifer? Because that would make things incredibly awkward, ammirite!!! Obviously anyway you cut it, when Lucifer finds out that Chloe is a being put before him by Daddy Dearest in a roundabout way, it's going to be strange. We have no idea how he will react... And since Amenadiel & Charlotte are the ones holding the secret, they control the narrative... And when any character, especially one who is inherently evil (well, more like completely lacks empathy), controls the narrative... Then they have absolute power. Charlotte attempted to play them against each other, but even when she was basically bribing/blackmailing Chloe, I knew that there was no way that Chloe was going to sell Lucifer down the river. Their bond is just too great... Which makes that *almost* kiss at the end of the episode even more intense, but having that giant secret hanging over their heads (whatever it may technically mean), gives me a feeling that it's going to change everything at just the wrong moment... But totally in the sense of 'so right it's wrong'. Both Lucifer & Chloe have finally realized what they mean to each other and this is a HUGE revelation, but will it be eclipsed by such a massive secret? Amenadiel may be showing a new side, but he's still very much a wild card character, and one who has the power to sort of bridge the gap between Charlotte & Lucifer... Especially under the watchful eye of Mazikeen, who may or may not be distracted by the charming charisma of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Douche'. Lots at play here, the show definitely has an air of electricity about it... This is FOX's diamond in the rough!
