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NICK STAHL: I play Ben Hawkins on the show. Thanks to everybody for logging in! I hope you enjoyed the first season. I'm looking forward to your questions.
CLANCY BROWN: Welcome to the chat! Any questions you have for Nick, feel free to ask him:)
Linda23: What is it like portraying Ben?
NICK STAHL: Well, it was very interesting to play a character and stretch it over such a long time - 12 episodes. I had never done a TV show before, so week to week it was unclear what we would be asked to do. Luckily the great writing staff on the show came up with unexpected twists and character development consistently, that made it such an easy task. The character was all there on the page, so I felt like I just had to show up practically, and the character was there. I felt that from the first episode; I connected to the character and had an understanding of where he was coming from.
LostinBabylon: Did you know from the beginning which "side" of the war you were on, or did you find out only when you got the script?
CLANCY BROWN: When we first started I thought I knew pretty clearly which side I'd be on, but as the season went on, it became less and less clear. But I think tonight kinda cleared up any questions! I became more confused because of how they put the episodes together. I had been warned not to jump to any conclusions; that that was one of the tricks they were going to pull. Now it seems very obvious to me, but with that warning in mind, I don't think I would have been a bettin' man on who's who. After all, we saw Lodz buy it tonight, and I wasn't expecting that!
NICK STAHL: I think what Clancy is saying is that anything is possible, and we really don't know what all the possibilities are for next season. My character has committed...Everyone seemed to think it was obvious who was good and who was evil. To me it seems that the fact he committed this dire sin is not the act of a saint. So it's up in the air I would say.
CLANCY BROWN: I think the presumption of good and evil being clear-cut entities and clear teams is the wrong presumption to make.
Beffie: Have you both heard anything on a second season of Carnivàle?
NICK STAHL: I don't know! - I can tell you that.
HBO.COM: How about the other storyline, the carnies. Do you see Iris interacting with the carnival?
LostinBabylon: What's the atmosphere like? Light and fun? Or all business?
NICK STAHL: It could be vastly different on each of our storylines. In my experience sometimes the darker the material that you're doing, the more necessary it is to have some sort of levity around. I've worked on more lighthearted pieces that have been more brutal and tougher to make. On the carnie side of things, it was so much fun for everyone. It became such a tight-knit group, and had so much fun. We loved talking smack about Clancy and Amy, and how they weren't cool enough to hang out with us:)So yeah, that's it.
CLANCY BROWN: We were very lighthearted. Amy and I would actually try to convince the producers to put in a song every now and then. We would come up with certain lines that begged a song cue or music cue. Amy is quite a good librettist - she could come up with lyrics at the drop of a hat. I didn't realize she had such a musical comedy background. We were hoofing it all the way through. The darkest part of the day was when we heard what others in the Carnival were saying about us.
NICK STAHL: So look for "Carnivale, the Musical," coming soon!
CLANCY BROWN: A sort of "Sweeney Todd."
LostinBabylon: What's the hardest thing about doing a period show as opposed to one with a modern setting?
CLANCY BROWN: I think it's easier. I don't think it's very hard at all, because Dan did such a good job with the set, and Jeff...and there was such a good job lighting it. The world was all there for us to walk into. The wardrobe, the lighting, the extras. You just came to work and walked into the world. There was no reference to today and all the garbage that's going on today, at least that's the way I found it. It was a very simple matter to cleanse your mind of all the modern garbage and get into the 1930s. That's why we were singing and dancing, instead of playing GameBoy!
NICK STAHL: I completely agree with what Clancy said. The art direction, thewardrobe...was really impeccable. This world was created from the ground up, and it made it that much easier. It was all there, and you didn't have to do much. Like the way the characters were written - it was all there, and as long as you didn't royally screw up it would come off the way it should.
NICK STAHL: You have a sort of automatic response to a certain period when you hear it's the '30s or '40s, and for me I had an idea in my head of the way people spoke. For me it's just the period and the depression and the climate all contributed to a different way of speaking and sort of a languid pace. That determined a lot of what I did physically. I'll look at period pieces and some actors come off as "modern" - in how the speak and move - so I made a conscious effort not to do that. I tried not to do that.
CLANCY BROWN: You nailed it Nick! You were just great.
NICK STAHL: Thanks a lot! I was just about to tell you the same thing.
CLANCY BROWN: Well you did.
NICK STAHL: This is good and evil, together at last.
CLANCY BROWN: The carnies get to say the funnest things too. You have to get it right if you're going to pull off that stuff like "Jesus Christ on a bicycle."
NICK STAHL: The characters were so colorful, and their expressions.
CLANCY BROWN: I thought everybody hit it. Clea and Toby, Cynthia, Adrienne Barbeau, Tim DeKay - all of them.
LostinBabylon: Besides your own characters, who would you say are your favorites, and why?
NICK STAHL: I would say Toby Huss's character Stumpy is a favorite of mine. And he brings so much humor to the show, which is much needed. He's an improv. artist, and he brought so much life to the show.
CLANCY BROWN: Lodz and Lila, I like them. Everybody loves Samson too. I like Ben Hawkins. I keep pulling for him. I say "C'mon man, embrace that power!
NICK STAHL: We could go places together!
CLANCY BROWN: I love all of them. There's nobody I don't like in this show. Everybody who keeps coming to mind. They're really good.
Smitty99: Do you have a favorite episode of the season?
CLANCY BROWN: I thought Babylon was awesome.
NICK STAHL: Yeah, Babylon was great. I would say THIS episode. So much more is going on in this episode than in any other. Each storyline gets tied up at the end. The crescendo of the whole series. I had never seen this episode completed, although I'd seen some of the others. I was just on the edge of my seat the whole time!
CLANCY BROWN: Sort of typical of most of the shows; there wasn't just blatant exposition. There was a little with Management, but you didn't hear it happen - you just saw it unfold. That's the way you do things. I think so, anyway.
titannia: Nick, if you could change one thing about your character, what would it be?
NICK STAHL: I don't like the fact that there are negative consequences to an affair with a woman. I wish Ben got a little more action. What can I say?
CLANCY BROWN: You carnies. It's like a rabbit warren in the carnival!
NICK STAHL: Everyone else was hooking up during the season; they have love affairs. And I get together with one woman and she ends up on the dirt!
CLANCY BROWN: One woman?! That was Adrienne Barbeau, grasshopper. That's not "one woman." She is an icon!
NICK STAHL: True, true enough.
Arykh: Nick and Clancy, in the credits of several of the first few episodes Michael Massee was listed as a special guest on the show. Did either or you meet him or know who he was on the show? I've searched several sites yet none actually list where he was in the show.
CLANCY BROWN: Yeah. He was the Russian soldier. I know Michael. Spent a couple of cold evenings with Michael.
rainatsea: Q for both: What first attracted you to the Carnivale script?
NICK STAHL: I would say that it was just such a rich story and so complete as a television show it read like a film. It had three complete acts and very vivid characters, and it left you with the impression of wanting to know and wanting to see what will happen. That's a good sign in anything - being invested in the characters. I connected immediately to Ben Hawkins, and where he was coming from, and I felt like I had an understanding of that.
CLANCY BROWN: Also the fact that it was like no other TV or movie script I'd ever read. It was completely original - pushes the envelope even on HBO of what drama could be. Despite critics who have seen these other dustbowl television shows...I don't know what they're talking about. There's a lot of the same stuff on TV and movies, and when something truly original springs from the imagination of someone like Dan Knauf, you've just got to jump at and take the ride.
Morgan: Nick, as much as I loved you in T3, you are way too good of an actor for mainstream Hollywood. Now that you're "famous" will you continue to act in independent film?
NICK STAHL: Thank you, Morgan. I've always chosen the movies and roles that I do solely by the content. That's what I've always tried to do. Something like T3 was so unexpected for me, and was not something I can honestly say that I expected to be doing, given the films I'd been in before. I think that the scale of a movie and the budget a lot of times determines the quality. Sometimes you find that there is better material in small and more independent movies. There's more risk-taking. I want to keep doing that for the future and choose projects based on the content and the role, and how good those are. And I think the budget of movie to me is somewhat secondary.
Shaina: In what way do you relate to your character?
CLANCY BROWN: I think the journey Justin takes is a metaphor for everyone's journey. There comes a time when you have to decide whether you're nuts or whether you're actually inspired. That's the point at which you grow up I guess. Most of us kind of decide that we'll just take the job, get the mortgage, live our lives and go on vacation for 2 weeks every year, and retire at 65, and it'll all be over. The ambition to greatness gets marginalized. This isn't really an insight into MY soul, but I think that journey is something everyone should at least try to relate to. I can't think of any similarities between me and Justin. We look at lot alike.
NICK STAHL: You do. You could almost be brothers.
CLANCY BROWN: I get mistaken for him a lot. But his struggle to be who he is, without apology.
TomSpencer: Nick, I actually started crying during the interrogation of Tom Spencer in "Eye of God" (and am close to crying now just remembering). Were those actual tears?
NICK STAHL: Oh boy. Yes, they were. You know, to me that was actually an asset that I kind of had as a child actor - I've done this since I was 10 years old. I think at that age if you can cry on cue when you come into a room, it's a real asset. That was a kind of fallback for me. I knew I could get roles by whipping up some tears for them. There are times you go in and out of feeling something, and become overused for an emotion in a scene and it doesn't come as quickly. For that story it was a very emotional story for me. Or maybe I'm just remembering it differently now. That was way too long an answer for that question:)
carniebrat: Where do you guys come up with some of your so called "carnie lingo" I have been on a carnival all my life and never heard any of the sayings you all use on the show.
NICK STAHL: They surprise us every week with new expressions, carnie lingo; phrases that I have never heard, and that most of us have never heard.
CLANCY BROWN: It's period too.
NICK STAHL: It's accurate to the period. The writers got a dictionary for speech used during this period. It was all true to life, so our task was to say these phrases in a way that didn't say "I was born in 1979."
Madeliene: Mr. Brown, I'm a big fan and have been watching your career for a long time. I was wondering if you liked playing villains?
CLANCY BROWN: I like playing good roles, and if they happen to be villains, that's fine. And if they're not, that's fine too. I just enjoy acting, period. It doesn't really matter what the job I have to do in the story is, as long as it's a full character. And if the job is to be the antagonist, then so much the better. I think you'll find often those are the better characters anyway, at least in my experience. With the exception of this show - there's not a weak character in this show. The dark side isn't necessarily attractive to me; it's just where I find the better story, and the better fuller character. And I've done a couple of good guys, for crying out loud! Really poorly, but I've done them. I've been those good guys mostly in cartoons.
NICK STAHL: And no one said Clancy was a villain, by the way!
Destiny: Nick, was it weird being in a pond surrounded by dead "fish" or was that computer generated?
NICK STAHL: I thought that was such a great idea. You know, it was established pretty early on that in order to give life, the rule is that life has to be taken from somewhere else. In the first healing scene from the pilot, life was taken from all the plants and vegetation surrounding the little girl, and I think it was just a case where the writers were finding where he could go to heal, where potentially nothing would die. And they put it in water, and I thought that was a great place that they went to in that episode. It reminded me of "Of Mice and Men" with that Steinbeck feel, which is actually what originally attracted me to this story, was that period and that exact feel. There were actually dead fish put into traps submerged in the water, and the traps were opened on cue with levers that 10 or 15 crew members would open at once. Problem was that you could only do that once, because you couldn't put them back in. So although there was some computer-generated, there was some real too.
clancykicksbutt: Nick and Clancy, how well do you both feel you connect with the other cast members in real life and on set?
CLANCY BROWN: We all got along great! Got along great in real life, and on the set. But you have to remember that our real life is doing a TV show, so it's not like we're going to the factory. I thought all our rapports were very good. I don't know what kind of dramas Nick got into, but it was smooth sailing for me.
NICK STAHL: I didn't like too many people on the set. That was a joke! It was such a diverse cast, and it was a joy to go to work every day over a six month period. I would only hope to do it again next season.
CLANCY BROWN: It was always good to see each other outside the working world.
NICK STAHL: Yeah, it was strange. The biggest shock for me was to realize that everyone wasn't that dirty in real life:)
scarlettmet: Nick, how do you manage to keep your private life private?
NICK STAHL: Um...man...I don't know. You know...I feel like I am a much better actor than I am someone who does a lot of press and things like that. I don't feel that part of the job - as much as I realize it is part of the job, and have come to like doing it somewhat - for me there has never been a danger of exposing that much of my private life. I've been amazed at the response and the number of people who have seen the show, and every time I go out I seem to get stopped by someone. I think you are in control of that. You expose as much of your life as you want to expose at the end of the day.
BombaySapphires: Hi Clancy...I love your character. In your opinion, who is stronger, Iris or Justin?
CLANCY BROWN: Well, it depends on your definition of strength, and it depends on the venue you're talking about. I think probably what you're asking is who is in charge of that relationship, and I can tell you right now that Iris cooks, and Justin preaches and brings home the bacon. But you know it's an in cold blood kind of relationship. They are symbiotic at this point, and they have depended on each other the way siblings depend on each other from their earliest childhood. You saw from this season that neither would have survived without the other, so I don't know who is stronger. They are inseparable. Personally I can tell you that Amy Madigan is stronger than Clancy Brown. We tried arm wrestling, and she beat me. I thought I was going to let her, but she beat me!
NICK STAHL: It's all in the wrist.
CLANCY BROWN: She gives you that sweet smile, and then she takes ya.
NICK STAHL: And then she burns your church down.
scarlettmet: In an interview with Adrienne Barbeau, she was quoted as saying she was nervous doing love scenes. Nick, were you nervous as well or are love scenes old hat for you by now?
NICK STAHL: I was definitely nervous! What was funny about that scene was that, believe it or not, I had had more experience with love scenes than Adrienne had. That was her very first onscreen love scene. So she might have been more nervous than me. But she's a married woman, she has a son who is my age. I loved the storyline. I thought it was an interesting, unexpected turn for the characters, but I know she was very nervous too. So we both celebrated our nervousness, and just did it. The thing about Adrienne is she's a very maternal person. She was sort of the on-set mother. I remember her bringing cookies she had just baked for the drivers one day. So there was that as well, it didn't exactly suggest any kind of sexual tension. I'm going to stop talking now.
supermagicninja: If you discovered you had magic powers, would you use them for good or evil? LOL
CLANCY BROWN: I do have magic powers. I just made my daughter appear in my office here. I would use them for good, and some people might interpret that as evil.
NICK STAHL: Oh man. If I had magic powers...I would hope that I would use them for good. I think I would. But I would do something pretty trivial like making traffic disappear.
CLANCY BROWN: That would be good.
NICK STAHL: Nothing too big. Maybe no gum on your shoe. I don't know. Thanks for joining us tonight! I hope you enjoyed the first season. Thanks for chatting and for being such loyal fans. We hope to see you next season. Fare well!
CLANCY BROWN: I said some of that:) Keep watching! Don't let the fact that the season is over stop you from watching the reruns. Make sure to check out "Deadwood" when it premieres on HBO.
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Music Credits NEW!
See a full listing of the music played in "Day of the Dead."
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Carnival Fact
Sideshow performer Stanley Berent, A.K.A. Sealo the Seal Boy, was afflicted with phocomelia, which caused his hands to grow directly from his shoulders.
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HBO Store
NEW!
Be the first to own a Hat from HBO's latest hit show - Carnivàle! |
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