By Christine Gibbs

To move or not to move…that is the question. And these days, it’s an all-too-familiar one. This is particularly true at the extreme ends of the demographic spectrum in New Jersey, with downsizing Boomers and upwardly mobile Millennials looking—and, in some cases, competing—for apartments in or near their hometowns. This has led to an explosion in rental property development in walkable downtowns as well as traditional suburbs, and it is changing the landscape of how and where people live in the Garden State.

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For aging Baby Boomers, apartment living has become a viable alternative to the three “traditional choices”: heading south, joining a retirement community or staying put and dealing with the consequences, whatever they may be. That’s because they are living longer and living better—however, it’s time to move on from a home with the physical and emotional burdens of high carrying costs and endless maintenance. Seniors, retirees and pre-retirees are coming to the mass realization that where they live now is not necessarily where they should live tomorrow.

Meanwhile, for young professionals in their 20s, the appeal of home ownership has lost much of its luster. Home prices and taxes in New Jersey are high and the job market—while growing—is unpredictable. For some, the mobility and convenience of renting a stylish apartment with contemporary amenities is more important than owning something that could conceivably tie them down. For others, the lack of disposable cash or minimal borrowing power makes renting the only option.

What these “bookend” groups have in common is that, when it comes to apartment living, they are more sophisticated, more determined, and more selective than ever. What do these kids want? They want out of their parents’ basements. The Failure to Launch stereotype is the exception, not the rule, in New Jersey. For most Millennials, personal finances are the driving factor regarding their next move. Modest entry-level salaries, student loan debt and a tight starter home inventory limit their choices and often that first apartment is a dog. Yet, all is not doom and gloom. The job market is strong in Central New Jersey, particularly in the tech sector, where wages can support rents of $3,000/month or more. And that can get you something very nice in a place you want to live—maybe even close to friends and family.

That being said, price and convenience are not enough to close the deal for this new generation of young apartment hunters. Millennials with healthy incomes are steeped in the belief that if they just keep looking, something perfect will come their way. They will visit dozens of apartments until they find someplace that suits the exact lifestyle they envision for themselves. They want a move-in ready unit in a hassle-free environment. In the suburbs, they typically want to be steps away from public transportation (“transit villages”) with nearby cultural and educational resources, walkable or bikeable to a dynamic town center complete with a wide variety of retail and restaurant choices. Young apartment dwellers also want to become part of a community that offers a more upbeat, healthy and relaxed atmosphere. All of this, not surprisingly, commands a higher-than-average rent…and creates an opportunity for developers who understand the vision of Millennial renters.

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This is not your father’s suburban apartment

And yet, it’s your father who may soon be moving in. One of the charming ironies of the new wave of luxury apartments in the New Jersey suburbs is that they are equally appealing to Baby Boomers who are aging out of their longtime (and often nearby) homes. For builders, this is a gift. They have two completely different demographic groups vying for what are essentially the same units in the same developments. The 50-, 60- and 70-something renters have little in common with Millennials, other than a certain kind of pragmatism. As a group, they are adjusting, not always gracefully, to the idea of senior citizenship.

With that adjustment comes the realization that their personal finances and/or health and mobility no longer support traditional homeownership. Even a generous retirement income is still a fixed income, which means budget-busting maintenance and repair projects can be earthshaking. And the physical demands of living in a multi-story house or a large property can become overwhelming at a certain age. So it is that Boomers at or near the age of retirement often find downsizing an unavoidable if not irresistible next step. Actually, the politically correct expression is now “rightsizing.”

What does right sizing look like? For most people with “too much house,” the decision is whether to move to a smaller house or to venture into the relatively unfamiliar territory of the rental market. Abandoning the family home only to replace it with a lesser version might just be moving into someone else’s headaches. Renting, on the other hand, holds the promise of less hassle and more freedom: No more calling in a repairman every time there’s a problem—instead just pick up the phone or maybe text the “super.” No more aching joints, just leave the heavy yard work to the groundskeeper. No more worrying about safety, simply enjoy the peace of mind that secure communities provide.

Checking all the boxes

What do seniors want? Older renters often choose to remain close to the old neighborhood as a comfort zone to avoid disrupting established routines—a town or two away is fine. They want to keep seeing the same doctors, shopping at the same stores, and staying close to old friends. Popular senior-specific demands include ground floor/single-story units, regular trash removal and recycling, access to a pool or some other water feature, and a resident population that includes a reasonable cross-section of age groups.

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Millennials have loftier goals for their dream apartment. They want to expand their personal horizons. They are not as concerned with details such as square footage and storage areas (since most of them are not dragging a lifetime of possessions with them). As a group, young renters are looking for a “live–work–play” environment so that space for an office/den and top-of-the-line technology takes precedence over more practical considerations.

Bookend renters do have much in common. Both groups are seeking an active, healthy, and stimulating community. Everyone looks forward to abandoning dependency on personal vehicles; they prefer the more green alternative of walking or biking to nearby stores and cultural and entertainment destinations. They might not be able to afford something fancy in Hoboken or Jersey City, but a well-designed apartment near a charming, revitalized town center or traditional Main Street tends to generate a lot of interest. Seniors want to enjoy the quality of life they have worked so hard to earn. Millennials want to create the living space they have always wanted. No one in either group objects to high-end amenities such as heated or lap pools, upscale bistros and specialty restaurants, comfy coffee bars, appropriately equipped gyms, movie and performance spaces, and community activities of all kinds. Something else they can agree on is 24/7 concierge-like services and high-tech security arrangements.

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Wooing the bookend market 

Recognizing the differences between these growing groups of high-end renters—while also seeing where their interests dovetail—can lead to some interesting (and, more importantly) profitable solutions from on-trend developers. The goal is to find common ground, literally and figuratively, in terms of location and also amenities, lifestyle preferences, and pricing implications. Despite the rising cost of construction, taxes, and land in the Metropolitan area, developers remain bullish on the New Jersey market. High-end, multi-use complexes are springing up everywhere. And with renewed interest in “downtown” living, the profit potential in rental ventures has never been more attractive.

Photo courtesy of AVE

Examples of some high-end, multi-family, and multi-use communities are the phased Harborside developments on the Jersey City waterfront (Mack-Kali), the new and renovated projects such as Pier Village on the Gold Coast of the Jersey Shore (Kushner Companies), and the West Side Lofts at Red Bank (Woodmont Properties), an upscale and upbeat apartment complex that has helped to transform a rag-tag neighborhood into a live-shop-eat-work-commute mecca for a broad swath of the bookend demographic. The most ambitious multi-use project on the drawing board is Riverton (North American Properties), which will stretch for more than a mile along the Raritan River in Sayreville. No formal date has been set for its completion.

Another successful developer on the high-end spectrum is AVE, a division of Korman Communities, a fourth-generation, family-owned company with a 100-year history in the real estate business. Korman was a pioneer of the hospitality approach to corporate housing starting back in the ’60s. AVE communities offer a flexible inventory of annual and month-to-month lease arrangements for completely customizable one- and two-bedroom units. The goal is to make residents feel at home, whether a short-term business professional or a right-sizing senior. As an owner/operator, it’s possible to customize even the smallest detail for AVE tenants. Lea Anne Welsh, President of AVE and COO of Korman Communities, attributes the company’s success to “a unique entrepreneurial spirit and an open-mindedness to be flexible and innovative.” The corporate mantra is Yes, we can!, says Welsh, “and then making it happen.”

The company is bullish on the New Jersey real estate market, with future plans that include expanding in the Route 78 corridor, the Princeton area, and the Jersey Shore Gold Coast. 

“Korman is in the business to wow people,” adds Welsh.

While no one moves into an apartment believing it will be their last, those eyeing an upscale solution or interested in engaging a multi-use community are definitely thinking long-term. Will this work for me a year from now? Five years from now? Ten years from now? A lot of research goes into this decision, whether you are an old-timer or a first-timer. What is a “bell and whistle” and what is a truly valuable amenity? Will this apartment (or this development) suit my needs as I ease into retirement? Can I raise a family here? In what ways is this neighborhood changing and growing?

The biggest question of all, of course, is Am I ready to make the move? Once you’ve cleared that hurdle, the choices are nothing short of sensational and they are only getting better. Moving in and moving up has never been easier. Or more synonymous.

Photo courtesy of AVE

Community Spirit

Earl Wilson, who bought a home in Summit in 2000, decided it was the right time to downsize last summer and determined that renting was the right choice for a single man of a certain age. “I can’t rave enough about my decision to move here,” he says of AVE Florham Park. Wilson guesses that the number of residents under 40 and over 50 are roughly the same. What he appreciates most is the warmth and sincerity of his new neighbors: “I know everybody in my building and they know me. There are plenty of group activities, but privacy is also always respected.”

One of Wilson’s neighbors is Ashli Dyas, who moved north from Atlanta, where she left a 6,000 sq. ft. home. She and her husband, David, came to New Jersey on a corporate transfer, and decided to extend the five-month lease on their 1,400 sq ft. apartment to a year. “We just knew this is where we were meant to be,” Dyas says. “Especially since renting here would mean David would not have to face shoveling any New Jersey snow.” She quickly joined a cohort of neighbors, ranging in age from 35 to 75, who have become good friends and great company. “I feel like I’m on vacation all the time. What could be better?”

Rent by Numbers

• New Jersey is the fifth most expensive rental market in the country.
• Median gross monthly rent in NJ is $1,284 vs. US $1,012.
• Rental Vacancy Rate in NJ is 4.45% vs US 6.18%.
• Two-thirds of all Americans live where it is more affordable to rent than buy.
• 40% of current renters cannot afford the down payment to buy a house.

According to a 2017 Goldman Sachs report, Millennial Renters …

• Search online for a rental (90%).
• Cannot afford to buy (78%).
• Prefer apartment living lifestyle (56%).
• Own pets (76%).
• Carry heavy student loan debt (71%).

According to a 2016 Freddie Mac report, 55+ Renters…

• Identify top attractions as…

– affordability (60%)

– amenities (40%)

– walkability (43%)

• Prefer relocating in…

– same neighborhood (23%)

– same city (31%)

– different city (18%)

– out of state (24%)

– close to family (60%)

Home healthcare is entering an intriguing new era.

By Diane Alter

Average life expectancy in the United States has risen by 5.5 years in just the last decade—the most significant increase since the 1960s. With all the distressing news about the overall health of Americans, that’s good to hear. Unfortunately, there is a dark lining to this silver cloud. Living a half-decade longer increases the likelihood that you or someone in your family, will need some kind of long-term healthcare, accompanied by all the financial, logistical and emotional stress that entails. Indeed, 2018 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data notes that a majority of Americans turning age 65 this year will at some point require it. 

In dollars and cents, that could range from the current annual median cost of $18,720 for adult daycare to $100,375 for a private nursing home room, according to Genworth’s 15th annual Cost of Care Survey. Americans currently spend more than $300 billion a year on long-term care and services, with costs increasing across all care settings, according to David O’Leary, President of Genworth’s U.S. Life Insurance division.

“We strongly advocate people at all stages of life begin planning now for the very real possibility of needing care as they grow older,” O’Leary says. “Starting a conversation about potential long-term care needs and the issues of aging isn’t easy. But honest conversations are essential to making sure that people can live life on their own terms as they grow older.”

If you do any significant TV-watching, you’ve probably noticed a proliferation of advertisers offering to help families navigate the complex issues surrounding long-term care. That’s because there has been a proliferation of choices and options in this industry, as the number of Baby Boomers “aging out” continues to grow. Needless to say, getting on the right path can be stressful and confusing, but it’s crucial, too.

One option that has gained traction over the last decade is the in-home care option. Indeed, more and more families are looking at ways to keep their parents, grandparents and elderly loved ones at home for as long as possible. With the right type of help, the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

Start Talking Now

Conversations and plans should ideally occur before home healthcare is needed, so that when it is needed, family members and loved ones are ready to step up and step in—and those in need of care are prepared for the change. These are not easy conversations. They require a level of pragmatism and honesty that is not always part of the family culture. Also, that elderly loved one may not want to budge. On anything. The main objection tends to be a lack of privacy. Most in-home care involves a trained aide or companion, on a schedule that might also involve neighbors, friends and loved ones. That can be viewed as intrusive by someone who has lived independently for 50 years.

David Moore, Director of Sales at New LifeStyles, an online site providing information on senior care options across the U.S., confirms the fact that a high percentage of seniors will fight the in-home care idea at the beginning. That’s only natural. But families should be aware of the signs that the time for home care has come. They range from subtle changes in appearance and mood to more obvious clues—including forgetfulness, confusion, unexplained bruising, a lapse in personal hygiene, clutter, and changes in weight gain. Having seniors engaged from the start, says Moore, will make a transition easier.

“Still, it’s a sensitive subject with no easy fixes,” he admits. “Do your homework. Read the fine print on any contract. The devil is in the details. For peace of mind, I recommend installing webcams to appease everyone’s concerns.”

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Linda Fodrini-Johnson, Executive Director and Founder of Eldercare Answers, suggests that, when searching for home healthcare, make sure the placement agency is licensed and has been in business for at least five years. Also, ask what kind of accreditations it has received. The company’s website offers an advanced search option that provides this information.

“But keep in mind that names appearing first are not always the best,” she says of searches. 

“Also, guidance from an objective professional is crucial. You want to make sure the person you are bringing into your home to care for a loved one is the best.”

The Pros

Assuming a senior’s current living situation is safe and secure, the advantages of an “aging in place” strategy are many. They include:

• Comfort and Familiarity
• Greater Sense of Independence
• Personalized Attention
• Faster Recovery from Injuries
• Potential Cost Savings
• Less Stressful Environment
• Tailored Plan of Care
• Greater Family Involvement
• Less Structured Family Time
• Keeping Pets
• Maintain Neighborhood/Building Friendships

These are the primary reasons why families are looking at new ways to keep their loved ones at home as long as possible. Options to consider are full-day, half-day, four-hour, overnight, and 24-hour home healthcare—usually as part of an evolving plan. Caregivers should have some kind of medical experience, a driver’s license, and come with references. Needless to say, for the companies in this business, keeping clients in their own homes is a top priority.

Take Care Companions, which places caregivers all over New Jersey, strives for just that.

“We offer companionship and assist in areas of meal planning, personal care, medication reminders and daily activities,” explains founder Theresa Kellner. “Our aim is to offer clients independence, quality of life and dignity, without overstepping.”

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Kellner says her goal is to find the “perfect” person for each situation. She does that by meeting the client and the family to assess what is going on and what is needed—now and in the future, as those needs change. This intimate involvement also prevents cultural and personality clashes. “If I wouldn’t put a caregiver with my own mother, I will not put that caregiver in anyone’s home,” she says.

The future of home healthcare in some respects is difficult to predict. In most ways, however, it is not. The number of aging Americans is growing and they are living longer. That will serve as an accelerant to technical innovation driven by artificial intelligence (AI). It’s here now and it is poised to soar throughout the space in the years ahead. Voice-based virtual assistants, wearable sensors and fall-detection monitors are growing in acceptance and right around the corner are fixtures and appliances that will double as diagnostic tools.

“It’s still early days and widespread adoption is years off, but the potential exists for AI to keep elders in their homes longer and safer,” Moore notes. “Further, these devices will help researchers better understand the aging process and to assist in creating methods to delay the process.”

Fodrini-Johnson is also excited about the prospects of AI in healthcare. Still, she believes nothing will ever replace the need for constant hands-on human intervention: “To be sure, caregivers provide respect, compassion, a sense of humor, and know when a warm hug is just the right and only thing needed.”

House Calls

Although in-home caregivers are trained to spot issues of concern, they are not doctors. That is where “telemedicine” promises to play an important role. Right now, Trinitas offers its employees access to physicians and mental health practitioners for face-to-face “examinations” online—for diagnoses, prescriptions, referrals for subsequent testing, and more—under a partnership with Horizon BCBS. Trinitas is also encouraging its own medical staff to make themselves available to see patients via the same service, Horizon CareOnline, powered by American Well, the leading national telehealth provider. For more info on this service visit horizoncareonline.com.

EDGE takes you inside the area’s most creative kitchens.

Grain & Cane Bar and Table • Grilled Salmon Tikka with Herb Salad

250 Connell Drive • BERKELEY HEIGHTS (908) 897-1920 • grainandcane.com

Scottish salmon marinated in yogurt, spices and flash grilled. Served with a tossed salad of tender herbs, pickled onion and a light citrus vinaigrette. A beautiful early winter dish that has a warm spice finish and pairs beautifully with a light red wine.

The Thirsty Turtle • Pork Tenderloin Special

1-7 South Avenue W. • CRANFORD (908) 324-4140 • thirstyturtle.com

Our food specials amaze! I work tirelessly to bring you the best weekly meat, fish and pasta specials. Follow us on social media to get all of the most current updates!

— Chef Rich Crisonio

The Thirsty Turtle • Brownie Sundae

186 Columbia Turnpike • FLORHAM PARK (973) 845-6300 • thirstyturtle.com

Check out our awesome desserts brought to you by our committed staff. The variety amazes as does the taste!

— Chef Dennis Peralta

The Famished Frog • Mango Guac

18 Washington Street • MORRISTOWN (973) 540-9601 • famishedfrog.com

Our refreshing Mango Guac is sure to bring the taste of the Southwest to Morristown.

— Chef Ken Raymond

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Pork Belly Bao Buns

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE (908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

Tender pork belly, hoison sauce and pickled cucumber served on a Chinese bun.

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Avenue • MOUNTAINSIDE (908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

This original dish has been our signature appetizer for over 20 years. Crispy seasoned sushi rice topped with homemade spicy mayo, marinated tuna, finely chopped onion, scallion, masago caviar, and ginger. Our customers always come back wanting more.

— Chef Momo

Garden Grille • Beet & Goat Cheese Salad

304 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD (973) 232-5300 • hgispringfield.hgi.com

Beet and goat cheese salad with mandarin oranges, golden beets, spiced walnuts, arugula, with a red wine vinaigrette.

— Chef Sean Cznadel

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

272 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD (973) 315-2049 • longhornsteakhouse.com

Join us for our “speedy affordable lunches” or dinner. We suggest you try our fresh, never frozen, 18 oz. bone-in Outlaw Ribeye—featuring juicy marbling that is perfectly seasoned and fire-grilled by our expert Grill Masters. Make sure to also try our amazing chicken and seafood dishes, as well.

— Anthony Levy, Managing Partner

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD (973) 467-9095 • outback.com

This is the entire staff’s favorite, guests rave about. Bone-in and extra marbled for maximum tenderness, juicy and savory. Seasoned and wood-fired grilled over oak.

— Duff Regan, Managing Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Japanese Taco

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY (718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

Choice of Tuna with wakeme, Kobe beef with sushi rice or Rock Shrimp with pineapple. Served in a crispy wonton shell, Asian slaw, topped with spicy mayo and teriyaki sauce

Ursino Steakhouse & Tavern • House Carved 16oz New York Strip Steak

1075 Morris Avenue • UNION (908) 977-9699 • ursinosteakhouse.com

Be it a sizzling filet in the steakhouse or our signature burger in the tavern upstairs, Ursino is sure to please the most selective palates. Our carefully composed menus feature fresh, seasonal ingredients and reflect the passion we put into each and every meal we serve.

Do you own a local restaurant and want to know how your BEST DISH could be featured in our Chef Recommends restaurant guide?

Call us at 908.994.5138

We welcome the community to our programs that are designed to educate and inform. Programs are subject to change.

SEMINARS

Visit www.TrinitasRMC.org for seminar listings or check for updates on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/TrinitasRMC.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Health  Services with Women In Mind

Trinitas helps provide women access to vital health services with a focus on preventive measures. These include educational programs and cancer screenings. Programs offered in English and Spanish. 

To learn more about these services, contact Amparo Aguirre, (908) 994-8244 or at amaguirre@trinitas.org

Ask the Pharmacist: Medication Management

Free of charge, by appointment only. Monthly on the 4th Tuesday, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Call (908) 994-5237.

Trinitas Health Foundation Events

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24 • 12-4 PM

Tailgate with Trinitas

New York Giants vs. Chicago Bears! Watch the game with former Giants greats!

Galloping Hill Caterers, Union, NJ

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15

Evening at the Races

Meadowlands Racetrack, Rutherford, NJ

THURSDAY, MAY 14

20th Anniversary Gala

The Venetian, Garfield, NJ

Join the foundation at this beautiful black tie event complete with fantastic live music, dancing, an incredible auction and amazing food and drink.

For more information about the Foundation or to learn more about its fundraising events, (908) 994-8249 or kboyer@trinitas.org.

Proceeds from these events benefit the patients of Trinitas Regional Medical Center. Making reservations for Foundation events is fast and easy on your American Express, MasterCard, Visa or Discover card.

TCCC SUPPORT GROUPS

Conference Room A or Conference Room B Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center

225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth NJ 07207

Living with Cancer Support Groups

All events take place from 1:00 – 3:00 pm. Call (908) 994-8535 for 2019 schedule.

MEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUPS

Sleep Disorders

If you are experiencing problems sleeping, contact the Trinitas Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center in Cranford at Homewood Suites by Hilton (easy access to the GSP). The center is headed by a medical director who is board certified in sleep, internal, pulmonary, and intensive care medicines, and is staffed by seven certified sleep technologists

For further information, call (908) 994-8694

or visit www.njsleepdisorderscenter.org

Narcotics Anonymous

2:00 pm; and Sunday 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Jean Grady, Community Liaison, (908) 994-7438 Grassmann Hall, 655 East Jersey St., Elizabeth

Alcoholics Anonymous

Friday 7:30 – 8:45 pm

Jean Grady, Community Liaison, (908) 994-7438 Grassmann Hall, 655 East Jersey St., Elizabeth

HIV Education and Support Program for HIV Positive Patients

Monthly. Call for scheduled dates/times.

Judy Lacinak, (908) 994-7605 Early Intervention Program Clinic

655 Livingston St., Monastery Building, 2nd Floor, Elizabeth

Mental Illness Support Group (NAMI) for Spanish Speaking Participants

Monthly, Fourth Friday except August, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Mike Guglielmino, (908) 994-7275 Martha Silva, NAMI 1-888-803-3413

6 So. Conference Rm., Williamson St. Campus 225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth

TRINITAS CHILDREN’S THERAPY SERVICES

899 Mountain Avenue, Suite 1A, Springfield, NJ (973) 218-6394

These workshops are appropriate for parents, teachers, or individuals who work with young children. They focus on practical strategies that can be implemented into daily classroom and home routines. All workshops offer suggestions that are appropriate for all children. A special emphasis is placed on children with special needs and those with an Autism diagnosis.

Workshops are $15 per class.

November 19, 2019  6:00 – 7:30 pm 10 Tips for Looking at Behavior Through a Mental Health Lens

December 10, 2019 6:00 – 7:30 pm

10 Tips – Make & Take Evening (make activities to take back & use in your classroom)

Limited number of registrants.

To register, e-mail your name and courses you would like to attend (include dates) to Kellianne

Martin at Kmartin@trinitas.org or by phone at (973) 218-6394 x1000.

Winter Programs: Oct. 21 – Feb. 7

All programs are offered one time per week, for 45 minutes. These programs are a great alternative to individual therapy. They give children the oppor- tunity to address key developmental areas in structured environments that are more reflective of typical real-life home 

and school situations.

Call for times and pricing.

SCRIBBLES TO SCRIPT HANDWRITING PROGRAM

An opportunity for children from preschool (prewriting) through elementary (cursive) school to work with an occupational therapist and participate in multi-sensory fine motor, visual-motor, and visual-perceptual activities to learn pre-writing skills, proper letter formation, and writing within the given lines using the Handwriting Without Tears® program.

SPORTS READINESS

An opportunity for children to work with a physical therapist and have an intro into several fall/winter sports in a non-competitive small group setting.

SOCIAL BUTTERFLIES

An opportunity for children to work with a speech & language therapist and engage in activities to address turn-taking, topic maintenance, appropriate question asking, following non-verbal cues, and using manners.

TYPING WHIZKIDS

An opportunity for children to work with an occupational therapist to learn efficient keyboarding skills, including key location and finger placement, and speed and accuracy.

More than 25 years have passed since Alison Sweeney first turned heads as the delightfully outlandish and manipulative ingénue Samantha “Sami” Brady on Days of Our Lives. The girl you loved to hate built a devoted following over the years, which extended to her seven-season stint as host of The Biggest Loser and, now, to The Chronicle Mysteries, which began airing on the Hallmark Channel in February. Sweeney produces and stars in the heart-pounding true crime series, which was inspired by her addiction to podcasts. Throughout her career, she has maintained a deep and genuine connection with her fans, which she continues to spin into entertainment gold. Gerry Strauss sat down with Alison to talk about her new project and the nature of what it means to be a good guy, a bad guy and a hero.

EDGE: So you know that the theme of this issue is “unsung heroes.” Who comes to mind when you hear those words?

AS: It’s hard not to think of the incredibly brave, hard-working firefighters, police, and all the first responders who helped battle the major wildfires in California in 2018. There are so many heartwarming stories of heroism and courage that came from each department. I am so proud and grateful for the work my husband, who is a CHP officer, and his colleagues do, and their constant selflessness in protecting others, as well as their commitment to their jobs. They are all heroes to me.

EDGE: Did the experiences of the contestants on The Biggest Loser strike you as being heroic?

AS: It was so inspiring for me to get to know them, to hear their personal stories and to see their efforts to rise above whatever was standing in their way and to overcome obstacles as they made significant changes to their lives. It was something different for everyone, but to not give up and to keep fighting? That’s heroic. Also, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several different charitable organizations, including hosting the MDA telethon. It was a gift to meet so many incredibly brave young people battling Muscular Dystrophy. They’re not just heroes for continuing to fight and stay strong in the face of such an overwhelming disease. They’re heroic because every patient I met still had hope and love and generosity in their heart for others.

EDGE: On Days of Our Lives, you were a superb antihero.

AS: What a lovely compliment [laughs] thank you! I am eternally grateful for the role of Sami and her misadventures.

EDGE: How much fun is it to play bad guys?

AS: I loved all of Sami’s schemes and machinations. It was always so fun to play as an actress, especially when she got caught. Those were always the best scenes.

EDGE: Does it seem strange to you now to have grown up, both as a person and an actress, on a daytime drama?

AS: Since I started at such a young age, I didn’t know anything else. I grew up having a relatively normal childhood, but then I went to work and played Sami, whose life was far from normal. I never confused my real life story with Sami’s, but it does feel as though I lived through both. In a way, I’m lucky. Just think of all the outrageous personal mistakes I got to experience vicariously through Sami [laughs] rather than making them in my real life!

EDGE: Whom did you look up to in your early soap days?

AS: Certainly, I always looked up to Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn through the years at Days because I was lucky to work with them a lot when I first started. It was like going to Daytime Drama University because I learned the ropes from the best. In turn, I’ve taken the opportunity to share what I know with younger actors—when they are open to it. Frankly, that’s not as common a trait anymore.

EDGE: How has social media changed the soap opera world since you became a daytime star in the 1990s?

AS: I remember joining the “World Wide Web” when soap chat rooms were first becoming a thing. I quickly found myself hooked on the instant feedback from fans. Sami always took a lot of criticism [laughs], but when she finally found herself some legitimate romantic love interests—instead of stealing someone else’s—I found the “shippers” online to be incredibly helpful. The actors that I worked with and I, we loved interacting with the fans and reading their reactions to a specific scene or cute subtle moment on camera. The fans notice everything. They appreciate the details. And they don’t forget anything. Ever. [laughs] Those are huge lessons I take with me to work every day, in whatever it is I’m doing.

EDGE: At what point did you decide that you wanted to be more than strictly a performer?

AS: I think the “producer” in me has always been there, below the surface, screaming to get out. Most people who’ve known me were not surprised at all when I announced I was developing and producing my own projects for Hallmark.

EDGE: What aspect of overseeing a project appeals to you?

AS: It’s not that I am a control freak, but I like to be a part of all the details. I love every department that contributes to making the movie the best it can be. Mostly, I love being able to choose to work with people who love it as much as I do. That is truly a blessing.

EDGE: Where did the idea for The Chronicle Mysteries come from?

AS: I am obsessed with the true crime genre— podcasts in particular. Like most people, the first season of Serial by This American Life captured my interest and I haven’t considered climbing out of the rabbit hole. There was one podcast I was listening to where the female journalist was interviewing some dodgy suspects and I thought, She’s really out there in real life, in danger. In that moment, I realized this could be a great scripted mystery series. Podcasting is a great premise because the technology is so good these days that people can really relate to it, and it’s so open that my character, Alex, could really take the podcast into any story that interests her. I think there’s a lot of potential for this…no limits!

EDGE: Has producing the series been easier, harder or different than you imagined?

AS: This is the hardest, most comprehensive project I’ve been a part of. As I mentioned, I’m so appreciative of my colleagues who are as passionate about it as I am. It’s important to me to keep challenging myself with new goals. I consider myself a storyteller, and the feedback from the viewers on the stories is so valuable to me—it makes it all worthwhile. Melissa Salmons, whom I met while she was writing at Days, is a fantastic writer and, thankfully, I got her hooked on true crime, too. We spend endless hours coming up with ideas for the episodes, the crimes, the suspects—everything. Honestly, I hope the police never have cause to look at my search history [laughs]. But seriously, there is intensity to this concept that is bigger than anything else I’ve done. I’m lucky because a lot of it can be done after I drop my kids off at school, and before soccer practice is over.

EDGE: Since you brought it up, how does a project like this fit onto your plate?

AS: I hope I continue to have the opportunity to push myself creatively, while still being the best wife and mom I know how to be. Sometimes I forget that I left the stove on and burn dinner, but the kids get to see my husband and me supporting each other, every day, through it all. To me, that’s the best role modeling we can do.

What is it about A Star Is Born that affected so many people?

It sort of reminds me of what my voice teacher told me many years ago. You never want the audience to be leaning away from you as you are singing at them, but rather that the audience is leaning into you because they want to hear you. I have talked to so many people about this film. I’ve gotten so many messages. The true star in this film is bravery…the true star in this film is perseverance. I think it’s the ability to go on when things are hard and I think that that is a tale that can be told forever.

The singer you play is so different from Lady Gaga. As an actress, how did you develop the character of Ally?

I wanted her to be completely different. What I did not have at my disposal—which I usually have—is the ability to do it all myself. I had to be collaborative with everyone around me and that ultimately stripped away all of the armor of characters that I’ve built before. So for Ally, yes it was for me beginning with not wearing makeup every day, not wearing wigs every day, dying my hair back to my natural color, taking cues from the costume fittings that we did, dressing like her on a daily basis, working hours in the studio on Ally’s music, working with [coach and adviser] Lukas Nelson and figuring out how Ally’s sound would transform as she fell in love with Jackson—and how she would sound with him, and then how she would sound later. So for me it was very much about finding a new character but finding it without all the armor that I had before.

How do you stay in the moment when you have so much to think about?

I learned at the Lee Strasberg Institute relaxation techniques where you sort of flop in a chair and you drop each part of your body, one at a time, and you really sink into the chair and you really feel relaxed. Also, being unafraid to really be in the skin of someone else. For me, that was the thrill in this, that I got to be somebody else—somebody else whose story is somewhat like mine but also so not. I was like, “I’m going to make it, I’m a singer, I’m a musician, I’m going to get this gig, I’m going to fake being my own manager on the phone and I’m going to pretend that I’m the hottest performer in town!” And the thing is that Ally is not like that. Ally was just so insecure. So I had to relax into a vulnerability that I am not normally comfortable with, but I was able to do that because of [director] Bradley [Cooper]. Bradley really made me feel comfortable. It’s about loving the skin you are in and having that self-compassion.

As a music star yourself, how do you think Bradley did portraying a rock star?

As soon as I heard Bradley sing I was like, “Oh, my god, he could be a rock star.” So I believed in him fully, right off the bat and I still do. He just did a tremendous job, the way that he portrayed a rock star with such authenticity. 

Editor’s Note: This Q&A was conducted by Samantha Fraser of The Interview People. Samantha has profiled a number of international celebrities, including Michael Bublé for the British magazine Sorted last December.

Dominic Chianese has been at this a long, long time. Longer, in fact, than even his most ardent fans probably know. Between playing the pivotal character of Johnny Ola in the first two Godfather movies and his unforgettable performance as Uncle Junior in The Sopranos, Chianese inhabited indelible characters in landmark films such as Dog Day Afternoon, All the President’s Men, And Justice for All, Fort Apache the Bronx and Unfaithful. He has also guest-starred on multiple Law & Orders and landed recurring roles on acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire, Damages and The Good Wife. His Broadway credentials stretch across three decades and include Oliver!, Richard III, Requiem for a Heavyweight and The Rose Tattoo. It was as a stage performer, actually, that Chianese first earned his show business spurs. Mark Stewart talked to Dominic about the craft of acting and his many roles, including that of Enzo on the new NBC ensemble drama The Village, which debuted on NBC March 19.

EDGE: How is film and television acting different from stage acting?

DC: It’s a different method of performance. You don’t use the body. It’s mostly in the face. If it doesn’t come out in the voice and the eyes and the facial expression, you fail.

EDGE: Did your years in the theater help you develop a screen personality?

DC: Yes, but I had to go through The Godfather first, which was my first real movie. I owe a lot to Francis Ford Coppola. That was 1971. It’s important to understand that I’d spent 20 years in the theater before I played Johnny Ola (left). I could never have made him believable without all that time in the theater… and if Francis hadn’t manipulated me when I was talking to Michael Corleone.

EDGE: How so?

DC: I started to “act” in front of the camera and you’re not supposed to do that. You’re just supposed to be the person. There’s a big difference—a different in the voice and a difference in the audience, which is the camera.

The camera does not lie, because the face is going to show everything.

EDGE: There were some impressive actors in The Godfather cast, including Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. Who else stands out among the people you’ve worked with?

DC: Oh, I’ve worked with some great actors. Al Pacino probably taught me the most. George C. Scott—who got me on East Side West/Side, my first TV show, in 1963—John Lithgow, Bobby Duvall, they all taught me something. They knew what the heck they were doing. I learned from a lot of great actors. And also my teachers: Phillip Burton and Wilson Mayer at Brooklyn College, and Walt Witcover, whose class I went to in 1962-63-64. He helped me understand what I was missing.

EDGE: How did you get into acting in the first place?

DC: My first inkling was when I was seven years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. But if you’re asking when I really put my mind to it, I was 20 years old. My voice—my love of music, of singing—is what got me into acting. I was in college, at Champlain College up in Plattsburg, New York. When I was 19, I was asked to join a group of a cappella male singers who were World War II veterans, older guys who were 26, 28, 30, on the GI Bill. They needed a bass so they gave me the job. We traveled to all the Ivy League schools. That is when I knew I was meant to do this. I knew I would definitely be performing the rest of my life. Less than a year later, the Korean conflict was starting and the college was closed down because the government needed a base. I returned to New York City. And as soon as I got off the bus, I went to the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church on East 74th Street and auditioned for Gilbert and Sullivan. I managed to land a chorus job and we toured for one whole year around the country. I was paid $110 a week, which was a fortune back in the ’50s.

EDGE: Did you think you could make a living on the stage?

DC: I spent about 10 years flirting with the idea that maybe this was not for me. The pressure was on to get an education. I ended up in 1961 with a degree from Brooklyn College, but while I was there I had Burton and Mayer, two great teachers who were experienced in the business. They encouraged me to no end. I remember I was cast in Chekov’s Three Sisters and thought I was doing a great job until the last scene. Burton said, “I don’t believe you when you’re saying goodbye to Masha. Maybe you shouldn’t be an actor”—in front of all the other kids [laughs]. Remember, I was 33 years old and had a lot of experience at that time, but I’d been doing mostly comedies and musicals. I think Burton and Wilson were in cahoots. They knew that I had natural ability creating characters and they wanted to get me to really understand the art, the technique.

EDGE: By technique what do you mean?

DC: I read a lot of Stanislavski. He developed The Method [of Physical Action] back in the 1930s. He said you can’t fake emotion. That’s all the method really is. It’s not a miracle cure or a set formula. He said you have to find your own way, really get in touch with something, so that you’re not faking the emotion. The imagination comes out in the voice. Everybody has to struggle a little to find their own technique, their “m-o”—whatever you want to call it. Once you do, you can be a lead actor or a character actor; it makes everything better, including your singing and your comedy. The analogy would be if you’re learning the piano and sit facing the opposite wall with your back to the keyboard, it’s going to be very hard to develop a technique. You have to face the piano, you have to stand a certain way and place your fingers on the keys a certain way, and that makes it easier. Most important is that, whether you’re in theater or in film, whether you’re acting in New York or a small town in Illinois, you’ve got to act the truth. You’ve got to really believe in the character and give it all you’ve got—put your concentration into the character. And then practice, practice, practice.

EDGE: Junior Soprano seemed like a challenging role. He was part manipulative psychopath and part demented old man, and you never knew how much of each you were seeing when you tuned in. Where did you draw your inspiration for that character?

DC: Junior was basically a New York-New Jersey kind of guy, so I drew him from my real life experience. Not as Mafioso [laughs] of course. I’m talking about his way of speaking. Being around so many Italian-Americans my whole life, it was easy to incorporate that into the character. Subconsciously, it was probably my father, my uncle and all the guys around the neighborhood. It was different than playing a farmer from Ohio, if you know what I’m saying…it came naturally to me.

EDGE: Junior was definitely losing it by the end of the series. Was that difficult to play?

DC: I’ve spent a good 30 years going to nursing homes and performing for people, so some came from that experience. But, again, a lot of it came from technique. You know, in order to play drunk in the theater, you have to play sober. You’re trying not to show that you’re drunk. So to play a guy with Alzheimer’s, you have to concentrate on something else, so it looks like you don’t know what you’re doing. I knew that people with Alzheimer’s have a way of not looking you in the eye, and of asking questions and not expecting an answer right back. There’s something missing.

EDGE: Everyone here in New Jersey basically adopted you from that role.

DC: I know [laughs] I know. Especially the people from Belleville!

EDGE: Tell me about your connection to New Jersey beyond the character you played in The Sopranos.

DC: Jersey is where my father did his bricklaying work. We lived in the Bronx but I used to go to Jersey all the time throughout the 1950s. I was always going to Jersey on the bus to lay brick with my father. We’d go to Newark. We’d go to Short Hills. We’d go to Paterson. We’d go to Clifton, where [Sopranos creator] David Chase lived as a little boy. I actually worked on the apartment he lived in, in 1952.

EDGE: Having been part of some legendary ensemble casts. I’m curious. Does your new show, The Village, have a live-theater ensemble feel to it?

DC: I never thought of that but, yeah, that’s definitely true. There is a good, collaborative feeling. The connections are like live theater. The writers are wonderful on this show. I’m very optimistic about The Village. It’s a show about real people, it’s not concentrated on a particular character. I just love the cast and crew on this show, I really do.

EDGE: What do you think the viewers will find most appealing?

DC: I think the fact that the issues are real. There’s a pregnant teenager, a returning veteran, immigration themes, an old man from a nursing home. It’s been very well written and represented here. It’s a show everybody can connect with no matter where you live. It’s about a community, and that’s what I like very much. We’re all in one building in Brooklyn. I grew up that way in the Bronx. We knew everyone from the first floor to the fifth floor. So for me it’s very familiar.

EDGE: Do you see a younger version of yourself when you look around the set?

DC: God no! [laughs] I do see great young actors. It takes me back to when I did my first TV show.

EDGE: So how do you strike a balance between the film and theater technique in this case?

DC: Film is different, but the imagination you use is the same—whether you do theater or film. In this case, the actual performance has to be attuned to the camera as opposed to the live audience. I feel very relaxed with The Village. When you’re relaxed and you’re connecting with your fellow actors, you’re just having a good time.

You had a five-year absence in front of the camera prior to Hotel Artemis.

Well, I directed two movies and a whole bunch of television in between the last five years. I’ve been busy. That’s my priority, directing, and I’ve said that in my fifties that directing would take priority. I needed to really commit to that, but if I found something to act in that works, that’d be great.

The last role that you did in front of the camera was Elysium, which [also] had a class warfare theme. Is that a coincidence or is that something that resonates with you?

Yeah, it probably does. Income inequality is going to be a part of science fiction because that’s what we’re facing in the future…and climate change, problems with healthcare, no water in the sea, police brutality. These are all themes in Hotel Artemis. We’re looking at the next twenty-five years at what’s going to happen. That’s what science fiction is. It’s prescient about where we’re headed.

Why do movies depict such a grim future for humanity?

Well, we see it as grim. It may just be an evolution of where we’re headed. I mean, you look at The Matrix, right? That was a really prescient movie…people are like, Oh my God, this is where we’re going to be? That’s just crazy. But that is where we are now—I look at my kids on a Sunday morning and that’s where they are. And it’s okay. It’s just the evolution of our species. Technology has been a really, really fascinating point of departure of evolution for our culture.

How so?

Think how long it took for human beings to lose their hair on their bodies, right? We didn’t need it anymore because we got clothes. Well, it took about five seconds for technology and the digital revolution to change everything overnight. It took thousands of years for every other [type of] evolution. But digital technology has changed everything overnight—whether it’s the stock market, whether it’s the influence of media on our politics, whether it’s viruses, or algorithms—and how algorithms speak to each other—I mean, for science fiction it’s the best thing ever. Talk about being a working mom and raising boys. It’s just a great experience. I loved having boys. I’ve loved watching them. It’s fascinating to me because it’s different. Their puberty is so different. And I have such a close relationship with them. It has been really great for me in a way to come to really understand men, in a way, through them…it’s a beautiful bond. Yeah, the boy thing is special. 

Editor’s Note: This Q&A was conducted by Izumi Hasegawa of The Interview People. She was born and raised in the Shusse Inari Shrine in Shimane, Japan, where she received a Shinto priest certification. She works as a film journalist and owns Hollywood News Wire Inc. and runs WhatsUpHollywood.com.

Photo by Rebecca Sanabria

In every generation, there is a young woman—typically an entertainer—who can legitimately be called “America’s Sweetheart.” For a broad swath of current-day adults, the object of their affection and admiration back in the day was Tiffani Thiessen, aka Kelly on Saved By the Bell. Unlike most sweethearts, however, the qualities that made Thiessen so appealing have remained undiminished as they have grown deeper and increasingly complex. Through a career that has seen her play a bad girl on Beverly Hills 90210, a seductress in Hollywood Ending and an FBI consultant on White Collar, she has never lost an ounce of her humor, charm or likeability. Pairing her unique accessibility with a love for food and friends, she created her own culinary brand, including a television series (Dinner at Tiffani’s), a lifestyle website and a cookbook that hits stores this October. Gerry Strauss caught up with Tiffani over the summer, as she prepared to start on the second season of the Netflix sitcom Alexa & Katie, in which she plays the mother of a teenage daughter struggling with the dual challenges of freshman year in high school and a cancer diagnosis.

EDGE: From a young age, you’ve spent most of your life as a working, on-the-go celebrity. How did your family shape your lifestyle, your values and your love of cooking?

TT: I always say I come from good stock. My parents showed me that kindness is key and to treat people the way you want to be treated. I grew up in the kitchen with my mom, grandmother, and aunt, so you could say that I have always loved cooking. But I really started entertaining more when I bought my first house. I loved having people over and having them gather around my table. A lot of my recipes are from my own family, so there is definitely a lot of heart behind them. I am all about food bringing people together around the table, hence my new cookbook’s title, Pull Up A Chair.

EDGE: Has your own approach to proper diet changed from when you were growing up?

TT: I am definitely more aware of what goes into my body and what my body is getting nutritionally from what I am feeding it. But having kids makes you look at food differently, too. We grow a lot of our own fruits and veggies and also raise our own chickens. That, in itself, has really taught my children and me the value of good, nutritious food and how important organic food is to our bodies. I have loved cooking since I was little and the passion continued to grow as I got older. I was fortunate enough to turn it into a show and book.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

EDGE: What surprised you the most about hosting Dinner at Tiffani’s?

TT: Oh gosh, probably how many people found it fun to watch some familiar faces cook and laugh alongside me. I love to eat and drink with people I enjoy being around, which is why I created the show—and I guess others did, too. It’s funny because most of the people that came onto my show were people that I knew, and I knew well—whether it was a working relationship where we maintained a friendship over the years, or it was a new relationship that came about because I was working with them. There was one person that I actually met on the show that I became pretty close with afterwards because we were brought together by a mutual friend. He came onto the show and then I kept having him back because we clicked, and I could not have loved him more. That was a guy named Ross Anderson, who I just absolutely adored, and I felt like he was one of those people that I can’t believe we weren’t friends 20 years ago. But we’re making up for long-lost time now, you know?

EDGE: With Dinner at Tiffani’s and your social media presence and now your new book, your personal life and family have been opened up to the world like never before. Is that something that has taken some getting used to?

Upper Case Editorial Services

TT: I have always naturally been open with my fans to the extent that I am comfortable with sharing. With the cookbook. it just gives people more insight to my home and the stories behind all my recipes, which I am excited to share. The show only showed my kids briefly. Plus, I’ll share a little secret a lot of people don’t know about. All three seasons of my cooking show were shot on location [laughs]—I never shot in my house!

EDGE: Is there something special about seeing your name on a cookbook?

TT: Oh my goodness—it almost feels surreal! This is something I have dreamt of for a long time. It was more than three years in the making, so seeing my name on the cover is a “pinch-me” moment for sure.

EDGE: Speaking of pinch-me moments, what was your initial reaction to the opportunity to be on a new teen based sitcom like Alexa & Katie?

TT: At first I was like, They want me to play a mom to two teenagers? But I really fell in love with the story they were telling. It’s a comedy, but one that has so much heart. It’s definitely not your conventional sitcom. And I have to say, the cast and the chance to work with Netflix was another big plus. I read the script and was truly moved by what they created on the page, so I wanted to be a part of this story. Everyone can say that they have been touched by cancer in some way and I think this show does a beautiful job of showing the life of a kid who is going through that.

EDGE: Your television career began around the same age as your Alexa & Katie co-stars, Paris Berelc and Isabel May. Is there a full-circle aspect to the experience?

TT: It is so fun. It brings back a lot of memories for me personally. The girls often come to me for advice—which I have to say I love. They are both such amazing girls. They are extremely hardworking and are always eager to learn more, which reminds me of myself when I was their age.

EDGE: Looking back now, which role do you regard as the biggest game-changer?

TT: That’s a hard question because I’ve had so many shows and films. Thank God, I can say that it’s been a long career, and each role and each job has done something different for me. There was my very first big show, Saved by the Bell, and what it taught me in the sense that I was brand new in the business. I traveled, I learned all about how to be on-camera—what a multicamera sitcom was all about—and how to really schedule between having to work and having to go to school. Then, after going through that, I got older and landed on 90210, which was my first experience being on a film show and being on a show that was a little bit older, a different tone of a show. There were edgier storylines that were a little harder to swallow and to make sure that we did correctly on TV. Then there were more current shows, where I was able to be a mother and be able to have two kids during working on a show like White Collar, so it’s hard to say that I had one role that really elevated me in a different way. They really all kind of did that for me in different ways.

USA Network/Jeff Eastin & Warrior George Productions

EDGE: I’d have to imagine that working on films like Woody Allen’s Hollywood Endings was memorable in its own way as well.

TT: Oh gosh, very much so. I mean, you put the name Woody Allen to it and of course it’s a different experience because you’re working with one of the greats. That whole experience for me was absolutely one of my most memorable, right from the moment I got the call to come to New York and actually meet and audition for him. They felt that I was too young for the role I’d gone out for, so they actually created a new role in the movie for me. Not only was I working with him, but it was really my first time working in New York City as a young adult and working with amazing people like Téa Leoni and George Hamilton and Debra Messing—people that I always had looked up to. That was pretty amazing in and of itself. And then to be able to go to Cannes with him for that film is something that will be in my memory box for the rest of my life. I still pinch myself that I got to experience that and to be able to have that as part of my career, you know?

EDGE: The series White Collar offered you the chance to work alongside notable actors again, including Treat Williams, Diahann Carroll and Willy Garson. Did you spend time under anyone’s learning tree during your years on that cast?

TT: I always try to learn different things from different people, but I would say Willy Garson was probably someone that I was the closest to on the show, He really was the guy that took me under his wing. He had lived in New York prior for many years doing Sex and the City and he knew that city left and right. He really showed me New York, probably better than any tour guide ever could. Being that we are both foodie people, it was like a match made in heaven.

EDGE: You’ve played so many characters throughout your career, from teen to temptress to mom and everything in between. Looking back, which role was closest to the “real Tiffani” at the time?

TT: I would definitely have to say Elizabeth Burke on White Collar, for sure. I got to play the same character for the entire series, and the writers tailored that character to me so well—from the relationship that she had with her husband, to her interests and personality—it all very much spoke to me.

Editor’s Note: Tiffani Thiessen’s new cookbook, Pull Up a Chair: Recipes from My Family to Yours, is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Its 336 pages are replete with 125 family recipes that she picked to “bring people together”—ranging from Stuffed French Toast to Short Rib Enchiladas (husband Brady’s favorite) and Curried Deviled Eggs to Boozy Date Milkshakes…and desserts including Mom’s Cream Cheese Pie. Her lifestyle website tiffanithiessen.com offers an intimate look at her family life and work. Tiffani’s sitcom, Alexa & Katie, debuted last March and was renewed by Netflix for a second season a month later.

You had what most people would consider an unconventional childhood. Looking back, what did your mom and dad get right in terms of nurturing your talent and creativity?

They were incredibly brave. My father was a musician and he was the creative side of my parents, while my mom was more analytical. She was an office manager.

So two different parenting philosophies that came together. 

They loved and adored me and made me feel I could do anything in the world I wanted to do.

What were their aspirations for you?

My dad’s dream was that I might eventually join his band and that we could go on tour together. As much as I love music and have it around me—I married a musician and have musical children—I went into dancing and eventually found my way into acting. Because I was a methodical child when I went to them at 14 and said “I have a plan…I want to move to L.A. when I’m 16, do I have your blessing?” they knew I was serious and supported me. When I became a parent, I looked back. When my kids were 14 and 16, I don’t think I would have been comfortable with that.

Which of their parenting skills have you embraced?

My husband and I always encourage our kids to follow their dreams and their instincts. It’s more important for you to be happy than ”successful.” Find a career that feeds your soul and makes you feel good. That’s a thing that I definitely pulled from my childhood. 

You played Shelly on Twin Peaks as a young woman and now you are back in the same role, playing the mother of a young woman. Was that unexpected?

It was definitely a surprise that she was a mother of an early-20s child, who is following in her mom’s footsteps in an abusive relationship—and also to show that Shelly hasn’t emerged from that cycle, either. It was fascinating for me to see what David Lynch and Mark Frost wrote. Shelly has to think about what advice she would give and that fine line of protecting her without pushing her too far away. It threw me at first, but that story of the cycle that didn’t break…it is an important one to tell.

In Riverdale, you’re a different type of mom.

Yet she’s a mother in a similar way to Shelly, in terms of wanting to protect her children. She just goes about it in a completely opposite manner. Shelly is trying to keep her distance and show her daughter love, whereas Alice steps in every single time. She’s completely overbearing, a bull in a china shop—but with the same good intentions. 

Editor’s Note: Mark Stewart conducted this interview, which strayed into some fascinating territory after the allotted time. For 5 more minutes with Mädchen Amick log onto EdgeMagOnline.com.

To make it big in the world of situation comedy, you can’t be just another pretty face. In fact, jaw-dropping good looks often work against you. Jaime Pressly was an absolute revelation in the demented, over-the-top sitcom My Name Is Earl—giving as good as she got with comedy veterans Jason Lee and Ethan Suplee, and setting new standards for questionable parenting as Earl’s ex-wife, Joy. Now a mother herself (son Dezi is 11 and twins Leo and Lenon were born last year), Pressly has landed on yet another hit comedy series, co-starring with Alison Janney and Ana Faris in Mom. Gerry Strauss talked to Jaime about her unique upbringing, and how it has influenced her career choices.

EDGE: After your Emmy-winning performance as Joy on My Name Is Earl, the world got a chance to fall in love with you again as Jill when you joined the cast of Mom in the show’s second season. What appealed to you about the new role?

JP: Well, the first thing that was appealing was the fact that Chuck Lorre called me and said he wanted me to do it. Anytime Chuck Lorre calls you and says he wants you to do something, you’re like, “Yup, okay.” It’s kind of like if [My Name Is Earl creator] Greg Garcia were to call me and say he wants me to do something, I’m there. So the opportunity to work with him was a no-brainer for me. And to go to work with Allison Janney and Anna Faris? That was another no-brainer for me.

EDGE: Jill is in recovery. Was that interesting to you?

JP: I was excited about the role…when Chuck called, he said, “She’s a girl who’s a recovering drug addict and alcoholic.” At the beginning, we thought she was going to be bipolar. I was like, “Well that sounds interesting. Write me in, I’m down.” The writing on Mom is incredible—much like the shows, I loved when I was a kid, like Roseanne and Maude and All in the Family and Cheers and Golden Girls. All those shows weren’t afraid to end on a low note. They had drama and comedy, and the comedy came from real-life drama, which is what made it real. It wasn’t just hitting the punchline.

EDGE: As a mom yourself, how does the shooting schedule work?

JP: I just couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity. To be able to go to work and have that great schedule when I am a mom was extremely appealing. Unlike the schedule on Earl, which was tougher because it was single camera. You know, I get to come home. I get to be with my kids in the morning and at night.

EDGE: How about your own childhood, growing up in Kinston, North Carolina? I know you competed in gymnastics. Were you a competitive kid?

JP: It was a pretty idyllic childhood, I’m not going to lie. It was a tiny, tiny town, and everybody knew each other. We rode our bikes to school in kindergarten all the way through. It was safe. My mom was a dance teacher—she only retired like a year ago. I was a gymnast for 11 years but I was actually more of a dancer. I danced for like 25 years. And competitive? No. I’m only competitive with myself. Even with going on a casting call or an audition, I would talk to everybody in the room because I’m not out to cut anybody’s throat. If I get the job, great. If I don’t, good luck to you. So it has always just been about topping myself, not anybody else.

EDGE: What do you think your parents passed down to you?

Upper Case Editorial

JP: I would say, from my mom, I learned discipline, because dancing teaches you discipline certainly. My dad would tell me that good things come to those who wait, so from him, it was more about taking things slow and learning how to be patient. With my mom, it was about learning discipline and working hard for what you get. And then manners came from both my parents because we’re southern… you know, it’s a thing there. Everything was really about manners. And with my kids, everything is about manners. My son Dezi, who’s almost 11, he’s one of the most polite children you’ll ever meet out here, I promise, in California.

EDGE: When you began your modeling career, you had to be legally emancipated from your parents’ care. How did that go down?

JP: It wasn’t a bad thing. It wasn’t like I divorced my parents. It was because neither of them could go with me, and as a teenager, I had to get past child labor laws. So we emancipated me so that I could go to Japan on the contract.

EDGE: Amicable as it may have been, you were still very young to be traveling and living on your own… across the globe, no less. Did you feel ready?

JP: I was. I had no fear. You know, really, fear never came into my body until I had a child. I was just fearless in every way. I was excited and eager to travel. It was fun for me— although I can’t imagine ever sending my child away at 15 and not going with them. But for me, it was different. I was a different kid. I grew up very quickly and I had a good head on my shoulders. I knew what I wanted, and I was a fighter. I wanted to get out there and see the world and I wanted to travel. So it never even crossed my mind to be afraid.

EDGE: When did acting enter the picture? 

JP: I always wanted to act. I started out modeling first because I had entered a model search when I was back home in North Carolina. I found it in the back of a magazine, and I ended up winning. My mom and I came out here to California, and they brought us back out again because they wanted me to shoot for the cover of Teen magazine. Two other girls and I ended up getting it, and my mom and I moved out the month that my first cover came out, which was June of ’92. So that was how I got my foot in the door. But standing in front of the camera and just posing was never the plan. It was fun for a minute and I loved the travel. But it was never my end-game plan, by any means.

Chuck Lorre Productions/Warner Television

EDGE: A couple of your early roles involved some nudity and sexuality. Were you comfortable being placed in those situations?

JP: I was and I wasn’t. I mean, there were moments of me feeling like I hate doing this, but like I said, I grew up as a dancer. Dancers are very comfortable with their bodies. Also, I had a European brain back then when it came to showing your body, so I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. And then, you know, you have kids and you cover up. Overall, I didn’t love it and I can tell you that the manager that I had for many years pushed me in that direction. So it wasn’t necessarily my choice, but it was how I was managed. Whether that was right or wrong, I have my own opinions but you know, it worked.

Courtesy of Original Film

EDGE: It seems as if you began to hit your stride in the teen comedies of the late-1990s—movies like Can’t Hardly Wait. How was that experience?

JP: It’s just the age that I was. We were all well out of high school. None of the people that were ever in those movies were actually teenagers. We were all adults. But those were the roles, those were the movies that were hot at the moment, and so everybody was in them.

Chuck Lorre Productions/Warner Television

Can’t Hardly Wait had everybody in it—I swear—and then Not Another Teen Movie. I mean, Chris Evans, Captain America, came out of that, you know? The roles were fun, the scripts were good and it was experience. The movies did well in the theaters, so it wasn’t like it was a bad direction to go in. And at that age, those are the roles that are offered. The older you get, the better the roles get, the more intense and deep and meaningful the roles might be. When you’re younger, you’re catering to the younger demographic and the younger demographic doesn’t exactly go out and watch heavy movies.

EDGE: Let’s talk about My Name Is Earl. You won numerous awards for your role as Earl’s ex-wife.

JP: Awards were never something on my brain. I never even imagined—I mean, every kid that wants to be an actor imagines accepting the award one day—but I never actually thought it would happen. It never occurred to me that I would even be nominated, to be honest with you. So I just was doing what I loved to do with an incredible group of people, with amazing writing that I was so fortunate to have. It was never like, a plan: I’m going to do this and go win awards.

EDGE: And of course the irony is that Joy was never meant to be a recurring character.

JP: Joy was only supposed to be in three episodes. I was given an incredible opportunity by the creator, Greg Garcia, to just kind of do my thing. After doing those three episodes, I was like, “You know, I really want to be here. I love it here, I don’t want to leave.” And so he just started writing me into all the episodes because he didn’t want me to leave, either. Thankfully. Earl was one of the greatest experiences of my life. 

TV Doctor Benjamin Hollingsworth of “Code Black”

What kind of research is involved in playing the role of Dr. Mario Savetti? It takes a lot of hard work and preparation to get to a point where you can convincingly play a doctor on TV. We pride ourselves in our ability to portray the medical world as authentically as possible. I’ve probably done about 300 hours of medical training and boot camp. I understand how to work with a central line, intubation, chest tube, thoracotomy and just about every major ER procedure from start to finish. And I’ve actually gotten good at stitching. When people need their pants hemmed, I can suture to help save on tailoring costs!

In what ways is your personal reality similar to your Code Black character’s?

I live my excitement at work—which is something I think we share—and I also have a competitive nature…but, of course, I don’t save lives. Something else he and I share is that we don’t come from a super-wealthy family. I attended a prestigious acting school, but I had to work my way to get there with barely any connections, and I’ve had to fight for my roles—and I’ve had to really put in the work to get them.

What do you admire about him?

He has this ability to survive. Angels Memorial is one of the toughest places in the world to work, and he not only survives but he excels. I really admire his ability to handle just about every situation thrown at him. He’s very instinctual, which is what makes him such a good ER doctor. He doesn’t question himself. He works really hard to know what he needs to do and he’s good at doing it. That absence of self-doubt is one of his greatest strengths. You co-star in the upcoming action film Hard Powder with Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum and William Forsythe. 

How does being part of a cast like that help you refine your craft?

Any time you get to share the screen with such talented veterans, you learn. I have conservatory training. I spent three years learning a craft, but one of the biggest things I learned in theater school was that you never stop learning. So even now, a decade after graduating, I’m still going to work and learning from the best.

You did an episode of Degrassi about 10 years ago. Is that some sort of right of passage for Canadian actors?

Yes [laughs] this was my first role out of theater school. It’s definitely a Canadian rite of passage! Degrassi opened up a lot of opportunities. I made a lot of good friends and we stayed in touch. When I first got started down in L.A., they were also there and we would all get together. There were a lot of friendships that formed from the show. It was great. 

Editor’s Note: Editor-at-Large Ashleigh Owens actually spent a good 10 minutes with Ben Hollingsworth. To read 5 More Minutes with the Code Black star—and learn about his 2018 film projects— log onto Edgemagonline.com.

You don’t often hear it discussed, but the role of “television nurse” is among the most coveted in the entertainment business. Like real-life nursing, it offers the challenge of creating order from chaos, as well as the opportunity to leave an indelible imprint on every shift. It has supercharged the careers of many of our finest actors (Julianna Marguilies , Maura Tierney, Loretta Swit, and Edie Falco, to name a few) and given us countless unforgettable TV moments. Marlyne Barrett brings something extra-special to the role of Maggie Lockwood, Head Charge Nurse at Gaffney Medical Center in the NBC series Chicago Med. She has a real-life nursing degree, and several family members—including her mother and sister—are medical professionals. While playing a nurse is literally second nature to Barrett, she has been winning critical acclaim for her stage and screen performances for more than a decade, including an unforgettable turn as a crooked politician on The Wire. EDGE editor Mark Stewart wanted to know what it takes to balance the subtle strength and intense conflict her characters exude. As he discovered, it comes naturally. But never easily.

EDGE: I think about the characters you’ve played throughout your career and they are without exception powerful and highly competent women. Do you look for those roles as an actor, or do they find you?

MB: That’s a chicken and egg question, isn’t it? Where you are in your career often mirrors where you are with your characters. What you can play in a rich, dimensional way often determines the roles available to you. What you ask yourself as an actor is: Am I ready to do this role…and is this role ready for me?

EDGE: What are the demands of the Maggie Lockwood character on Chicago Med?

MB: Maggie plays the spirit of the E.D. She’s the one that maintains the professionalism and the humanity. The current of her presence impacts the entire atmosphere. When you initially get a role like Maggie, you’re like I can do it I can do it and you find the swagger in the character, and you’re really excited to have the swagger. Now three seasons in, Maggie is in a place where she’s asking herself about her signature in nursing.

EDGE: It’s interesting how much depth has been added to this character this season. Why now?

MB: I think Maggie is one of those characters that the writers put in their back pocket for later development. You watch these shows where they may introduce new characters in the third season to bring a fresh breath to a show. Chicago Med is a little different. What we’ve decided to do is to develop Maggie slowly, to be kind of an ace in the hole. So you sprinkle her everywhere in seasons one and two, and here we are in the third season expanding Maggie in some really interesting ways.

EDGE: I hope you take a little credit for that.

MB: Oh, definitely. And I’ve enjoyed this process. When you know you’re going to play a character for many years, you want a slow burn. Unless you’re going to do it the British way, where in one season you may have six episodes. As an actor, it’s better to have these back pocket moments with the characters you’re developing.

EDGE: Normally, an actor spends weeks shadowing the real-life version of the person they are playing. Since you had a nursing degree, did you get a reprieve from that? A note from the doctor?

MB: No [laughs] but it was helpful. The cast actually works with Dr. Andrew Dennis frequently for medical rehearsals, but we don’t see nurses that often. However, there was a nurse at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago who influenced how I play Maggie Lockwood. Her name is Gloria. I remember walking into a situation where a woman who had been hit by a semi was wheeled into the emergency room. Her body was pretty damaged. Gloria was so focused, working her environment like a symphony conductor…she had syringes, she was advising nurses what to do, she was assessing the situation, she was not overwhelmed by the urgency. The maturity in her eyes told me she knew exactly what she was doing, And the wrinkles in her face made me understand that there had been a price paid for her talent in nursing.

EDGE: Are those wrinkles familiar?

MB: I definitely recognize them in my sister, who is a doctor, a young doctor. And I recognize them in my mother, who is about to retire as a NICU nurse. The vocation anchors itself in you. It drives a depth of commitment inside you. The deeper you go into this commitment of bringing healing to people’s lives, the more it invades your life. Nursing isn’t just something my mother did. It was part of her language, part of her swagger, part of her education, part of everything. Same thing with my sister.

EDGE: Maggie can be pretty tough on the young doctors and nurses. Did you get pointers from your mother and sister?

MB: I’ve never seen my mother interact with the residents. But it is something I actually witnessed firsthand in nursing school. And I’ve seen it in my sister. Often senior nurses and doctors collaborate to ensure that young doctors become the doctors the profession should have, so being tough is a calculation made to improve and maintain the healing atmosphere you offer patients.

EDGE: If you never planned to work as a nurse, why get the degree?

MB: It was a promise I made to my parents. My father worked for Siemens as a medical engineer. And we have cousins who are doctors and nurses. So it’s a family thing. When immigrants—my family is from Haiti—come into this country, this is what they call “royal” blue-collar jobs. Doctors, nurses, engineers. There is a regal-ness to doing these professions. You can use these jobs to enter any area of society.

Courtesy of NBC Universal

EDGE: Tell me about the friendship you built with Ian McShane (above) while you were on the NBC series Kings.

MB: Everyone, in a number of professions, across the board, says the same thing about that man: Ian McShane is an authentic, incredible human being and a phenomenal artist. Ian was involved in the resurrection of my career. There is a five-year gap in my résumé. I was the victim of an assault. I’m a person who loves to laugh. I love life. I love human beings. After I was assaulted, to say that I was distraught would be an understatement. I became introverted and depressed. I needed a lot of prayer and a lot of counseling, in addition to the physical help I received. During that time of major pain, that’s when I met my husband. I met him a month after the event. He took the time to love on me well. And it was Ian McShane who was my true north.

EDGE: How so?

MB: Ian was there to help me get back on my feet. I thought I was leaving acting for good. He did not think that I was, and he said that when I was ready to come back, I should contact him. When the time came, I reached out to a lot of friends who were A-listers, people with whom I had worked. They said Yeah, I’ll help you. But I never heard from them, really. I made one call to Ian and he had representation ready to hear from me, he had a meeting set up for me, and within two weeks I was back on-air, on American Crime.

EDGE: He has a reputation for being generous as an actor, too.

MB: Yes exactly. You know, I did a scene with Ian on Kings and, after it was done, I was so bummed. I felt like, Man I wish I’d done that a different way. I went to see him the following day and said, “Hey remember that scene we did by the water?” He said, “Ya, doll. It was great, love.” I told him I felt there was something missing there. He said, “No, no. It was great.” I got very serious and told him he had a chance to pass on his gift and make me a part of his legacy. He laughed. And then he gave me the instruction. Well, you could do this, this, this and this— giving me pointers on how he’d approach it. From then on he really expanded my craft. And after Kings, I wanted to do some studying in London. He wrote me a great letter of recommendation to his alma mater, RADA [the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] and I went on to study there.

EDGE: I would be remiss if we didn’t talk about your two seasons on The Wire. Nerese Campbell (facing page) was a brilliantly conceived character—a politician who used people and power in the same ways the criminals did. You were disturbingly convincing. 

HBO/Blown Deadline Productions

MB: Thank you! I made the conscious decision that if Nerese—as a politician—was going to rub shoulders with the boys, we were going to dance. It was Baltimore. And the truth is that I wanted her to go all the way to Washington. I calculated this idea that having a law degree and going into politics, she knew she would be dealing with people who weren’t necessarily refined. So what would I bring to the table when I wanted to sway a situation? I needed something as strong as a gun—something in her speech that was as potent as gunpowder, something so specific that my words balanced between intelligence, wisdom, and a threat. That’s what I thought Nerese was—all in a sexy body. There was one scene that captured her perfectly. She is going to work in her Mercedes on a sunny day, Bubbles is passing by and hands her a newspaper. Her window goes up, she opens the newspaper and we see that her illegal activity is on the front page. She’s exposed. And we see her, through the window, cursing like it’s her first language. Not like a politician, but like a gangster.

EDGE: So having lived through these two characters, Maggie Lockwood and Nerese Campbell, what do you think you’d be if you weren’t acting?

MB: [Laughs] A gangsta nurse.

What can you say about a standup comic who heckles himself? In the case of Jim Gaffigan, you can’t say enough. His observational comedy on the challenges of parenting, horrendous eating habits, and his own laziness has made him the most American of American comics. Professionally, Gaffigan is living the dream. He has conquered every platform a comedy icon can: television, film, radio, large venue, small venue, voiceover, publishing, CDs, DVDs, writing, directing and producing. He even earned rave reviews on Broadway in That Championship Season. Gaffigan, who received his third Best Comedy Album Grammy nomination this year for Cinco, will be making a stop in the Garden State this summer on his Fixer Upper Tour, with two shows scheduled for The Borgata in Atlantic City on August 4. Jim Sawyer caught Jim between gigs a few days before the tour began. 

EDGE: Is there such a thing as a “New Jersey audience?”

JG: New Jersey is three different worlds. And I’m sure it’s more than that. There’s Northern New Jersey, which is the suburb of New York, and there’s South Jersey, which is decidedly influenced by Philly. And then there’s the Jersey Shore.

EDGE: What do they have in common?

JG: You know, there is something about the Northeast. I chose to live in the northeast—I talk about this in my new special. What I love about Jersey is that it has this Northeast anger and passion, where, if you don’t deliver they’re going to throw you out. Yet Jersey also has this quality of “being taken on” by other states in the Northeast. I’m from one of those states, Indiana, which has to deal with being the butt of other cities’ jokes. So there’s a similar underdog quality that translates to a certain amount of pride.

EDGE: Do you set aside specific time for writing or do you jot down ideas as they come to you and develop them when you can?

JG: You know it’s always changing. Sometimes it is jotting down things on my iPhone and kind of fooling around. I wish it was more like that. But, sometimes it’s, you know, 20 minutes before a show talking to my friend who works with me on the show and I’m just coming up with an idea. Yeah, so I wish I could figure out where it all comes from because I’d go to that mind a lot more. But, in the end, there is nothing more rewarding than coming up with a new joke, or a new chunk, a topic.

EDGE: When you have reached the top of the comedy business- which you have- you have to think a lot more about the “business of comedy.” How has your business model changed over the years, and where do you see it evolving in the future?

JG: I think standup comedy, over the time that I’ve done it, has changed so dramatically in just accessibility to the public. And it’s changed from you get five minutes, and you try to get on the Tonight Show to you provide hour specials and they’re consumed on different platforms. My journey has changed so much. But I love writing new hours of material and finding myself getting better at standup.

EDGE: Is that a constant challenge?

JG: It’s all about self-refinement, right? So I don’t know. I love standup so much and it’s something I feel like I’m getting better at. So I like where it’s heading and, who knows, it’s like, in five years it will be a completely different business. When I did Beyond The Pale on Comedy Central that’s probably one of the more impactful things that happened in my career. But, in the next 10 years, there will probably be two other things that are the equivalent of YouTube or Netflix or satellite radio. Things just really keep changing and making standup more accessible to the world frankly.

EDGE: What are the parenting challenges that are peculiar to your particular profession?

JG: I think the unique one is probably balancing travel. I mean I’ve made a point of traveling as much as I can with my kids. You know, you forgo kind of making money on some trips, but I wouldn’t do it any other way. And I think the other thing is as a comedian, by necessity, you have to peak at night. Whereas parenting, it’s a 24-hour job.

EDGE: What for you is the most important part?

JG: I think the morning is a very important job. When I get the opportunity to go to school with my kids or drop them off…I wish I could do that more often. But, if I’m flying in from doing a show and I get home at 1:00 a.m., it’s unlikely that I’m going to be able to get up and make them eggs.

EDGE: You’ll be at The Borgata this summer. Casino crowds traditionally have been different than theater and club crowds. Do you find that’s still the case?

JG: It used to be much more the case. But now, you know, whether it’s The Borgata or Vegas, I think people are there for the shows. It’s kind of changed dramatically—just as performing at colleges has changed dramatically. Obviously, the casinos want people to stick around. But a lot of the venues in casinos are just so beautiful, they’re the best in the area, just great venues.

THE GAFFIGAN FILE

Born: July 7, 1966

Birthplace: Chesterton, Indiana

College: Georgetown Class of 1988

Residence: New York City

Fun Facts

• At the age of five, Jim announced that he wanted to grow up to be “an actress.”
• Jim was a football star in high school and played varsity ball in college.
• Jim took a comedy class after moving to New York in the late 1980s and fell in love with standup.
• His beloved Hot Pockets routine was inspired by an actual commercial that he mistook for a Saturday Night Live sketch.
• Jim is one of several actors who have played Colonel Sanders in KFC’s popular TV ad campaign.
• Jim’s acting skills have earned him guest appearances on some of TV’s most popular comedies, including Portlandia, That 70s Show, Sex and the City, Bored to Death and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
• His own series, The Jim Gaffigan Show, ran for two seasons on TV Land.
• Jim won an Emmy in 2015 for his contributions to CBS Sunday Morning.
• Jim played attorney Paul Markham in the 2018 film Chappaquiddick.

Editor’s Note: Although no one would call Jim Gaffigan a visionary, in 2005’s Beyond the Pale, he did correctly predict that Dunkin Donuts would one day unveil a glazed donut breakfast sandwich. Of course, he meant it as a joke.

Wendy Williams is all about curves. She isn’t shy about showing hers off, of course. And she isn’t above throwing one or two at the celebrities she interviews. The Wendy Williams Show is 60 minutes of live, hold-on-tight entertainment, where anything can happen and almost anything goes. Make no mistake, however. Williams is both under and in control. She understands her business as well as anyone and, although she lives for the moment, her eye is always on the horizon. Indeed, as EDGE’S Gerry Strauss discovered, the most important curve for Wendy is the one she always seems to be out in front of.

EDGE: When did you decide that you wanted to be in broadcasting? 

WW: Sixth grade. I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in school, but I enjoyed reading books and I enjoyed writing. I knew I could do it. I thought that being a newscaster or a radio personality was definitely it. One of the two.

EDGE: Who were your influences?

WW: The black broadcasters in New York, like Sue Simmons, Vic Miles and Chi Chi Williams. In college, I majored in communications and minored in journalism. I immediately got involved with the college radio station, where I was reading news at the top of the hour. Radio was my second choice, actually, because I thought that you had to know an awful lot about music and you had to have an air of cool. I was a lot of things when I was younger, but cool was not one of them. I wasn’t in the in-crowd. So I read the news on the college radio station. One day, one of the DJ’s did not show up and they said, “You have to do it.”

EDGE: Were you scared?

WW: I was frightened to death. But I found that it’s not about cool. It’s not even about the music. Radio personalities—back then they called them DJ’s—were just the conduit from one song to the next. If you wanted the personality part kicked in, where I would know a little bit more about something, like: “That was LL Cool J, this new rapper on the scene with ‘I Need a Beat.’ When I was home at Christmas, LL Cool J performed at this club in yadda yadda yadda…and I heard that he left with three girls.” People would be curious, “What else do you know?”

EDGE: And as your career developed, how did you develop sources for celebrity gossip?

WW: At clubs. Fast forward to 1988. I was 25 years old and got my first New York job. It was at a dance music station called Hot 103.9, which is now Hot 97. I was a single, young New York girl making $60,000 a year, with no student loans and no car notes, living life like it’s golden. I would do two or three appearances a night, seven nights a week, being paid to go to nightclubs. I was in the VIP area so, of course, I would be seeing things that I would bring back to the radio. Through the years, that’s how it’s been.

EDGE: That kind of access is a powerful thing.

WW: It is. And when you have that access, you have to choose, if that makes sense. I chose the audience over the celebrities. People like that extra information, but you have to choose which side you’re on. You can’t serve two masters. You can’t be friends and go to a party and hang out with celebrities, and then betray their trust and talk about them. You cannot do that. That’s not being a good friend.

EDGE: As you worked your way to the New York market prior to 1988, did you spend time in some wacky places?

WW: Fortunately, I didn’t. It all happened pretty quickly for me. I spent eight months in Saint Croix, then I worked in Washington, D.C. for another eight months. I desperately missed Jersey while in Washington. They’re so conservative. And you can’t get a parking space! Then, right after D.C., I started working in Manhattan, and I lived in Jersey the whole time. Jersey has never been far from my heart.

EDGE: Your radio career coincided with the rise of the “shock jock,” and often you are mentioned as part of that genre.

WW: I don’t particularly care for the term “shock jock.” It brings up distasteful man humor and I don’t find anything that I say so shocking. My delivery is not so shocking—I speak like you speak. But I’ll take it as a compliment, only because it put me in good company with my friend Howard Stern, who is one of the greatest personalities on radio ever…which means that I must be one of the greatest personalities ever!

EDGE: Does that realness and honesty you bring to the air ever present a challenge for you when you’re off the clock?

WW: It can be challenging. When I walk in a room, people sort of react as if Godzilla walked in. They’ve always wanted to see or be near me, but they don’t know how to react. It’s like, “If I touch her will I burn? If she catches me looking at her, will she say something?” It’s partly my reputation and partly my presence. I’m taller than most men and women once I put my heels on, and I have a larger frame than the average woman—but it all works for me. I actually enjoy walking into a room and watching everyone scatter, because the truth is that I’m a pussycat. I’m honest, not mean-spirited, so whatever is making them scatter, I know that if they gave me a chance, they would love me.

EDGE: Celebrity gossip has become a 24-7 industry. As someone who helped to pioneer that type of reporting, what do you think of the way our celebrity culture has grown?

WW: I’m very happy about how the thirst for celebrity information has grown. But, if you pay close attention, you’ll notice that we continually hear about basically the same 150 celebrities. They are in the weekly magazines. They are on TMZ. Every once in a while, you’ll get a new celebrity in the mix. But it’s basically the same 150 celebrities. There are a lot more than 150 famous people out there, but they are not in the magazines or on TMZ.

Photo by Nadine Raphael

EDGE: Why is that?

WW: Because they live in Jersey. Because they live in Maine. Because they live in Connecticut. Not Manhattan. Not L.A. or Calabasas, where the Kardashians live. If Alec Baldwin doesn’t want to be bugged, then he should move to Jersey. Do you understand? We know where to get “papped” [photographed by the paparazzi]. In Manhattan, there’s a place called Michael’s. They have Celebrity Wednesdays. I only go there with my mother and father because they love the whole celebrity culture. I think it’s cute. When they come to the show, they come on a Wednesday and we go to Michael’s afterwards. They know to straighten up because, as soon as we open the car door, we’re going to get papped—and then put in the Daily News the next day. If I don’t want to get papped, I’m not going to go eat lunch at Fred’s At Barneys. I’m going to go up the street to Lair. There’s no paparazzi at Lair.

EDGE: So you think a lot of it is voluntary?

WW: Absolutely. Can I tell you something? Paparazzi aren’t just sitting in people’s neighborhoods taking pictures of them strolling with their kids. Fifty percent of them get photos because they go to places like The Ivy or Michael’s. And then the other fifty percent, they call the photographer and say, “I’m going to bring a blanket in the park and I’m going to have my kids.” Isn’t that stupid?Stupidest thing ever!

Photo courtesy of Essence Communications, Inc.

EDGE: Let’s talk about your show. For those who don’t know, The Wendy Williams Show is broadcast live.

WW: I love that.

EDGE: How was that decision made?

WW: They told me You’re going to be live and I said, Great. I’ve got stuff to do after the show. I’ve got groceries to buy. Nobody has time to be up in this dusty studio all day. At 11:01, I’m free. I go home, I become Wendy Hunter. We’re live out of New York four days a week. We tape Friday’s show on Thursday afternoon, so Friday I’m free to go to Home Depot, work on an outside project, whatever.

Photo courtesy of Essence Communications, Inc.

EDGE: Do you ever worry about something going wrong on live TV?

WW: I may make it look like perhaps something will go wrong, but remember, I had almost 25 years of broadcasting live radio four hours a day. I’ve been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. I’ve won several awards. I’m part of an elite group. You don’t get that far by slipping up; you get that far by making it look easy. But it really is not. I curse like a sailor in real life but I’ve never cursed on the radio. I’m a trained broadcaster. So, for me, live TV? It’s the best.

EDGE: Who haven’t you interviewed yet, but want to? Who’s on your wish list?

WW: I would love to talk to Michelle Obama. I don’t even want to talk to her about First Lady stuff. And I wouldn’t ask her to do a push-up or to dance, or talk about issues. I’d want to talk about life. “When is the last time you drove a car, girl?What kind of moisturizer do you use?” I’d want to talk to her because she just turned 50, and I just turned 50. She’s a mother, I’m a mother. She’s a prominent person and I’m working on my prominence. In terms of having a wish list? Well, doing a talk show and being a professional talker, you realize that there really is no such thing as a wish list, because sometimes the very people that you wish for end up being the worst conversationalists. I’ve had better conversations with cab drivers than I’ve had with some celebrities I’ve met.

EDGE: If your show ever got to the point where they wanted to move it to the West Coast, would you consider that?

WW: Oh my gosh, I shudder and I wince and I wince and I shudder! There was actually an informal offer to do that back when I was in radio and I couldn’t do it. It’s a nice place to visit—all due respect—but I’m not that girl and those aren’t my people. These are my people in the Northeast.

EDGE: Will you reach a point where you’d want to do something other than TV, or just stop doing TV?

WW: I do have a date when I want this show to end if—God willing—it doesn’t get canceled. Listen, we’ve been renewed to 2017. I’ll need a few more years after that. I knew that when I signed up for this show, and I had the conversation with my husband. I told him that I don’t want to do this forever—and we hadn’t even gotten started at that point. I treasure my privacy. I treasure having a life. The best part about my job is actually doing my job. Maybe the worst part about it is taking pictures and doing autographs—the stuff that regular people would consider fabulous is really not. Right now, I’m taking steps to set things up to earn a living after The Wendy Williams Show, but behind the scenes as opposed to in front of the cameras. It’s a situation where my husband will take the reins, and my son will have a built-in opportunity to work in the family business. The Wendy Williams Production Company will create everything from reality TV to Lifetime movies to docu-series. That’s what I want next. I also want to establish a platform where I can do more public speaking—from keynote addresses to charity events to PSAs. I want to get out and be able to do things that I don’t really have the time to do now, things that would be helping to make the world a better place.

EDGE: Talk about the privacy issue if you would.

WW: Ten years ago, I could take my kid to Great Adventure and I didn’t have to think about what time or day we are going to go. These days it’s, “You know what?I can’t go. I’m going to have my assistant drive you and your friends.” Ten years ago, life was just different. I never want to discount my radio career, but it wasn’t as visual and it wasn’t as widespread. It was mostly an urban audience, and you knew where the How you doin’s were going to come from. Now they come from everybody. So yes, there are challenges, but nothing that I can’t get around. Also, I have to say that people treat you the way you put it out there. When I am driving around my town, I do all the Home Depot-ing, all the Target-ing, all of the grocery shopping—all of the everything—and people know it’s me. But when they say How you doin’ I say, “Hi, how are you?” and that’s it.

EDGE: Friendly.

WW: Right. You engage…and then you disengage. Busy, busy, busy. People respect that. EDGE

Editor’s Note: If you know anything about Wendy Williams, then you know that the entirety of this interview couldn’t possibly be contained within these pages. For more on her career choices, being a parent and role model, the future of radio, and her list of favorite things, log onto edgemagonline.com!

Would you invite Pete Campbell into your home? Maybe a better question is: Could you keep him out? While you think about that, consider the man behind the mask, Vincent Kartheiser, who breathed life into one of Mad Men’s most indelible characters. He has been honing his craft since childhood, in films including Masterminds, Alaska and The Indian In the Cupboard, and later in Another Day In Paradise and Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, for which he received critical acclaim. Kartheiser is also familiar to fans of the WB television series Angel. When Editor-at-Large Tracey Smith sat down with him, she was wondering what all Mad Men fans do: How much of what we see on screen is Vinnie and how much is Pete? So, naturally, she asked…

EDGE: Peter Campbell is manipulative, maniacal, devious, shrewd and success-driven. Is there a little bit of Pete in Vincent Kartheiser?

VK: Is it me? No. But is there a little bit of Peter in Vincent? Yes. I think that if we did a really thorough search and investigation of our history, we would find that we all have those personality traits, either momentarily or in the long term. So, yes, there’s a part of Peter in me. I’m capable of things that aren’t great.

Courtesy of AMC

EDGE: Why do you think Matt Weiner cast you as Pete?

VK: I would like to believe that I fit his vision, that he was looking for somebody who had a certain amount of cockiness and confidence and sliminess, but didn’t really know he had the sliminess. I don’t necessarily have any of those things in real life…but I guess I did in the audition room. (laughs)

EDGE: Thanks, by the way, for doing the fashion shoot for us. Is that fun for you—like a vacation from your everyday wardrobe?

VK: Sometimes. We generally schedule those sorts of things on the weekend. If I’ve had a big week of work, sometimes I have lower energy for such events. And lots of times they put me in stuff that I would never understand how to wear, or hope to wear.

EDGE: On Mad Men, which era of fashion is closer to your taste?

VK: I don’t know. I can’t pull off loud outfits. It doesn’t suit me and I don’t have a great physique, so those really tight pants and those form-fitting shirts aren’t as great as a suit that covers up and makes everyone look relatively similar.

EDGE: You looked great in the Bespoke Couture. Will we be seeing the Vincent Kartheiser collection someday?

VK: No. No we won’t. I know nothing about fashion, nor do I really aspire to. That being said, you know Photoshop is one helluva thing and I’m sure it was utilized. I’m sure a lot of Photoshop is done on my photos!

EDGE: When Season One of Mad Men started shooting, how did you see your character evolving over the years?

VK: You try not to think too far ahead when you’re acting. I do try to think of the past and the present of the character. A character has dreams and hopes and fears, and I do access those, but I tried not to put too many of my own kind of desires into Pete’s character. I didn’t want to put that pressure on myself. I knew what the character wanted in the first season; he wanted to be Don Draper and he wanted to switch out of accounts and be a creative guy. That was something he thought he was more suited to, something that was exciting. I focused on that and I never made too many assumptions of where he’d end up plot-wise.

EDGE: Is Pete Campbell the first character you’ve played that has had to age significantly? 

VK: Yeah, because most of the time you play characters—or at least I’ve always played characters—where the timeframe for the experience is very short. It’s one week, or one year, or one day. Very few stories span ten, twenty, thirty years. In the case of Pete, I aged as well, so it worked out.

EDGE: Is there anything about 30-something Peter Campbell you like better than 20-something Peter Campbell?

VK: There are quite a few things about Peter Campbell that have changed, and I admire them. I think he fits his place in the world and his place in the office. He understands what his role is, what his limitations are, and what his fortés are. In those ways, it makes him an easier person to be around for other people. When a character or a person is always trying to change, or fit a mold that isn’t quite right for them, it’s uncomfortable—not only for them, but for everyone around them. It causes a lot of conflict. So I think it’s wonderful that he’s come to peace with his role in the world, which is to be an account man. At least that’s where he’s settled in. I think his envy and jealousy of people around him has simmered down a bit. He doesn’t need to hate as many people as he used to, which I think is partly due to aging. We all experience that. Because it was such a prominent part of his personality, it’s nice that it’s gone away. He still gets frustrated very easily and feels that nothing ever goes his way, that he’s always getting the short end of the stick, and has a “woe is me” outlook on life—and he still has a sense of entitlement. So not everything has changed. But he has calmed down a bit and stops trying to set fire to everybody around him.

EDGE: What is the value of a Pete Campbell to an ad agency?

VK: I think his value is obvious. He’s a good account man, he works hard, he has ambition, he has loyalty to the people around him and to the company, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty—he’s not afraid to get his name dirty—and he’s not afraid to use everything in his arsenal to get the job done. He used the death of his father to get an account, he convinced Joan to spend the night with Herb Bennet to land Jaguar, and he is willing to go pretty far into a moral shadow. I don’t think it’s good for the world, but it does bring value to the agency. Actually, I have a hard time calling those things “value” because they’re unscrupulous. Unfortunately, that’s a part of the business world. I don’t think that all companies run their businesses that way, but some certainly do, and in those businesses there are people like Pete Campbell that drive the train, and it accomplishes something.

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EDGE: What’s it like playing a character that many viewers love to hate?

VK: I’m just the actor. The people who really created this character and did the work are the writers. In that writer’s room, we have people who have been agents, who have been advertisers. We have people who are still in advertising who consult, and we have a team of people who spend hours and hours doing research on the time, on the year, on the date, on products, on ad campaigns, on the types of people and the types of stories. Matthew Weiner and the writing team take all of this info and create these characters. I think it’s an honor that I haven’t ruined what they are trying to do—but it’s really that I’m just a vessel, and they really are owed the credit. By the way, you’re right. I get this all the time, people come up and say, “I work with a Pete Campbell.” They did a really good job of writing him in a realistic way, but still in a melodramatic way.

EDGE: Looking back, would you have written your character any differently?

VK: I wouldn’t have written anything differently. I’m very happy with everything they’ve given me. I’m honored that they’ve written what they’ve written. I don’t really live in a world of what-ifs. It gets too complicated.

EDGE: Pete says to Don Draper in an early episode, “A man like you, I’d follow into combat blindfolded.” Would you, Vincent, follow Jon Hamm into battle blindfolded?

VK: Well I wouldn’t follow anyone into battle. (laughs) I do feel he has my back. I think I can speak for all the actors that Jon is so supportive and is so consistent, he’s always giving 100 percent, he’s always present, he’s always good. I have off-days—there are days I can’t remember my lines or I’m struggling. Jon and many of the actors I work with are so, so strong. Jon is there so much and it’s Don’s story, so it is pivotal that he supplies his presence. Yet he does it almost effortlessly and I don’t know how. It’s a character trait that I admire greatly.

EDGE: There’s a lot of smoking and drinking on Mad Men, which is period-appropriate. But what are we to make of Pete’s food choices?

VK: He’s always eating childish food, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Cap’n Crunch. I think Matthew is making a statement about this boy-man that Pete is—which is something that I can relate to. There’s something about being an actor, especially from when you’re very young. I’ve never had another job, I’ve had a very blessed life, I haven’t had to roughen up my hands too much. I think there’s something about being an actor, particularly though, that keeps you a little bit childish. It’s make-believe, it’s imagination, and I might be guilty of being a boy-man in some ways.

EDGE: I know you’re a fan of Jack Kerouac. He wrote that “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” Who are Peter Campbell’s people?

VK: The man who never grew old enough to understand what he wrote! I think you start yawning when you hit a certain age and Jack never got to that age. Who are Pete’s kinds of people? New Yorkers. Not the “new” New Yorkers, not the hippies that are taking over the Village in the late 60’s, or the drug dealers in the boroughs or any of those sorts of things, but the “old” New Yorkers. I would say his kinds of people are the logical ones, the ones that he can understand why they do what they do. They don’t get off-course, they stay the course. I think that statement by Jack Kerouac, he’s really just talking about himself. He’s saying the kinds of people I like are like me. So, the kinds of people that Pete Campbell likes—if we’re using that template—are the kinds of people like Pete.

Photo by Michael Yarish courtesy of AMC

EDGE: And who are Vincent’s kind of people?

VK: Personally, as Vincent, I like quiet people…and I wish I were one. (laughs) I like people who think about what they say before they say it. I wish I were one of them, too!  I like kind people, gentle people, people who aren’t out for number-one, people who are out for everyone—people who don’t jump to judgment but try to empathize. I’m not really any of those things, and I’m not talking about some crazy-eyed cult. I’m just talking about someone that is real, someone who really sees that their needs aren’t the needs of everyone. That their life isn’t any more important than anyone’s. I don’t know, maybe there’s no one like that in the world, but I feel like I meet them all the time.

Editor’s Note: The only question Vincent Kartheiser dodged in this interview was about his girlfriend, Alexis (Gilmore Girls) Bledel. Now we know why. Vincent and Alex tied the knot over the summer in a secret ceremony. Log onto edgemagonline.com to read more about Vincent’s other television and film roles, and how he kept the EDGE crew loose on his fashion shoot.

When Todd Bowles was throwing passes to his buddies in pick-up football games in Elizabeth, the Meadowlands and the NFL seemed light-years away. The actual distance is only 15 miles, of course. However, to get to East Rutherford as the newly minted head coach of the Jets, Bowles detoured through Philadelphia, Washington, San Francisco, Washington again, Louisiana, Green Bay, Atlanta, New Jersey (he was the Jets’ secondary coach for a year in 2000), Cleveland, Dallas, Miami (where he was interim coach for three games in 2011), Philadelphia again, and Arizona. Along the way he earned a reputation for building creative and unpredictable defenses. Zack Burgess connected with Coach Bowles at the beginning of training camp, and talked about the various stops on the decades-long journey that ultimately brought him home.

EDGE: What attracted you to football as a kid?

TB: It’s all about the camaraderie. Growing up, you play with all of your friends. It’s just something that you get used to doing, just playing outside.

When I was growing up it was just a part of everyday life. You played football and you had fun. When it was time to go out for the teams, you didn’t really have too much pressure, because you were already playing every day with the guys that were going to be on your team. Every weekend we played, and you kind of crafted your skill that way.

EDGE: You were the quarterback.

TB: Yes, I was the streetball quarterback.

EDGE: Who were your football mentors and heroes growing up in Elizabeth?

TB: I didn’t have a true mentor as far as going to camps and everything. You kind of did everything on your own. We grew up playing a lot of street football. It was about 20, 30 kids that I grew up with. You looked up to the guys that were one, two, three years older than you. My brothers, they both were older than me. Just watching what they did and hanging out with them taught me a lot about the game.

EDGE: Don Somma coached you at Elizabeth High School.

TB: He did a heck of a job. We were just developing the team and the program when I was there. The year after I left, they went all the way and won the states. I played tailback, tight end, wide receiver, corner, safety—I don’t think I ever came off the field. We had some good athletes on our team.

EDGE: You played under Bruce Arians at Temple. Was he pretty much the same guy then as he was when you were on his NFL coaching staff with the Arizona Cardinals?

TB: He was a lot more fiery at Temple. He was a young coach, just 30 years old when he got the job. But for the most part, he was always the same guy. He taught boys how to be men. You could always trust him.

EDGE: How good was the Owls defense your junior year? The team was in every game that season.

TB: Defensively, we were pretty good the whole time I was there. We had some very good defensive players in Anthony Young and Kevin Ross. We just couldn’t get over the hump. We played tough schedules back then. It seemed as if almost everyone we played was in the Top 25. There was some good competition back then. We fought pretty hard.

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EDGE: You joined the Washington Redskins in 1986 and became a starter in your second year—the same year that team won the Super Bowl. At what point in the 1987 season did you start thinking, Hey, this is a championship-caliber team?

TB: The Redskins were good when I got there. They had gone to the championship game the year before against the Giants. All season, we talked about who we might be playing in the playoffs. That was our mentality going in with Coach [Joe] Gibbs. Everybody practiced and played that way. You carried your own weight whether we won 43-0 or not. If you didn’t play well, you weren’t going to be playing that next week.

EDGE: You won a lot of tough, close games that season right through the playoffs, then boom you destroy the Broncos in the Super Bowl. What goes through your head as a young player when you are part of a game like that?

TB: It’s something that you can’t even describe. When you get into those types of situations as a young player—going to the Super Bowl—everything moves so fast. It’s one of the happiest moments of your life. But you don’t realize it until five, ten years after it’s gone. You’re so busy having fun, enjoying the moment, that you don’t realize that you’re in it. It was one of the best things to happen to me.

EDGE: What influenced your decision to go into coaching? What did you feel you could teach others?

TB: When I first retired, Emmitt Thomas, who is now in Kansas City and was my defensive backs coach when I played, told me if I wanted to be a good coach that I should get away from the game for at least two years. Otherwise, I would be teaching guys the same way as if I played, and I would be very disappointed. In other words, I would be teaching more from a player’s standpoint rather than a coaching standpoint. So I got out of the game for two years. When I jumped back in, I wanted to learn it from the ground up. So I went into scouting first, with the Green Bay Packers. Then I went to college to see if I liked coaching. And I did. I enjoyed teaching young guys, the X’s and O’s part of it, and that really got me heavy into coaching.

EDGE: Which coaches really opened your eyes to what a head coach in the NFL had to do to be successful?

TB: It was a little bit of everybody. I think Doug Williams started it. Coaching with him in college at Morehouse and then at Grambling—seeing the things he went through and dealt with, and seeing how he treated people—that started me off right. Obviously, Coach Gibbs, playing in that system for him for years and seeing how he conducted things. He taught you how to be a professional. And Coach [Bill] Parcells really taught me how to see the whole game from an organizational standpoint and from a coaching standpoint. Coach Arians, as a player in college and later coaching with him in Cleveland and Arizona, I saw how he respected people and got the most out of his players, especially the second- and third-level players. Coach [Andy] Reid, the year I was in Philly with the Eagles, I probably learned more from a humility standpoint—with the passing of his son and all the things that were going on there—just seeing the difficult things he went through and never letting it affect his coaching. He stood in the face of adversity and he was the same guy every day. That taught me a lot. Wade Phillips for a year in Dallas, he taught me how to have fun with the game, be yourself and just go with the flow. I had a whole bunch of guys who have affected how I look at the game. I haven’t even named them all.

Courtesy of the New York Jets

EDGE: In what ways do NFL teams function as families?

TB: You have to learn to work together. You have to sacrifice and put all your egos to the side. You’re going to be in a building 8 to 16 hours a day, every day, with all these people—especially coaches, who work year ’round. For players it’s half the year. So you get to know these guys on a personal level and what makes them tick. They see what makes you tick. You kind of figure out what buttons to push; they figure out what they can and can’t do with you. There are a lot of personal relationships that go on behind the scenes that everybody doesn’t see. And you put out fires just like any other family. There are spats here and there, but for the most part we’re around each other so much, we kind of get a good feel for each other. And whether you like it or not, you’re going to be a part of a family. You have your bad people and good people—and everything in between. But at the end of the day, we have to be on one working relationship.

EDGE: What are some of the do’s and don’t’s for an NFL coach taking over a new team?

TB: Don’t try to do more than you can. Keep it about football and don’t let the outside stuff bother you.

EDGE: When we watch the Jets this year, what should we be looking for that tells us This is a Todd Bowles team?

TB: Hopefully, as this thing develops, we want to be a smart, tough team. We want to be very physical and we want to be very good at handling game situations.

EDGE: How great is it to be home again—more pressure, or more relaxed?

TB: It’s more relaxed. As a kid growing up, you don’t see the outside world. You don’t travel very much being from Elizabeth. But growing up over the years and coming back to things you haven’t seen in a long time, that’s great. It’s great to be back.

Editor’s Note: As the NFL season gets underway, Zack Burgess is completing his most ambitious sports project to date: a series of 32 books for young readers, one on each pro football team. His work for EDGE has included interviews with a wide range of non-sports celebrities, including Jaclyn Smith, Gloria Gaynor, Danica McKellar, and Beth Ostrosky Stern—all available on edgemagonline.com. More of Zack’s sports interviews can be found at zackburgess.com.

Earlier this year, fans of the New Jersey-based HBO series Boardwalk Empire were surprised to learn that it would be shortened from its initially proposed run of seven seasons to five. Editor at Large Tracey Smith, who interviewed series creator Terence Winter for EDGE in 2013, doubled back this fall to get his take on the Nucky Thompson experience, find out what¹s coming next, and talk a bit more about what keeps his creative juices flowing.

EDGE: Shortening this series to five seasons was a big decision. How did that conversation go between you and fellow executive producer Howard Korder?

TW: Somewhere around the middle of Season 4, Howard and I looked at each other and said, “I get the feeling that we’re kind of headed toward a conclusion here.” It was completely inadvertent in our storytelling, but we felt like if we were listening to Nucky and what he was saying and where he was taking us, that he was trying desperately to get out of this business and to wind down.  The more we talked about it, the more we said, “Yeah, we don’t have a whole lot more to explore with this character.”  We didn’t want to just milk it, and the last thing we want to do is to become repetitive. We’re lucky enough to not be in a situation where, like network TV, for example, you have to hit a certain amount of episodes in order to become syndicated. That’s not the model over here, and that’s not the model that exists anymore, and creatively it’s not anything I’m comfortable with. We always felt that when this story runs its course that’s when the series ends. We felt like that with Nucky and started to have that conversation with HBO. Creatively, they are incredibly supportive; they said, “Okay, well how much do you think you need?” We felt we needed eight more hours to properly tell this story, and that’s where we ended up.

EDGE: Give me the two highlights that stand out for you personally on this project?

TW: One would be Martin Scorsese becoming involved—getting to work alongside my cinematic hero, who was the reason I got into this business in the first place. I saw Taxi Driver when I was a teenager and I can draw a straight line from Taxi Driver through the rest of my career. That was a movie that made me sit up and take notice of movies as being something other than just something to do on a Saturday afternoon. I walked out of that and thought “Wow, what was that? Who is this guy Martin Scorsese and what else has he done?” When I hung up the phone after Martin Scorsese told me “I’m going to direct this pilot” I almost fell out of my chair. That was just an amazing highlight. Part two? All the rest of it!  Having my own show for the first time, getting to work alongside my dear friend Tim Van Patten, getting to know and become dear friends with Howard Korder, Christine Chambers—who started as my writer’s assistant fourteen years ago and now is one of our writers—that whole experience. Just lump it all together.

Photo by Macall B. Polay/HBO

EDGE: You’re about to fast-forward 40 years with your new project about CBGB. Are you nervous about how fans will receive it?

TW: No. I try to approach things that I write as if I’m an audience member. What would I like to see? The rule of thumb is, if I think it’s interesting, hopefully other people will too. If I think it’s funny, hopefully people will agree. Rock and Roll…1973…New York City. I’m there!! If I had nothing to do with this, if I saw a trailer for this, I would absolutely tune in to it. And then you say that Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger are involved in it, Bobby Cannavale stars in it—you’re going to see the beginnings of punk, disco, hip-hop, see these bands, hear this music, spend time in that crazy rollercoaster world of New York  when the economy was horrible and crime was to the roof. I’d watch it so I’m confident that there are people that are equally interested. Hopefully, I’m right.

EDGE: It’s just one great project after another for you. What’s it like to be Terence Winter?

TW: I feel like any moment I’m going to wake up and it’s 1975 and I’m going to be late for my job at the butcher shop. I couldn’t have written a script for my own life that would have played out better. I am unbelievably blessed, I am unbelievably fortunate and I don’t take that for granted for one second. I look in the mirror every day and just think I am the luckiest guy in the world. And I really am.

EDGE: What was the toughest choice you had to make along the way?

TW: Leaving a promising law career to embark on a writing career was pretty crazy. I left in 1990 after two years to move to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. People thought I was out of my mind.

EDGE: Had you ever written a screenplay?

TW: No. Nor had I ever been to Los Angeles.

EDGE: When you think about your legacy, what comes to mind?

TW: First and foremost, I want to entertain people. At the end of my career, if I’ve succeeded in that, then I think that’s really all I could’ve asked for as an artist. When I look at movies done in the 40’s or 50’s, I think Somebody wrote that—someone reached out across time and made me laugh. I remember reading Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and there’s a passage that made me laugh out loud. I thought, God, this guy reached out from hundreds of years ago and made me laugh, which is pretty amazing considering sensibility has changed so much. It makes me feel good to know that this will live beyond me, and my kids one day will be old enough to watch The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire and get more of an insight into me creatively. That is, in some way, psychologically sort of a denial of death— “It doesn’t matter because my work is going to live on.” It’s funny. David Chase and I laughed about this. In The Sopranos, I wrote a similar line for Christopher, who’d made that movie Cleaver, a ridiculous horror movie. Christopher said to Tony, “Wow, that’s really cool. Hundreds of years from now people are gonna be watching this thing.” It’s the same way I feel about our work. It’s great that the written word survives and goes on forever. It’s so great to be able to do this.

Editor’s Note: Tracey and Terence covered quite a bit of ground in their conversation. To read more about the actors, characters and experiences that came together in five seasons of Boardwalk Empire, log on to edgemagonline.com for exclusive bonus content.

Robert A. Caro has spent nearly four decades chronicling the life of Lyndon B. Johnson, tracing his roots from a Texas farmhouse all the way to the White House. Through his biographies of Johnson and Robert Moses, Caro has illuminated the American political process and how power is wielded within our government. He is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and has won numerous other awards and accolades throughout his career. To EDGE interviewer Jesse Caro, he is something more than that: Caro is his grandfather (aka “Bop”). A recent college graduate embarking on a career in journalism, Jesse wielded his own political power to arrange a sit-down with the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author. The topic: Caro’s own formative post-graduate experiences in his chosen profession.

EDGE: After graduating from Princeton—where you were the Managing Editor of the Daily Princetonian—you became a reporter. What drew you, early on, to journalism?

RC: That’s a question I’ve been asked before, but I’m not sure I know the answer to that. In the beginning, I liked trying to figure out how things worked, and wanted to explain that to people. When I first went to work for this little paper in New Jersey, I almost immediately narrowed that down to an interest in politics because, it seemed to me, that’s what matters. Almost immediately, I realized the idea of politics I had in college had very little to do with the way politics worked, and that I didn’t know how politics worked. Every day, I was learning something as a reporter. And since I felt like, if power in a democracy ultimately comes from us and the votes we cast, then the better informed people are about the realities of politics—not what we learned in textbooks in high school and college, but the way they really worked—the better informed our votes would be. And presumably the better our country would be. So I almost immediately started to be interested in politics for that reason.

EDGE: How did that lead you into investigative reporting?

RC: Purely by accident. I went to Newsday, and I was the low man on the totem pole. But Newsday was a crusading newspaper.

EDGE: Is that why you wanted to work there?

RC: Yes, that’s I wanted to work there. But I hadn’t done any crusading—I was still low on the paper. They had a managing editor named Alan Hathway, a figure straight out of the 1920’s and The Front Page—rambunctious, freewheeling, crusading. But he really didn’t like the idea of the Ivy League. He had always said he didn’t want anybody from the Ivy League in his city room. While he was on vacation, his assistant, I think as sort of a joke, hired me. Hathway was so mad when he came back, he wouldn’t talk to me. He would walk by my desk without saying a word. But Newsday was doing a terrific thing.

There had been an Air Force base in the middle of Nassau County called Mitchel Field, and the Air Force didn’t need it any more. Real estate developers were coming into to Nassau County and they wanted it.

EDGE: How was Newsday covering the story?

RC: Well, the FAA wanted to give most of the land to real estate developers and keep part of it as a general aviation airport—which means a corporate airport—so all these big companies could have corporate jets and fly into the middle of Nassau County. Newsday was trying to prove that influence was being used by the developers and big corporations on the FAA, but the paper wasn’t having success in doing that. So I was in the city room on a Saturday afternoon and the phone rings. It’s a guy from the FAA. He said, “I know that what you’re doing is right, and if you want to be able to prove it, I’ll let you. Just send someone down here…there’s no one here but me.”

EDGE: So this story fell into your lap.

RC: Yes, totally out of nowhere. It was the weekend of the Newsday picnic, and everybody went except basically me.

EDGE: Did you try to contact anyone?

RC: I called all the editors. Everyone was away; everyone was at this beach. Finally, I get some editor who tells me I’ll have to go myself. Well, I had never done anything like this before. So I drove down and the guy let me in, and he basically pointed me to a couple of file cabinets. He said, “Those are the things you want to look at.” I didn’t go home—I worked all that night and all the next day, and wrote a memo for the editors on what I had found. The Monday morning after this, Alan’s secretary calls early in the morning and says, “Alan wants to see you.” Alan had never said a word to me. All the way driving in I was thinking, I’m going to be fired…I’ve got to keep my head up. When I get to the doorway, I see he’s reading the memo about what I found in the files. He looks up and he says, “I didn’t know someone from Princeton could go through files like this. From now on, you do investigative work.”

EDGE: Is it something you’d wanted to do?

RC: Yes, but you say it like I planned everything out. That’s an exaggeration. I knew that what I wanted to do was politics. What I wanted to do was find out how politics really worked.

EDGE: You’ve told me in the past you worked for a county Democratic organization in New Jersey in the 1950s? Did that experience spur your interest in politics?

RC: It did. I graduated from Princeton in 1957 and got married the day after I graduated. We went on this honeymoon for two months, driving around the country, and got back somewhere around Labor Day. I went to work on a paper in New Jersey that was tied in with the Middlesex County and New Brunswick political machine. It almost sounds funny—their chief political reporter would be given a leave of absence for every election so he could write speeches for the Middlesex County Democratic organization. He had a heart attack, so he couldn’t work for a while. He wanted to make sure he had this speech-writing job when he came back, so he wanted to be replaced as speechwriter by someone who was no threat to him. So who better than this kid from Princeton? That’s why I got the job. There was an election coming up and Joe Takacs was the political boss of the city of New Brunswick—a guy who ruled that city with an iron hand. I really did get a look at politics because he really liked me, and he took me with him everywhere. But then the following thing happened. On election day, he did what I later found out was called “riding the polls.” His regular driver took off, and a police captain was the driver for the day. We drove around in this big black car from polling place to polling place. At each place a police officer—a lieutenant or a captain—would come over to the car and basically say that everything was in order. Then we got to this one place where there was a commotion going on between a group of black people and police officers. This [police officer] came over to the car and said something to the effect of, “We’ve had trouble here, but we’re taking care of it now.” I looked over, and they had brought two paddy wagons, and there was a bunch of policeman herding these neatly dressed men—ties and jackets—and young women none too gently into the paddy wagons. They had been trying to be poll-watchers, to make sure the voting was honest, so they had to be gotten rid of.

EDGE: How long did you stay on after seeing this?

RC: When this happened right in front of me, a number of things got to me. It was the meekness with which they were taking this treatment—as if it was expected and they were resigned to it, and I couldn’t stand it. I knew in that moment that I didn’t want to be in the car; I wanted to be out there with them. So the next time the car stopped I just opened the door and got out. I didn’t know it then, but my interests were coming more and more to politics, and more and more to how politics really work. I wouldn’t say I was interested in investigative journalism—I was interested in understanding how politics really worked. And then this [story] happened at Newsday, and Alan said to me, “From now on, you do investigative work.” With my usual savoir faire in moments like this, I said, “But I don’t know anything about investigative journalism.”

EDGE: I’m sure that’s what he wanted to hear.

RC: Well, he said, “I’ll sit you next to [Robert] Greene,” who was a great investigative reporter, and he taught me a lot. And Alan taught me a lot. I learned a lot of things that a lot of reporters never learned. I know how to go through court papers. I know how to trace land transactions. I learned that all from them. I was getting a lesson every day. I learned things then that have guided me all my life, and the simplest thing is: Turn every page. I was going through some files, and I asked Alan some advice about something, and I’ve never forgotten: He said, “Never assume a damn thing. Turn every page.” That has guided me through my whole life.

EDGE: You mean to be thorough, to make sure you don’t miss anything.

RC: Yes. You don’t assume. You never know what’s going to be on a piece of paper. When you get to the Lyndon Johnson Library, the first two floors are a museum. Then you come around the corner and there is this marble staircase. And here are Lyndon Johnson’s papers…there’s four floors of them. They go back—I keep wanting to measure this—it’s like hundreds of feet. The last time they counted, they said there were forty-four million documents, so you couldn’t possibly turn every page and read every page. You’d have to have many lifetimes to do it. My first book [on Johnson] was going to be almost all on his congressional period. So while there were thousands and thousands of boxes, the number of boxes that had to do with the congressional period was manageable—there were 349 boxes. I thought if I was doing what Alan taught me, I would go through every piece of paper in those boxes. It would probably take about a year and a half or something, but you can do it. And by doing that, I found out all these things that people thought could never be found out. All the biographies—there were already a lot of Johnson biographies when I started—they all sort of knew that Brown & Root, this big Texas contracting firm, had financed him. And everyone said, Well, we can never find out about it because no one would talk about it. But I said, “If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this the same way I was as a reporter—I’m going to turn every page.” And in some file—whatever the file was, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with this—there was this telegram from George Brown, an actual telegram from George Brown to Lyndon Johnson in October, 1940 saying, Lyndon, the checks are on the way.

EDGE: How many years have you spent on Lyndon Johnson now?

RC: I started in 1976.

EDGE: I imagine that immersing yourself in one person’s life for that long must give you incredible insight into who that person is—which is something that I don’t think you could get from being a journalist. Is that something you were seeking, or is that something that just happened based on the nature of your work?

RC: That wasn’t something I was really interested in, in the beginning.

EDGE: Do you feel as though it’s something you have come to appreciate?

RC: If you spend that much time with someone, you feel like you know them. My interest is not telling the life of a great man.

EDGE: It’s in political power?

Robert and Jesse Caro. Never turn your back on grandpa!

RC: Yes, but you immerse yourself, and when Johnson is doing something, you say to yourself, “Well now he’s going to do something.”

EDGE: The way you might with a friend or a close acquaintance?

RC: A really close acquaintance that you’ve spent a lot of time with.

EDGE: Have you found that LBJ’s political life reflected his personal life? Or was Johnson a different person at home than he would have been in the White House or Congress?

RC: Johnson—I can answer quickly—he was the same person.

A year ago last February, fans of the AMC series Breaking Bad tuned in to the most highly anticipated “prequel” in television history, Better Call Saul. The series introduced us to a young(er) Saul Goodman, aka Jimmy McGill, played with great heart and humor by Bob Odenkirk. No surprise there. The eye-opening performance on the new series was delivered by Rhea Seehorn. Seehorn (her first name is pronounced Rey) portrays lawyer Kim Wexler—the object of Jimmy’s affection and one of the most appealing and complex characters on series television. Known for her TV work on the sitcoms I’m With Her, Franklin & Bash and Whitney, along with her many stage roles, Seehorn brings an edgy sophistication to Kim’s role that only a veteran player could. Editor-at-Large Tracey Smith was curious what it feels like when the stars align with a great part, great show, great writers and great directors. Who better to ask than a great actress?    

EDGE: Jimmy McGill is the larger-than-life character who drives Better Call Saul. But it’s Kim who brings out the best and worst in Jimmy—which makes her one of the truly compelling characters on TV right now. Is this the kind of love story an actor can really sink her teeth into?  

RS: It’s a great part. Because the character Kim is independent and the relationship itself serves the story well, she is not an appendage to the lead. She is fully realized as she is. It’s a gift to get to play someone that has layers and layers that keep unpeeling, to play subtext and backstory—and to play things in the middle, where your audience goes on the ride with you instead of your character telling them what to think. It’s great.

EDGE: What are the things you look for that help you play Kim with increasing depth?

RS: On set, everything is meticulously crafted before we receive the script.  Every single thing you need is there to craft your character. The text is everything.  Every clue you need is there.  Once I’m on set, I have the pleasure of letting the rest of it be shaped by my awesome directors and scene partners.

AMC/Sony Pictures Television

EDGE: Kim is the sane, moral center of a story that’s populated by a lot of unhinged and amoral characters. Is it a challenge having to hold it all together in your scenes?

RS: No. Kim is navigating through a world where everybody insists that things are black and white. But Kim is in the middle. [Laughs] If she saw herself that way, my guess is it would be an unbearable burden! I don’t believe Kim sees that dichotomy between her and the others.  If anything, I think the past two seasons have been a continuing exploration of all the gray areas there are in life, and how futile it can be to try to see things as only black and white.  

EDGE: What’s different about playing a character in a prequel? Do you sense that things aren’t going to end well for Kim? Or will she survive and ride off into the sunset?

RS: I have the luxury of playing a character that could end up anywhere, so that distinction does not apply to me. Better Call Saul is a fresh landscape for me.  I don’t sense anything. [Laughs] I honestly don’t know! I think that the writers are smart enough to have not painted themselves into a corner. The story could go anywhere. Anything could happen. I’m not as smart as these writers and saddled with the job of figuring out the best story to tell. 

EDGE: So what can you be certain about where Kim is concerned?

RS: I am 100% certain of one thing only—that Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, and our whole amazing writing staff will write what is the absolute best story they can. And the characters—mine included—will serve that story.  I have absolute trust that it is equally possible for new characters from Better Call Saul to exist or not exist during and after the Breaking Bad years, and that they will have a meaningful and provocative effect on progressing the story forward either way.

EDGE: Do you wonder—as the audience does—if a new Breaking Bad character is going to suddenly show up?

RS: No, never.  

EDGE: Did you have a “Eureka Moment” as an actress? 

RS: It was much more of an organic thing for me.  I never had one moment where I was sure I was going to be okay in this field. I just worked on whatever role I could get my hands on, and strove to work with great people who would make me better with each project.

EDGE: How do your strengths as a seasoned stage actress help you in your television and film roles?

RS: I’m very thankful for my training, history, and experience with theater. My personal grab bag of techniques and methods—which I’ve picked up from all different people, classes, plays, shows, and projects—is what I have to rely on each time I’m creating a character, preparing a scene, taking direction, doing multiple takes, and attempting to be present for my scene partner, so that each time we tell the story, it’s for the first time. I think that, certainly, there is something to be said for doing a play eight times a week. You learn how to do the same lines over and over, know how to live and breathe them organically as though they are new each time. I find that that helps when you’re on your ninth or tenth take. You’re remembering why you’re new to your character. 

EDGE: Do you collaborate smoothly with directors?

RS: I love directors that love to direct. There is nothing better for me than a character interpretation that you come up with together with other people. I have had so many great directors. I’ve been very, very lucky—stage and on-camera work, just really wonderful directors, including the directors on my show now.  

EDGE: Something we’d see on the screen?

RS: Yes, you have some freedom to single out pauses and breathing in the scene. They allow you to sit in the moment. That comes from everybody involved, Sony, AMC, Vince and Peter, as well as all of our directors. There’s an allowance to really explore scenes a lot. Our directors are wonderful.  

AMC/Sony Pictures Television

EDGE: What were some of the things you learned as an actor from your experience on the sitcom I’m With Her?

RS: It was my first series regular part, and when the show was picked up for a full season, it was the reason I moved to L.A. from New York. There was a huge learning curve, of course. And everyone in the cast and on the crew was incredibly generous in helping me, teaching me, and answering all my questions. Being that it was a multi-cam sitcom, there were many things that were very familiar—the somewhat proscenium-style staging and the live audience, for example.  

EDGE: Robbie Benson directed that series.

RS: He was a lovely, very helpful and supportive director. As were Ted Wass, Shelly Jensen, Arlene Sanford and all of my other directors for those 24 episodes. My cast—Teri Polo, David Sutcliffe, Danny Comden—as well as the creators Chris Henchy and Marco Pennette, and all of the writers and producers, really were the best gift I could have asked for. They were so talented and supportive. I work really hard and I don’t take any of that for granted.

EDGE: How did you land the role of Roxanne on Whitney? Had you crossed paths before with Whitney Cummings?

RS: I was asked to audition for the role and then I got picked. I didn’t know anybody on that show. You know, Whitney’s so funny and such a great woman. A lot of people think she cast a bunch of her friends on that, but she didn’t. She and Chris D’Elia knew each other, but the rest of us had never met.  

EDGE: Is there a common thread to your roles—on stage, on TV, in film…

RS: All the roles I have gotten were roles I had no idea I would get, but I was at my best. The bigger the character is, the more I’d get nervous and think, “What an amazing character. They could have anyone they want.” So I’ll get freaked out, and then I eventually get fatigued of being freaked out, and then just say to myself, “This is a little black box theater production and a three-minute character sketch…let’s just make up somebody that you would love to play…do the scene on a curb as if four people would watch…then just do your best and let go of whether or not you are the right person to tell the story.”

EDGE: Did you always have good comic timing? 

RS: I don’t know [laughs]. Comedy is definitely a science. I coach actors, so I know you can study it. You can have an ear for it or not.  It’s a weird thing to try to teach if someone can’t hear it.  

EDGE: Is there a better degree in comedy than being involved in a Neil Simon play on Broadway?

RS: I was not cast in 45 Seconds from Broadway. I was an understudy that got to go on…and it was thrilling. Julie Lund was cast in the role, and she was just amazing—absolutely beautiful and charming and wonderful in the role. The one and only Jerry Zaks directed. He requires that his understudies be present at all rehearsals and remain in the building, just below the stage, for all performances. 

EDGE: That was during the September 11th attacks.

RS: Yes, we rehearsed up through 9/11, then we took a break. I was living in Brooklyn at the time. We actually went back to work during the time when they were telling everyone to not take the subway and to not go to public gathering areas. We premiered soon after. It was a beautiful thing to see audiences pour in because they needed to escape.  I’m so thankful for that whole experience because not only did I get to watch and listen to Julie craft and perform her wonderful role, I got to listen to and watch some of the greatest theater actors of all time on a daily basis—Louis Zorich, Lewis Stadlen, Bill Moor, Alix Korey, Dennis Creaghan, Judith Blazer, Rebecca Schull, Kevin Carroll, Lynda Gravatt, and two of my favorites, the late, and irreplaceable, Marian Seldes, and David Margulies.

EDGE: Back to Kim and Better Call Saul. You do a great job with a great character on a great series—what are some of the great things that happen as a result of that?

RS: Well, thank you for that. I’m just so grateful to continue getting to do what I love. And, really, to have the incredible fortune of working with people and material that continue to challenge you and make you better…what’s better than that?