Paul Giamatti's latest one-of-a-kind performance can't be seen in theaters and not even on TV, but on SciFi.com's Pulse broadband channel, which is currently offering a first look at Amazing Screw-On Head, the outrageous animated adventures of a disembodied robotic head (Giamatti) dispatched by President Abraham Lincoln (yes, that Abe Lincoln) to "suit up" and fight evildoers. The Amazing twist: Sci Fi wants immediate fan feedback on whether the pilot should go to series. (The pilot airs on Sci Fi Channel July 27.) TVGuide.com spoke with Giamatti about his small-screen world-saving as well as the many, many films —
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Paul Giamatti's latest one-of-a-kind performance can't be seen in theaters and not even on TV, but on SciFi.com's Pulse broadband channel, which, starting today, is offering a first look at Amazing Screw-On Head, the outrageous animated adventures of a disembodied robotic head (Giamatti) dispatched by President Abraham Lincoln (yes, that Abe Lincoln) to "suit up" and fight evildoers. The Amazing twist: Sci Fi wants immediate fan feedback on whether the pilot should go to series. (The pilot airs on Sci Fi Channel July 28.) TVGuide.com spoke with Giamatti about his small-screen world-saving as well as the many, many films —
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You've got to give Virginia Madsen credit for remaining true to her principles. Even before Sideways returned the '80s sex symbol to Hollywood's A-list, the Oscar nominee was picking and choosing — and abandoning — her roles as if she'd never been down for the count. Case in point: her recurring gig as housewife Helen Pryor's (Gail O'Grady) mod confidante, Rebecca Sandstrom, during the first season of NBC's '60s-set drama, American Dreams."Originally, I was supposed to be the catalyst for Helen to go to the university," she recalls. "[But the plot] started to look a little too controversial when I read a script where I was smokin' a joint. That was the end. They were like, 'Uh-uh!' I went from being a strong feminist to a divorced alcoholic. That's where my character was going... so we parted ways. It
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Although he's appeared in a number of movies, including Tombstone and George of the Jungle, Thomas Haden Church is still best known as "That Guy from Wings." For five years, Church kept viewers in stitches as Nantucket Airport's resident eccentric, Lowell Mather. Now he's doing the same thing on the big screen in Sideways, the touching and hilarious road movie from director Alexander Payne (Election).
Church plays Jack, a self-absorbed, aging TV star whose career has been on the decline for some time. Hmm... did the role remind Church of anybody in particular? "I didn't really base my performance on anyone," the 43-year-old actor demurs, "but in 15 years of being in and out of Los Angeles, I certainly know a lot of guys like Jack.
"I remember when I moved to L.A. in 1989, I immediately got cast in a TV movie called To Protect and Surf," Church continues. "We were cops on the beach with cool hair and guns. I w
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There are some actors (coughOrlando Bloomcough) who repeat the same role over and over again without realizing it. Then there are actors like Paul Giamatti, who's completely aware that his characters are often strikingly similar.
"I suppose I am [typecast] a little bit," muses the New York-born actor, whose latest film, Sideways, hits theaters today. "There's definitely a desperate quality to all of the guys I play. And in the studio films I do, I'm that guy, but a little goofier. I wear a funny hat or get turned blue or something.
"It's weird. I'm either depressed or I'm really aggressive. Some great actor once said that all actors really only have two characters that they play — two basic guys that you play variations on, and that's always what you do. I guess my two guys are Depressed Passive Guy or Psycho Aggressive Guy."
His Sideways character fits neatly into the former category. As Miles, the cynical wine aficionado
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