Off Camera with Sam Jones

FX’s brilliant Better Things premiered just over a year ago, but Pamela Adlon’s been writing it for the last 20. She hoarded her experiences as an actor (hirings, firings, countless pilot seasons), and a single mom (three kids, untold fights, guilt and joy) –and wondered how she’d fictionalize it. The answer? Barely. Better Things resonates hard because Adlon doesn’t glamorize, force or standardize her stories, so they unfold on screen much as they do in your house. With the determination she’s had since finding herself an agent at 11, Adlon’s found her voice, not only as a writer and actor, but as a showrunner and director. Rave reviews have made Hollywood listen; too bad that doesn’t work with her own kids. But then we wouldn’t have one of the most honest, touching and relatable shows on TV. Let the second season of tears, hugs and door slamming commence.

It was a dark and stormy night… Okay, so it was a dark and sticky-floored movie theater, but the story’s just as good. It’s where Michael Connelly first saw The Long Goodbye, and where he first fell in love – with Raymond Chandler, Phillip Marlowe, and most of all, with Los Angeles. He didn’t make it there for another 12 years, but when you come as a reporter, you see places – and things – most of us don’t. His beat became the beat of one Harry Bosch, the cynical, hopeful hero of Connelly’s best-selling crime novels and Amazon’s acclaimed TV series Bosch. As a journalist, Connelly covered the City of Angels; as a novelist, he brings it to life. The master storyteller spun us a tale of guns discovered, dreams pursued, movie deals gone wrong, principles avenged, and messages buried in a single sentence. We made inquiries.

Emmy Rossum has come a long way from singing for hot dogs at the local butcher shop. Of course her voice made her famous at 18 in The Phantom of the Opera, and she could’ve played Princess of the High E for years to come. But her decision to stretch, while difficult, landed her a surprising role on a surprising TV show. The Gallagher clan has done America a favor by demonstrating that you can screw up – really screw up – and the world doesn’t implode. Fiona Gallagher has done Rossum herself a solid or two. Playing her has made Rossum more confident, free, outspoken – and, a director. Once asked how to combat shyness, she advised, “Remember how you felt when you were five, when you were fearless, and thought no one would judge you.” In her world, judgment comes with the job. Now she knows the trick is to be fearless anyway. Or should we say shameless?

Night after night, a five-year-old Rebecca Hall witnessed her mother losing her s\*\*t, ripping off her clothes and wailing operatically while holding a severed head. What could’ve been a scarring experience instead underscored the beauty of committing to a role. And from about that age, Hall’s been certain about what she was meant to do, and how deeply she loves doing it. The proof is in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Please Give, Christine, and now Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a lush piece of period eye-candy with a very un-Masterpiece center. She plays a smart, conflicted woman who longs for an unconventional life. Maybe Hall portrays her with such compassion because she knows the joys of such a life. We talk to the actor about succeeding as an artist on her own terms, the toughest role she’s ever played, and the cabin in the woods we’re convinced she’s keeping secret from us.

Willem Dafoe is an actor who often seems a million miles from Hollywood, no matter where he is. It’s apparent in the roles he’s chosen, and how he’s chosen to play them. He’ll take Tanzania or a desolate Florida motel strip over a sound stage any day. He’ll show you the good side of a bad guy. And once he falls in love with an idea or a world, he’s all in. “There’s a pleasure to having someone tell me what they want to express or what they’re interested in, and then sending me in there like an explorer.” And that journey is only risky if it’s not risky. “If it’s scary, you’re trying something. Something will happen. Something will be learned. If you already know what something is, that’ll kill you creatively.“ Few actors with careers as long and respected as his are lucky enough to still be a bit terrified. Few actors are Willem Dafoe.

When Chadwick Boseman got the call about Marshall, he was worried. Where’s the hard part, he wondered? The screaming muscles, bone-deep exhaustion and verbal abuse he endured to play Jackie Robinson (42), Vontae Mack (Draft Day) and James Brown (Get on Up) didn’t seem required to play future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. He found it soon enough – you try leading a courtroom drama when your character is silenced at the opening gavel. For Boseman, the hard part is always the best part. “If I can show up and breeze through it, it’s not going to make me better.” Ideally, he wants to make us all better – by expanding our view of the black experience through more diverse storytelling. With the upcoming Marvel-ization of his career (Black Panther) the hard part now might be getting to all of those rich, untold tales. We’ll wait. Not patiently, but we’ll wait.

Any number of things can fuel success. There’s talent and ambition, the usual suspects. But don’t discount fear, insecurity or being a wise ass, either. Check all of the above for Nick Kroll, but also add the belief that a career you love can’t be handed to you by anyone other than yourself. He’s created some of the funniest characters in modern sketch comedy for Kroll Show, two of which escaped to the surprise hit Oh, Hello on Broadway. Not all his ideas are brilliant (kale lollipop, anyone?), but Big Mouth, his new animated show about puberty (yes, puberty), may be his best yet. It’s definitely his most personal and brashly original. And likely his most disturbing. It’s also really, really funny. But when someone comes along to give voice to one of our most common, unsettling and hard-to-talk about human experiences, maybe laughs are just icing on the cake.

Tom Papa is a happy, well-adjusted, family guy who's fine with being labeled clean. So how the hell did he ever become a comedian? He had no idea if he could make it in standup, and no roadmap to get there. What he did have was the certainty that nothing else felt right. It took a lot of observation, a lot of hard work and a certain comedy chiropractor, but mostly it took learning to be himself. He's now a successful standup, show host and actor. What keeps him going? The possibility of more success, yeah, but that's not what'll keep him jumping planes for Eugene, Oregon when he's 60. "People leave a show and their stomachs hurt from laughing. Their faces hurt. You get to go to work and share that with them every day." For a guy who started without a map, he wound up in the right place.

When you think about how many brilliantly wacky characters have sprung from Alan Tudyk's imagination to the screen for the past two decades, and then factor in his history of prank calls and high school improv competitions, it's a bit hard to fathom that his early career plan was to be a hotel manager. Sure, if Basil Fawlty is your idea of a hotel manager, but he was actually serious. Sometimes, the path not taken is a good thing. Alan's path has led him to Broadway, too many film and TV roles to count, and every Disney Animation Studios movie to date. The only place it hadn't led was the one place he really wanted to be: The Middle of Everything. It took a Con Man to change that. Read on for a tale of bloody knees and sharp-eyed teachers, Broadway dreams crushed and revisited.

Here's a question: How many years do you have to spend watching actors through a camera before you realize maybe that's what you were meant to be doing all along? If you're Jay Duplass, you might also wonder why your brother Mark didn't let you in on how fun and freeing it can be a little sooner. But no matter. At a time in life when most actors are rushing the directors chair, the elder Duplass brother is running in the opposite direction on Transparent, and killing it. It's the second time he missed the obvious. Fourteen years ago, surveying the wreckage of 27 failed projects and desperate of ever becoming a filmmaker, he was ready to chuck it for grad school. That's when he finally discovered the crucial ingredient to building one of the most successful creative careers in the business. Someone should really tell him these things up front.