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Could Whitney Houston Have Been Saved?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Does Uggie the Dog Ever Have to Work Again?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Does Jim Carrey's Daughter Have an Edge on Idol?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Could Brad Pitt Wear Jeans and a T-shirt to the Oscars?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
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Why are big stars doing so much TV?
—Florence, Oak Forest, Illinois
The B!tch Replies: Indeed. When James Woods agrees to show his face on the CBS lot without some gaggle of barely legal girlfriends to keep him amused, you know TV has gained prestige. And it has. Most experts point to HBO as the vanguard in the new fancy-TV movement, which has roped in movie actors ranging from Kyra Segwick to Sally Field to that robot-hatin' Edward James Olmos.
"HBO helped start the trend of making it okay for feature players to turn to TV," Variety’s Michael Schneider tells this B!tch. "If Spielberg and Hanks can do it, you can, too.”
And you, Bill Paxton! And you, Mary-Louise Parker, not to be mistaken for Penelope Ann Miller!
Other factors contributing to TV’s growing prestige:
Making a movie is getting harder to do. "The studios are churning out less middle-ground stuff," Schneider explains. "In other words, if you're not a big-budget blockbuster or a tiny-budget indie, it's nearly impossible to get your project told. Enter TV."
Actors love instant gratification. Helps with their lack of attention span, see. Just the other day, I sent Cameron Diaz a set of Fisher-Price blocks—you know, for the holidays—and I understand she has already abandoned them for her American Girl dolly. I believe it was Ranch Hand Nicki, which was recently named American Girl’s Doll of the Year, but still my disappointment was palpable. At any rate, actors are starting to realize TV offers them the quick weekly turnarounds they crave, with a steady stream of DVD and residual cash to boot.
Despite the success of Reba, experts assure me that TV, not film, is seen as more exciting entertainment these days, and actors know it. "Conventional wisdom is TV is just creatively better," Schneider says. "I think Entertainment Weekly does at least one cover a year touting that fact…The water-cooler talk is TV, not film."
He's right. Nothing sends tongues a-wagging like the killing of that bug-eyed girl with the power of suggestion on Heroes last month.
Or the way Starbuck and Apollo beat each other bloody before practically making out in that boxing ring, while poor Gollum-eyed Dualla got to watch.
Or how about on Lost, when—actually, scratch that. Nothing has happened on Lost, unless you count the eating of a fish biscuit as plot. Time to bring in James Woods and his posse of walking blow-up dolls.
- SEE MY PREDICTIONS for the Golden Globes. They're so right-on maybe I'll even win one
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