Where Do I Know Her From?

Natalie Zea is one of those actresses who elicits a Where do I know her from? thought bubble — not because she's forgettable, but because she's been on so many shows that it's hard to quite place her. She has a recurring role on FX's Justified (her character returns tonight), and she's starring in Fox's The Following as a woman caught between her serial-killer ex-husband (James Purefoy) and the former FBI agent (Kevin Bacon) who caught him. "It's really hard to wrap my brain around it," Zea laughed when Vulture sat down with her for lunch recently. "How could she not know her husband was a serial killer?" To give herself some perspective, she wrote a history for her character ("All this great dark shit about my absent mother") only to turn out to be wrong when showrunner Kevin Williamson presented her with a new script. "There was a line 'If my mother calls, tell her I'm napping,'" she laughed. "That's the problem when you're doing a show that incorporates flashbacks." Not to be daunted, Zea was happy to flash back on her varied career, giving us her favorite stories from some of her TV gigs...

D.C., 2000 & Franklin & Bash, 2011

Zea's first job in television was as a guest star on a short-lived series on the WB (appearing on the fourth and last-aired episode); she reunited with its star Mark-Paul Gosselaar eleven years later to guest on his then-new show on TNT. "We made out on D.C., and Mark-Paul did not remember me!" she laughs indignantly. "I felt really bad. And he felt really bad. I only shot one day on D.C., in Toronto, and Mark-Paul, Scott Paulin [the director], and I went out afterward to this barn where they serve beer and disgusting BBQ, and we stayed out all night until 5 a.m. until I had to get on a plane and go — so I don't know how he didn't remember. But I'm so terrible with names myself, and I've been in some embarrassing situations. I used to tend bar here in New York, and my regulars would come in, and I would have no idea. "You have to be kidding! You serve me here every night!" My friends call me the mind eraser. So I realized, Okay, I'll give him a second to remember. But I do feel bad for calling him out for it in front of someone else. Perhaps that was rude."


Passions, 2000-2002

Zea's first major television role was on the NBC daytime soap opera as one of the actresses playing socialite Gwen Hotchkiss Winthrop, love interest of Ethan Crane, played by her long-term boyfriend, Travis Schuldt. "The shenanigans that were going on behind the scenes would shock and amaze anyone who watched it — all the hookups, odd couplings, and the strange, strange matchups you never would have thought," she says. "I met Travis on Passions, and once I talked shit about him, something about how it felt uncomfortable to do intimate scenes with him because he's like my brother, and he found it, and quoted it back to me. It's now on our refrigerator. We worked together for two years, and getting together was a slow process, but after three years of friendship, it seemed really silly not to make out! And now we're basically married and we own a home. We've been together for about a decade, and we're in it to win it."

Hung, 2009

Zea went topless for the first time for her portrayal of a client who Ray wants to actually date for real — but she just wants to hurt him — in four episodes of the first season of the since-canceled HBO program. "You like to think you're fine with the nudity, very free with all that, but on the day, it doesn't matter how relaxed and groovy you are — it's still a mind-fuck," she admits. "I don't feel as weird about it as much now. This was early on, and the nudity waiver for me was like a dictionary. It was so thick and detailed. This one took two weeks to negotiate, and we have a couple on file now. For instance, I would never do a body double. The waiver is really detailed in terms of language: side breast, nipple, crack. I will not do crack. I don't love privacy patches, because they don't cover up cracks, so they made me a special one. I said, 'Make me a G-string without the string.' It's less about what's making it to air, and more about what they'll see on set. On Justified, I've done scenes completely topless, because I've been there long enough."

Californication, 2012-2013

Zea started her four-episode run as just another of Hank Moody's exes and then became one of the more significant ones by drugging him in the season five finale. "I had been dying to get on Californication for years," she reveals. "It's one of my favorite shows, and I'm friends with the casting director, Felicia Fasano, so every time I would see her, I'd say, 'Let's make this happen,' but there was always a conflict with whatever show I was working on at the time. I was shooting the Person of Interest pilot in New York, I got the Royal Pains offer for two days after that, and then I got a call from my manager about Californication. 'Felicia called. I told her you're shooting two things in New York at the moment ... ' This is on a Thursday, but I don't even have to look — of course I'll do it! This is the only show I've ever done that I've been a big fan of, and that will fuck with you. We do the scene, and then I went up to Tom Kapinos, the creator — and I never do this — but I begged for him to write more. 'Well, you know, you burned down his apartment.' 'Figure it out! I want to keep doing this!' Like he's my own personal Make-A-Wish Foundation. I guess I was empathetic enough, because they were like, 'All right, you're coming back!'"
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Hung S03E06

"Look at my tits... does that help?"

The skies are particularly friendly tonight, my friends... or that’s how they start out for Ray, anyway, as he enters the Mile High Club with Sharon, a stewardess for Marathon Airlines. Having him hop a flight to Chicago for a trick is a pretty long way to go to set up the episode’s premise (“At any moment, any place, it could all come crashing down”), but the dialogue in the scene was great and Candice Coke's breasts are 'even better than the Real Thing', so I’m hard pressed to complain a heck of a lot. Besides, "those seatbelts are not going to help you. Nothing out there can help you. If we go down, we go down. You might as well fuck me" stands proud as one of the great expressions of foreplay through deductive reasoning to be found anywhere on a Sunday night cable drama. I think, therefore I am; I’m Ray, Fly Me.


Television Series: Hung (S03E06- Money On The Floor)
Release Date: November 2011
Actress: Candice Coke
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea










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Jamie Clayton Kisses And Tells

Thomas Jane's character Ray Drecker has serviced a number of ladies on HBO's controversial series Hung, but his latest client has a secret past. Actress Jamie Clayton made her scripted primetime debut Sunday night as Kyla, a young woman who procures main character Ray Drecker's "services" as a date for her high school reunion. It was the first of a trailblazing two episode arc on the HBO show because the actress who plays the strawberry blonde with the raspy voice shares more than striking features with her character: They're both women who happen to be transgender.

The show notoriously explores a Detroit man resorting to prostitution to make ends meet and it continues to push the envelope with the introduction of Kyla. Clayton, who has also previously appeared on Vh1's TRANSform Me, says that she hopes to be judged for her work and not her past and she's auditioning for different types of roles. Speaking to The Insider, she talks about the audition process and bursting into tears after hearing she had the part, as well as how welcoming the entire cast and crew of the show was. "I honestly started crying when my manager called me the night [he told me that] I got the part," Clayton said. "I started bursting into tears and I called my mom to tell her." While her mother was thrilled, Clayton was more ecstatic for nabbing the role; not because she gets to make out with series star Thomas Jane (though she did find it to be an "absolute pleasure"), but for the fact that the thespian gets to exhibit her acting chops in front of a larger audience and not just be looked at as a transgender actress. "I want to act," Clayton said. "I want to do movies and television shows. I want to audition for all different kinds of parts, not just transgender roles. Hopefully, once people see the show, they will believe in me."


Janet Mock also interviewed Clayton for a piece on People.com, in which she spoke more about her character's storyline, and how her relationship with Thomas Jane's character evolves. "Obviously this storyline is different for Hung," Clayton admits. "The writers really just trumped all of the things that I knew were going to bother people [about Kyla]." After some initial tension, Clayton says Ray's character sees Kyla for who she really is, and says "I really hope that people walk away from the episodes with exactly what Ray walks away with: knowing that Kyla is a beautiful girl who deserves to be treated like everybody else."

Clayton, 33, is a former makeup artist, who first made a splash in 2008 when the New York Observer proclaimed the San Diego native the "Second Most Beautiful Girl in New York" in what she calls a "kitschy" profile. "I'll never forget the day the article came out. My whole life just completely changed," she reflects of making the decision to be "visible to the public" as a transgender woman and in effect say, "I'm here, I'm this girl. I'm totally like everybody else."

And that sense of normalcy is what initially attracted Clayton to Kyla, which is her first acting role. "I love that she's just a regular girl, and I love that she wanted Ray to know [she's transgender]," the actress says. "With Kyla coming into Ray's life he has a big lesson, and I think it shows people we're constantly growing, and if we open ourselves up to new experiences we become better people." But how did she feel about her leading man Jane – and their steamy makeout scenes? "He was an absolute gentlemen from the minute that I met him. I was just completely mesmerized by him," she says. "He was very patient with me and he was so, so good."

Though she won’t divulge personal details, Clayton goes into more depth about her past and her career in an interview with The Advocate. Obviously it’s really rare for trans actresses to actually get cast on TV of any kind, especially non-reality, and usually when there’s a trans character, non-trans actresses get cast for those roles. So how did she get involved with Hung? "They actually found me through an article that was written about an acting studio that I attend," she recalls. "There was a big article in the New York Times, and writers were reading this and when it came time for them to start auditioning people for the role, they contacted my agent and I submitted an audition and before I knew it I was in LA fitting wardrobe and on set filming."

There is, of course, a savvy feminist undercurrent to Hung (hearing Jane Adams’ madam character Tanya explain that porn is bad because of the male gaze is one of TV’s finest moments) but the show is not trying to be overly PC with Clayton's episodes. When asked if she thought some of the language used on the show is there to help show an evolution on the part of some of the characters, there is an adamant response. "Definitely, I think that as much as the storyline is about as much as watching Kyla’s story evolve it’s also about Ray," she insists. "It’s about watching him evolve. So I think that the language that’s included, they’re very real reactions. These are characters in Detroit … I think the writers just wanted to stay true to the characters and true to the storylines, and I think its great because I think that by the end of the episodes you see Ray comes around and embraces Kyla 100."
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Hung S03E03

Last night Hung aired its third episode of the season in which Ray fears he’s blown his cover when he mistakes Logan, a former student, for a client. Logan is played by the beautiful and charming actress Kaitlin Doubleday whom Daemon’s TV had the opportunity to chat about her upcoming appearence. Kaitlin opened up about the intricacies of her character, the intense on-screen sex scenes she had to prepare for and her approach to her career overall...

How did you get involved with this series?

Well, I auditioned for it and I really was in love with the character and I just thought she was hysterical. So, when I didn’t get it, I was really devastated. And then a friend called me and said, ‘The girl that got it didn’t feel comfortable with all the nudity and stuff and she pulled out.‘ So, I called my agents right away and said, ‘Get me back in on “Hung“. I just found out that the girl was out.’ And my agency are not fans of nudity at all. So, they were like, ‘Are you sure, lady? Maybe it was a sign and blah, blah, blah.’

And I was like, ‘No, I’m sure. I’m not getting any younger. It’s time to bite the nudity bullet‘ I loved this character. So, I went back in and worked really hard. And I had to go back in a bunch more times just because they were shooting and the right people weren’t ever in the room. It was super nerve-wracking, but when you feel super right for something- in my heart I was like, ‘They made a mistake by giving it to somebody else.’ In the end it really did work out. They ended up writing me more episodes because it was a good fit. From the moment I got there it was just amazing. And then Logan, my character, became more of a part of the show and part of Ray’s life. And that was all unexpected and really wonderful. So it was awesome.


So, who is Logan? And what’s her relationship with Ray?

Logan is a former student of Ray’s who was kind of like a hot, popular girl in high school and who has had a crush- who had a crush on him in high school. Sort of a spoiled, rich, ‘It’s my world and you’re living in it’ sort of girl. Which I’ve never played a part of anybody who’s as confident as Logan. So, it gives you a lot of freedom because nothing anybody says to her really has an effect on her. So her responses are kind of hilarious.

With all the characters you’ve taken on over the years, do you have an approach to taking on a new character that you use every time or does it vary on a case by case basis?

It’s very on a case-by-case basis. I work on them through the auditions the same time kind of ways. But once I really try to work on the character, it’s always different. I have an audition tomorrow that, or today, that I worked on like I’ve never worked on anything before and I’ve been doing this for ten years. So I think you should find something that works for you, obviously. But sometimes it’s good to mix it up. And with different characters it’s always going to make you dig into different skills or aspects of your training.

So, with Logan I didn’t really know what to do other than when I would get insanely nervous and think I was going to throw up because I was about to have some insane sequence of five sex scenes in a row naked, I knew that in order to keep Logan who she was and who she was starting to become, I couldn’t let those nerves seep into me at all. Whereas on other sets, if I’d had to do sex scenes which have never have been this insane, but even if I got a little bit nervous, I would say, ‘Oh my god, I’m nervous.’ Or whatever.

Whereas on this show, I didn’t. I didn’t ever mention that I was nervous on set at all because I didn’t want it to seep into whatever performance I was going to give Logan because she was literally the opposite of being nervous. She exudes a sort of sexuality that’s very confident. And I was constantly saying:, ‘What would Logan do right now?’ And then I would just do that. And I’ve never done that before but that worked for me on this show.

Television Series: Hung (S03E03- Mister Drecker or Ease Up on the Whup-Ass)
Release Date: October 2011
Actress: Kaitlin Doubleday
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea










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Hung S03E02

Two years and two Golden Globe nods on since Hung's provocative 2009 debut, HBO's show about the little giant schlong that could has more than proved its ability to, em, last. With the third season now in full swing, Hung's star, Thomas Jane, tells Complex about what you can learn from his sexploits...

For starters, how does it feel to be at the center of a show that revolves around your member and its impact on people’s lives?

It’s crazy. My cock is more famous than I am!

What was your initial reaction when the project was pitched to you? We’d love to know how that conversation went down.

Well, the writers actually had me in mind when they wrote the show. Alexander Payne signed on to do the pilot and he asked them who they had in mind. They said, “Well, we kind of wrote this for Thomas Jane, so we’re looking for that kind of type—a Thomas Jane type of guy." Alexander said, “I know Thomas. How about we just start with the real thing?”

He gave me a call and I actually still have the message on my answering machine. I saved it. It was a real interesting call, saying, “Hi, Thomas. This is Alexander Payne. We’re doing this show for HBO and it’s about a man with a large penis. Your name came up. Why don’t you give me a call?”


How does one go about “studying up” for a role like this? Are there any surprising ways you get into character?

A lot of push-ups. I asked the crew for a fluffer, but they haven’t made that happen yet.

There tends to be a presumption that someone who enters into this line of work has to have something off about them. Ray and Tanya (Jane Adams), however, despite certain lapses of judgment, seem to have pretty decent heads on their shoulders and bring a surprising sensibility to their escort work that almost makes it feel…practical. Can you speak a bit about that?

Ray and Tanya are a very unlikely pair of heroes. They’re the last people you’d think would be in the pimp-ho business, you know, a poetry teacher and a former professional baseball player-turned-history teacher. The whole show kind of revolves around the idea that these people are normal, but honestly, I think it’s really about the politics of the male-female relationship. Ray’s relationships with different women in his life become the focus of the show, whereas Season One plays a lot on the fact that the American economy has gone into the shitter. By Season Three, the economy’s still in the shitter, so I think people just want to have some fun!

So what can you tell us about the new season?

This year, we decided to present a funnier, faster, sexier show and have some fun with the characters. They’re really well written, very well designed characters and we wanted to take the audience for a ride where we can kind of forget about our troubles for a minute. “By Season Three, I don’t wanna hear anything about the fucking economy anymore!” We’ve got Ray, who's quit his teaching job and hoing full time; he’s got some money coming in. Ray and Tanya’s business has been booming.

I’ve got a nice, fancy sports car and we’re working at a little store front where Tanya’s teaching a sex class above a muffin shop, and life is good. Ray’s done a lot more living. When Lenore moves in on his territory with a gigolo she’s trained, this waiter, it really throws a wrench into his plans. She’s always there to fuck shit up! The fact that she’s threatening him with this new young kid is pretty genius. I go through all kinds of crazy shit this season. It’s been really fun, really sexy, and a great year. My favorite season by far.

What do you think it is about the show that’s resonated so much with audiences?

It’s human. People love the show because it deals with human beings in a real way. We play on the hopes and fears of men and women, attacking serious questions about the male-female relationship, and we do it in a way that’s funny, yet provocative. The title and the fact that the guy’s got a big dick are the Trojan horse that gets us into your living room. People like escapism, and we also want to watch entertainment where we can see people in situations we wonder how we’d deal with.

Do you think the show’s given you any new insight when it comes to women?

Women are just as mysterious to me as ever, but I do think the show is kind of a journey through the female psyche. The show has a lot of female fans because it really is a male point of view through the mind of a female. It’s like taking a tour of a woman’s mind and that’s what I find fascinating about it.

We can't help but assume your response from lady fans must have been pretty strong. Have you ever had any particularly crazy encounters?

People ask if they can hire me all the time. The most frequent question isn’t “How big?”; it’s “Hey, baby, how much?”

How did your family first respond to the show?

My mother asked me for Ray’s phone number. Only kidding!

A lot of guys out there are consumed with penis size. Do you think an individual’s outlook on life truly is different from others when they’re fortunate enough to be blessed downstairs?

I think most people get over comparing penis sizes in high school, but there are people who continue to do that in the real world. America is immature as a nation and part of the reason why Hung is a hit show is because it deals with that immature side of the male brain where we are kind of comparing ourselves to the rest of the world.

But there’s a lot more to life than how big your dick is! Let me tell you something I’ve learned: No matter how big your cock is, there’s somebody out there whose dick is smaller than yours, who’s doing more with it. In other words, somebody’s fucking better than you, doing more with less. So learn how to use what you got!

We think it’s safe to say you have more sex scenes than the average leading man. Are about half of your sets closed sets?

I spend more time naked in front of a hundred people than I do by myself at home! I get used to it. One of the things the show’s given me personally is it’s taught me how to be comfortable with my own body, and that’s a gift. The less time I spend worrying about myself, the more time I can spend making the girl I’m with feel good.

We imagine you've got to be pretty desensitized to sex scenes, with it being such a large part of your character's everyday life. Have there ever been any that were challenging to shoot?

Blowjob scenes are always tough to shoot. I have to instruct the actress on how far to bob her head up and down. Too much and it looks too silly…too little and it looks, er, little. Just like real life, most girls need a little coaching to hit that sweet spot that’s just right.

When we're introduced to Ray back in Season One, he's a school teacher who begins moonlighting as a male escort. Have you ever had any surprising day jobs or side hustles before you began acting full-time?

I was a hustler on Santa Monica Blvd as a young man. I gave away balloons for an Italian Restaurant and became known as "the Balloon Boy." Insert obvious entendre here.

Television Series: Hung (S03E02- Don't Give Up on Detroit or Hung Like a Horse)
Release Date: October 2011
Actress: Kelly Ryan & Georgia Hatzis
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea

Kelly Ryan










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Hung S03E01

There's good and bad news for fans of HBO's "Hung." There is even more nudity and sex in the upcoming season, which premiered yesterday, but most of it does not feature Elkins Park native Rebecca Creskoff. "I am probably the one with my clothes on the most for a change," the redheaded beauty told the Phildadelphia Inquirer. Creskoff, a Cheltenham High and Penn grad, plays Lenore, one of male prostitute Thomas Jane's two female pimps.

Creskoff, who recently appeared on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as a restaurant hostess dating Larry David, says that when she first realized how much nudity would be required of Lenore, she had a huge fear about nudity but was reassured when her mother Betty Jane, who goes by BJ, encouraged her. "She said, 'This is a big opportunity. You're an artist. Go for it,' " Creskoff recalls.


Television Series: Hung (S03E01- Don't Give Up on Detroit or Hung Like a Horse)
Release Date: October 2011
Actress: Arden Myrin, Michaela Watkins & Rebecca Creskoff
Video Clip Credit: El Amigo

Arden Myrin, Michaela Watkins & Rebecca Creskoff









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The Accidental Pornographer

Colette Burson, the co-creator of the HBO show, 'Hung,' has found that a large percentage of her job is discussing sex and nudity in great detail...

My first job was as a singing waitress. It was the only job I could get in my small town, an artsy-but-hicky little place in the Appalachian mountains that fast food chains hadn’t farted on yet. I would come, all age 17 of me, singing one of the only tunes I was somewhat comfortable with: “Chim Cher-ee,” or whatever that damn song is called that Dick Van Dyke nails in the sooty clothes, from Mary Poppins. I usually started with a hand on my cocked knee and a “chimney sweep smile” on my face, hoping against hope that the Cockney accent would hide my multitude of singing errors. But by the end of the summer I knew: I had no career as a singer. Or as a waitress. Now my job is working on Hung, the TV show where Thomas Jane and Jane Adams join together to sell Ray’s (Thomas Jane) big dick, which starts its third season on HBO on Sunday. For me, Hung started in the summer of 2008, when I was wildly pregnant, finally had an elective c-section (it’s easier, but nurses give you dirty looks), and then days later started shooting the pilot in Detroit with Alexander Payne. I co-created Hung and co-run it with my husband, Dmitry Lipkin.

We are, in a way, pornographers. Accidental pornographers. Showrunning Hung means coming up with storylines, developing scripts, and supervising production. We live with the show every day (a state I call Hungland), multitask like lunatics, work crazy long hours, blah blah blah. But the interesting part is how much time we and our writers spend dissecting sex on a lot of different levels. For example, how the male and female psyches go into and through sexual encounters differently. Or not. Fact is, we have to create sex scenes and the context for them, in almost every episode. So do a lot of shows, but Hung isn’t about people in love. It’s about women who don’t know Ray, who decide to PAY to have sex with him. Why do they do it? and Would I ever do it? is what the show is about. (Fascinatingly, I hear a lot on the street about large groups of Marines, as well as clusters of women over 60, who are particularly obsessed with Ray and all the sex he has. I have theories as to why, but that’s another article.) On a more practical level, Step A in Hungland is conceiving and writing the sex scene. Step B, the crucial step (I like to call it “bringing home the bacon”) is shooting it.


Thomas Jane, who plays Ray, is fearless and easy, flashes his white butt in the credits every week, and has shown his penis in movies plenty of times. We show everything but that on Hung (we didn’t go there in Seasons 1 and 2; I’ll get back to this later), but to be fair, our society seems to hold men to a different standard. Flaws in men just aren’t focused on so much, whereas women are fair game and it feels like everybody with a remote is on an armchair safari hunt. There’s not an actress alive who isn’t worried about her sex scene, at least not one that I’ve encountered. Usually she wants to talk to me about her “problem area.” Every chick has a problem area, apparently, and they aren’t keen on having millions of people notice it. Particularly when those millions are capable of freeze-framing, not to mention zooming in and then posting it forever on the Internet. Given that, who can blame the actresses?

My job, then, becomes one of rock solid, you-can-count-on-me reassurance. I start yakking a mile a minute. Don’t worry, I’m a chick, I’ll be right there in the editing room, I’ll take care of you. It’s true actually, I do look out for them, and even if I think they look good by my own personal standards, I try to stare at that tummy fold or breast wrinkle from the hypercritical, potentially self-loathing actressy point of view. Out of chick solidarity, the editors and I freezeframe and zoom in and imagine it posted on the Internet forever so there won’t be heinous surprises popping up for anybody. I’ve got an ace track record in the “I’ll literally protect your ass” department, which is good for them and good for me (I can point to it in future conversations), and they always answer, “Yes, I’ve heard you do that, it’s so reassuring.” They usually also add, “I really want to do this, I do,” and, “I’ve been staring at myself naked in the mirror and I really want it to be OK!” But I’d be lying if I didn’t say there’s a lot of last minute panic. There’s also the inevitable phone conversation after they are cast during which I have to go into detail about what will go down on set. Well, you’ll have a patch… you know, a little piece of material, they call it a patch, it’s placed over your crotch… and Thomas will have a cock sock, are you familiar with that..? Um, no. They usually aren’t.

There’s a pattern to the “nudity required” role, which is this: Actresses audition, full of brio. They get cast. Suddenly, they begin to feel quite a bit less confident. They begin to sweat and call their agents, who talk them off the cliff. They go home, undress, stare at themselves naked in mirrors a lot. They have trusted friends hold mirrors in places they normally don’t look. They panic even more deeply and begin to hyperventilate. A call is then arranged with me, the female half of the creator team, to go over details. I reassure them that their panic is a part of a very familiar pattern. It’s new to them but old hat to me. I tell them the truth, which is that they’ll be FINE in the end. Listen, I say. I know it’s really hard right now but this role is going to be great for you. Nudity never hurt anybody. Look how it’s been for Rebecca Creskoff! Believe me, the first time she came to the set she was trembling and holding her manager’s hand, but you know what she said to me later in the season? “Just so you know, the curtains match the drapes!” I swear to God!!! Yes! And that’s why we see her auburn airport runway in Episode 9!! So look. You’ll probably have an anxious week, and even though I tell you not to diet you’re going to spend the next three days fasting… but just know I’ll be in the editing room and absolutely nothing gets by me. I’ll make sure you’re beautiful. I’M A WOMAN, TOO. Plus. You’ll wear a robe the whole time on set. Rachel’s your dresser, she’s so nice and funny and supportive, she’ll remove the robe right before shooting. The first time it’s hell, really hell, it feels awkward and you’re embarrassed, you feel naked, and as a matter of fact, you are indeed naked. But here’s the good news. It’s like a wall; it lasts one or two minutes. And then you break through. You don’t care. It’s amazing. You are lib-er-ated. You could shoot that damn sex scene all day. You don’t even WANT your clothes back.

Really? They ask. Really truly, I say. Cuz it’s true. And if they still hesitate, I throw down my final zinger: You’ll be so glad you did it when you’re 60! They always agree with that one. Somehow it always works better than you’d think it would. Why is it so hard to get actresses to be naked, I’m sometimes asked? Aren’t actors naked on TV all the time? The difference is that our naked actresses—not always, but usually—need to be real actors. They need chops. We want to give them meaty lines and have them play real characters. Also, most of the time, they aren’t 20. Finding talent plus bravery in the age of the Internet is a difficult task.

“Colette, could you come down and take a look at the pubic hair?” That’s a real way to wake up in the morning, lemme tell you. I walk down to a trailer. The costume department chicks come in, along with our actress, sweet and pretty. This is a “full naked” role, not a “partially naked” one, so no snatch patch and everything needs attention. She nonchalantly drops trow, and three or so of us stare at the pattern of her pubic hair. I try to look thoughtful and matter-of-fact. The makeup artist says something like, “Would you like it thicker?” Pause. We all contemplate. “Or is that thick enough?” And she usually says something like, “I was thinking a thin strip, like an airport runway.” And then, depending on my mood, I give a thumbs-up to the airport strip idea, or else say rebelliously, “I’m sick of all this shaved like a preschool girl thing! Fuck that! We’re bringin’ back the bush!!”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the penis issue is less complicated. We don’t talk pubic hair. It just all boils down to whether we SHOW or DON’T SHOW. We get fervent opinions either way. I myself go back and forth. Why not show? But on the other hand… isn’t the perfect penis a different thing for everybody? In what state would we show said penis? Should we cheat like Boogie Nights did, flashing everybody the biggest cock of all time? Or just aim for fattish and nicely sized? Or hell, just run with whatever mood Thomas happens to be in that day? But wouldn’t showing Ray’s dong be kind of a turn off? And here you can see where it all gets really tricky. Why would it ever be a turn off, at least for penis-favorable individuals? Is it the reality of it all, meaning some level of fantasy is required? What does the word sexy really mean?

One thing I figured out after working on the big dick show for three years is that yes, some ingredient of fantasy is indeed required to make a pot of sexy. For women, sex is a lot in their heads. Ray embodies this idea in Season 3 more than ever, and the character is shinier and funnier because of it. Ray is sexy when he connects to his clients upstairs. Downstairs can’t be shabby, it’s really good that Ray’s horny-on-the-spot with no erectile dysfunction in sight, but what’s most important is that he worms his way into each client’s brain. Throughout Season 3 I had a card taped to my door to remind me of all this, scrawled in black marker: RAY + SEX = HAPPINESS.

Back when we sold Hung, it was like passing out candy to kids at Christmas. Honest to God, out of all the rooms I ever sat in or tried to sell something in, I never saw anything like it. It was like a fountain spurting positive energy was in the center of every conference table. Dmitry and I and our producer Michael Rosenberg would walk in, small talk a bit, and then Rosey would usually blurt something like, “We’re here to sell you a show about a guy with a big dick.” Everyone’s eyes would light up. Usually the room had more men in it than women, it’s worth pointing out, but still–they would smile. They would look enchanted. They would pull out their checkbooks. And then Dmitry and I would get to details, explain how we meant for the show to be more, about the economy and the complexity of sexuality and blah blah blah, but really it was just a cherry on the sundae at that point, because the room was sold, sold, sold. We sold that sucker six different times. And I would be thrilled, because I knew we could deliver something special, the big dick plus something more–but the rebel in me would secretly think, I’m a feminist, what am I doing here?

You live and you learn. I was a bad singing waitress, but I turned out to be a pretty good pornographer.
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Hung S02

Alias alumna Merrin Dungey has landed a major recurring role on HBO comedy series Hung's upcoming second season. She will play Liz, a potential new love interest for Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), the struggling suburban Detroit high-school basketball coach moonlighting as a male prostitute. Liz is one of his clients, a super successful corporate woman. Dungey also co-starred on CBS’ King of Queens and recently recurred on ABC's Better Off Ted.


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Hung and Entourage returning soon

HBO's Hung and Entourage will return on June 27, following True Blood. The comedies are taking the time slot from Treme, which will have finished its first season. HBO had previously announced that True Blood will be back June 13. The station has already renewed rookie comedy series How To Make It In America, ordering a further eight episodes to debut in summer of 2011. The news comes the day after the network also renewed Curb Your Enthusiasm for an eighth round, with 10 episodes to air next year.

"After much soul searching – and by the way, it was nowhere to be found – I have decided to do another season of 'Curb,'" creator David said. "I look forward to the end of shooting, when I can once again resume the hunt for my elusive soul. I know it’s here somewhere or perhaps in the rugged mountainous regions of Pakistan." Adds HBO programming president Michael Lombardo: "Larry always loves to paint himself into a corner, and after the incredibly wonderful seventh season of 'Curb,' you have to ask, ‘How does he ever top this?’ But he always finds a way. We can’t wait to see what he does in season eight." With 70 episodes to date, "Curb" has become HBO's longest-running scripted series.

As far as Entourage is concerned, it could be two more seasons of and then a movie according to the show's executive producer Mark Wahlberg. Asked about the future of the comedy series, which recently was picked up for a sixth cycle coming off one of its strongest seasons, Wahlberg indicated that he believes there are two more seasons left in the show. "We'll see; there could be more," he said at the premiere of his latest film, The Lovely Bones. "But then, a movie." HBO seems on board with the idea. "It is not out of the realm of possibility," an HBO spokeswoman admitted. "Although, right now, the creators are concentrating on the new season." In following a successful series run with a movie, the Doug Ellin-created Entourage would mirror another long-running HBO comedy, Sex and the City.


Elsewhere, criminally under-watched Starz comedy Party Down already lost Jane Lynch last season to Fox's Glee, now three more key cast members have commitments to other TV projects. So can the show realistically continue? At the Party Down event at the Paley Center last night, Philiana Ng reports that co-creators and executive producers Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars), John Enbom and Dan Etheridge were adamant that the show can continue.

Leading man Adam Scott (Henry) recently signed on for NBC's Parks & Recreation as an unwelcomed state arbiter, causing many to believe that the upcoming sophomore season may be Party Down's last. Also, Ryan Hansen (Kyle) was cast in a NBC comedy pilot Friends With Benefits and Lizzy Caplan (Casey) is committed to CBS' True Love project. That's three to four main characters potentially leaving by season's end. "It's catering. People come and people go," Enbom said. "We never had the money to go, 'You're in a 10-year deal!'"

"We love our cast, but I think it's a show that can survive," Thomas added. "I think in the real world catering is not a career choice for most people so it would make sense that new people would come into the show." I'm not so sure. While people leaving a catering company might make sense from a logic standpoint, that has little to do with keeping viewers. Casting is catching lightning in a bottle. Not only does each character need to pop, they need to click with each of the other characters. Viewers get emotionally invested in a character's story and once they're gone, often, so is the audience.

Since it started launching scripted programming, Starz hasn't had much luck with actors. Dennis Hopper, star of the network's first drama, Crash, is battling cancer. Andy Whitfield, star of the network's second drama, Spartacus, is also battling cancer. Now the cast of Party Down, a show that really needs to grow in the ratings, has one foot out the door.

Finally, the wife of Michael C. Hall says the Dexter star is "fully recovered" from cancer and has returned to work. Jennifer Carpenter said Friday that Hall was "incredibly brave" when he announced in January that he was undergoing treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes. The 38-year-old Hall went into remission and continued treatment at a health facility near Los Angeles.

Hall won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award earlier this year for his portrayal of Dexter, a serial killer who targets other murderers. Carpenter stars on the bloody Showtime hit series as Dexter's seemingly unknowing sister.
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Hung S01E10

By sex therapist I mean someone who will fuck you so good you don't care what your husband does or doesn't do...

Television Series: Hung (S01E10- A Dick and a Dream or Fight the Honey)
Release Date: September 2009
Actress: Alanna Ubach & Rebecca Creskoff
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: H264; 12802x720

Alanna Ubach



http://rapidshare.com/files/279884638/Alanna_Ubach_-_H0110720p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HNLT5EFO

Rebecca Creskoff



http://rapidshare.com/files/279881948/Rebecca_Creskoff_-_H0110720p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZY2M8JUW
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Hung S01E09

Hold on, it's time to diversify...

Television Series: Hung (S01E09- This Is America or Fifty Bucks)
Release Date: August 2009
Actress: Rebecca Creskoff
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: (3 Clips [includes Slo-Mo]; H264; 1280x720)



http://rapidshare.com/files/273732086/Rebecca_Creskoff_-_H010920p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LVHIB7H2
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Hung S01E08

I don't have any Red Bull but I do I know how to get you up...

Television Series: Hung (S01E08- Thith Ith a Prothetic or You Cum Just Right)
Release Date: August 2009
Actress: Jane Adams & Lauren Weedman
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [XVID; 624x352]

Jane Adams



http://rapidshare.com/files/273204966/janada-hun-s1e8.zip
or
http://www.mediafire.com/file/timknnoytz4/janada-hun-s1e8.zip

Lauren Weedman



http://rapidshare.com/files/273210343/lauwee-hun-s1e8.zip
or
http://www.mediafire.com/file/hityzgnzwn2/lauwee-hun-s1e8.zip

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Hung S01E07

It felt different this time; it felt real...

Following on from yesterday's post here are the relevant scenes from Hung S01E07, featuring Natalie Zea's only other bit of action for the season and the introduction of Alanna Ubach.


Television Series: Hung (S01E05- The Rita Flower or the Indelible Stench)
Release Date: August 2009
Actress: Alanna Ubach & Natalie Zea
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [H264; 1280x720]

Alanna Ubach



http://rapidshare.com/files/269630789/Alanna_Ubach_-_H0107720p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L7U8K3QW

Natalie Zea



http://rapidshare.com/files/269631467/Natalie_Zea_-_H0107720p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MRQIALY1
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Hung S01E05

To mark the start of Justified, the new series on FX based on Elmore Leonard's short story "Fire in the Hole", we offer this hot scene from female lead Natalie Zea. It comes from HBO drama Hung and dates from June last year. As far as I am aware, it is the most revealing thing Natalie has done so far.


Television Series: Hung (S01E05- Do It Monkey)
Release Date: August 2009
Actress: Natalie Zea
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [10,8Mio for 22s; DivX 5 at 3994 Kbps; 1280 x 720]



http://rapidshare.com/files/263600145/Natalie_Zea_-_H0105720p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y243KNTQ
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How Hung Is He?

How hung is he? asks Newsweek's Caryn James, who embraces HBO's saucy new comedy about an exceptionally well-endowed man...

We never see the humongous dick that gives HBO’s wry new comedy series Hung its title. But why would we, when this show about a financially strapped high-school coach who becomes a prostitute is—like prostitution itself—more about money than sex? In this upscale comedy about downward mobility, our whore and hero is Ray (Thomas Jane), who is not only an underpaid basketball coach, but underpaid in Detroit, a city in the avant-garde of the national economic slump. Ray’s bitter wife (Anne Heche) has left him for a dermatologist, and his two teenaged kids live with him—that is, until the house burns down and he ends up sleeping in a tent. How low can a former high-school jock go? Apparently low enough to sell the only talent he has left: his remarkable penis.

How low can a former high-school jock go? Apparently low enough to sell the only talent he has left: his remarkable penis. This sounds a like a premise for the tackiest show around, but Hung (premiering tonight) lives up to its super-smart, droll pedigree. It was created by Dmitry Lipkin (who also created the underappreciated The Riches) and Colette Burson, and the pilot was directed by Alexander Payne ( Sideways, Election). The Riches, with Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as con artists living in a McMansion, was about reaching the high end of the American Dream. Hung deals with the now-timelier idea of trying to keep your head above water in a killer economy while wondering how the hell you became such a loser.


Strangely, the results are funny and never depressing. Maybe the series seems cheerful because even the most 401K-poor viewers can say, “At least I’m not a hooker.” (And: “At least I can still pay for HBO.”) But the show also feels breezy because beneath its blunt language and dry wit (and they make all the difference), Hung is about everyday decent people, and about as wholesome as Pretty Woman.

There’s definitely sex and nudity, even if we don’t see the title player; almost seeing Ray’s penis, masked by sheets and cautious camera angles, becomes a self-consciously playful tease. But the show is really driven by the Tracy-and-Hepburnish relationship between Ray and his unlikely pimp, Tanya (Jane Adams, who practically steals the series). Tanya is a frizzy-haired poet who loathes her day job temping for a law firm, and her exit strategy is to market Ray. She’s also the person who accidentally gave him the idea for a second career by yelling “You’re so big” during their quick fling, before she started berating him about his insensitivity to women’s feelings. (Her frequent lectures about how to treat women are the most strained aspects of the writing.)

Because Ray and Tanya are played by two of the least glam, most ordinary-looking actors around, it seems comically absurd for them to choose the sex trade as their bright idea. And while we can feel the sexual chemistry come through their now-Platonic partnership, they hardly notice anymore because they’re too busy squabbling. Tanya calls Ray a misogynist and he screams back, mocking her advertising slogan, “‘Happiness consultant’? Viral marketing? You are the worst pimp in the world!”

This coach-whore and poet-pimp are part of the mainstreaming of porn and prostitution as themes, in films that never mimic their subject. Steven Soderbergh’s recent, arty The Girlfriend Experience, with real-life porn star Sasha Grey playing an expensive escort, was so thoroughly about money that it had no sex scenes at all. Hung is not the first comedy to see sex as a fallback career, either. Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, with Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as penniless best friends who hope to earn the rent money with an amateur sex film, is a romantic comedy that spoofs the very idea of porn. ( Zack and Miri tanked at the box office last year but its mock-porn films-within-the-film are genuinely funny, worth catching on DVD.) And nothing is more mainstream than those sleazy-funny late-night commercials for male-enhancement products, so off the FDA’s radar they don’t even come with side-effect warnings.

None of these recent movies has become a blockbuster, or a cult favorite like 1997’s Boogie Nights, with Mark Wahlberg and his prosthetic penis playing porn actor Dirk Diggler. But the world is changing. In olden days, women insisted that size didn’t matter, while sharing the unspoken sisterly agreement: That’s our story, we’re sticking to it. The shrewd, amusing Hung may signal changes way beyond the economy.
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HBO's Penis Envy

In "Impossible to Tell," former poet laureate Robert Pinsky refers to "the rude, full-scale joke, impossible to tell in writing." Hung, a new HBO dramedy, is that kind of rude, full-scale joke, thinks Joshua Alston. It stars Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker, a high-school basketball coach with the luck of Job: his wife leaves him for a smug dermatologist. (Anne Heche plays said wife as such a brittle, overbearing person that it seems Ray caught a break, but in voice-over, he tells us this is a bad thing.) The lakefront home he grew up in burns down, and as he has no insurance, he ends up living in a tent on the lawn. Penniless and powerless, he colludes with Tanya (the invaluable Jane Adams), a woman he meets in a class on how to get rich by marketing yourself, to market the only thing he has left: his gigantic penis. Don't feel bad if you didn't anticipate this based on the title. It could have been about an art gallery.

Hung is born of the simplest kind of substitution humor, in which a familiar situation has an unfamiliar variable introduced to it. A woman who finds herself in dire straits, forced to sell her body, isn't terribly funny. Neither are gay hustlers, who are usually tragic characters too. Swap in a rakish, middle-aged straight man and comic high jinks ensue. After all, a straight hustler is doing what we, societally, would expect a straight man to be doing anyway.


He's having indiscriminate sex with women, and he's using money goggles instead of beer goggles to get the job done. And truthfully, men do seem preoccupied with the notion of being paid for sex, if Google is any indication. A search for how to become a male porn star yields nearly 1.5 million hits. Meanwhile, there are a paltry 200,000 hits for how to become a beer taster, a job just as enviable but much more paunch-friendly.

This sex-starved stereotype of straight men is reinforced in the world of Hung in which prostitution truly is a victimless crime. The dramatic tension doesn't come from Ray's inner turmoil about what he's doing. Instead, the show uses prostitution to explore the same theme other racy cable series explore with murder (Dexter) and drugs (Breaking Bad, Weeds)—the care and feeding of a double life. When Showtime debuted its series Secret Diary of a Call Girl, some critics complained that Hannah (Billie Piper), driven to her profession by choice rather than circumstance, was too glossy and charmed for a prostitute. Ray's situation is the opposite—he's stumbling clumsily into the world's oldest profession—which is what makes Hung work, when it does work.

Based on the first four episodes, the rude, full-scale joke on display in Hung doesn't seem much easier to execute onscreen than it does in writing. For one, our collective aversion to male frontal nudity means the show has to be coy about Ray's "gift." Regardless of our actual interest in it, Ray's penis becomes like Charlie, the disembodied voice of Charlie's Angels: the longer it's concealed, the more we'll wonder what the fuss is all about. Hung boasts an intriguing premise for a series, but so far it's burnt around the edges and raw in the center, neither as funny nor as serious as it should be. Who knows, though? It could be a grower.
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