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	Printed Articles & Interviews Not of This Earth 1995

PREMISE: Photo-journalist Thomas Veil (Bruce Greenwood) suddenly finds that he has been wiped from his existence: his wife claims she doesn't know him, the keys to his home and photo studio no longer exist, his name and social security number have been removed from all computer records and even his mother claims that her son is dead. Veil's only clue is his photograph "Hidden Agenda," which depicts an execution in a third world country. This seemingly all-encompassing conspiracy wants his negatives and to break his spirit. With no choice, Thomas Veil travels around the country seeking the identity of those behind the conspiracy, while simultaneously trying to hold on to who he is.

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QUESTION: Mr. Hertzog, I've got two questions. We found with "Twin Peaks" that viewers got tired of the mystery after a while and started turning away. How long can you keep this mystery going? And secondly, if this show goes the way of other UPN shows -- the way they were cancelled during the first season -- is there an 800 number we'll be able to call to find out what the hell was going on? (laughter)

LARRY HERTZOG: No, I think a 900 number would a better idea for that. (laughter) As far as the "Twin Peaks" thing is concerned, we're not going to be every week trying to get you deeper and deeper into the mystery of what has happened to this man, how can he solve this. I think if we run as long as we'd like to run, and not get cancelled early, your head would be so full of clues -- even after 22 shows -- that you would run the risk that "Twin Peaks" ran. People would just say, "Well, this is just becoming tricks. We're making a right turn here. We can't keep track of it." What we want to do is put Tom Veil in this situation, and I'd rather spend more time episodically exploring what happens to someone when they're in this situation. You know, how much pressure is put on this man to cooperate, to change, to give up what -- whoever his adversaries are -- they want him to give up. We're not going to be every week pursuing a track down of clues. And I hope that will help avoid what happened to "Twin Peaks."

QUESTION: To sort of follow up on that, is he going to have any friends left after the first four or five shows? (laughter)

HERTZOG: No, to be honest with you he really has no friends after the pilot. It's not a process of attrition. Tom Veil is in this situation, and he will have to work out this crisis and situations that face him. It's not to say that he won't meet friendly people on route. But this is episodic television, so I'm not always sure that the people who are friendly to him are going to be healthy at the end of the episode.

QUESTION: But at some point in the episodes it seems like the notion of the guys who are after him is going to arise, and he'll have to somehow contend with that. But the episodes themselves will be more him out meeting new people and getting involved in their lives.

HERTZOG: (overlapping) Well, I think that more than "The Fugitive" and "The Incredible Hulk," it would probably be better to say it's "The Prisoner" and "The Twilight Zone." Obviously, Tom faces these adversaries in different forms every week. There is clearly, I mean, not in just Tom Veil's life, but in all our lives, forces out there that we sometimes feel are greater than us. This is really the thing that Tom faces, those forces. And every week they've got something in store for him. What does it take to get a person to be what we want them to be, or do what we want them to do? To cooperate in essence. Can we offer power? Can we offer answers? Can we offer sex? Can we offer love to avoid insecurity and anxiety, and feeling as lonely as Tom Veil feels? Is that enough to make a person come around? I mean, surely we've all had theses kind of pressures on us all through our lives. We're not avoiding that. And on some episodes he faces them in a very specific and literal way that would connect to the pilot. The photograph of "Hidden Agenda will not disappear after the pilot. And it certainly -- considering that the only chard of proof of his own existence for himself that Tom Veil possesses at the end of the pilot are his negatives. So we have to deal with that, and we will deal with that. We just won't deal with it on an every week basis. Even thinking about "The Fugitive," if you use that as a model, had they spent every episode tracking down clues we would have been crazy. Basically he went somewhere, something happened to him. And when they finally got cancelled or were gong off they did a two-parter at the end where, ah-ha, the big clue came up. So I think in that way "The Fugitive" is a model.

QUESTION: Mr. Hertzog, given that UPN is sort of coming from behind, a lot of viewers won't see your pilot. How are you going to grab that audience three, four weeks into the series, it it's still on three or four weeks into the series? And I like it, by the way. But given the record, there's been a problem are you going to be recapping every week? How are people going to get the idea?

HERTZOG: Specifically about recapping, we are right now attempting to design a main title sequence that will catch people up to at least what's happening in the show, vis a vis the pilot. We don't have to go beyond that. It's a little bit old fashioned, as I think about it, because it does remind me of the The Fugitive." But I think it is necessary. I think people have to understand that there was a photograph, that someone wants it, someone wants the photographer, and you know, wants them ultimately removed for whatever reason. And I think we have to be aware, for people that don't see the pilot, that there was or is a wife named Allison, and things like that. So we're hoping to accomplish most of what you're asking about in the main title.

QUESTION: How long do you think that title sequence is going to take?

HERTZOG: (simultaneously) Half the show. (laughs)

QUESTION: (continuing) Other networks are moving away from long title sequences, because they think people switch channels too much.

HERTZOG: Yes, I mean, we have been given a whopping 35 seconds to do this in. (laughter) But in episodic television, by and large, you're given a whooping 35 seconds to do the whole series. And in a sense it's the nature of the beast. We're looking at it.

QUESTION: Mr. Hooper, how has television changed since "Salem's Lot," for instance, in the late '70s in terms of its ability to handle scary, shocking material, which is your specialty.

TOBE HOOPER; Well, there's more freedom now, I think, in standards and practices. But in "Salem's Lot," in that time, there was a sequence where a shotgun had to be held to the head of Fred Willard. And I had to get permission from Standards & Practices to even do this. In fact, I had to on the slate measure like twelve inches. I mean, we go down to twelve inches away from his forehead. So, I mean, the restraints in that respect are not quite as tight today. But nonetheless, I'm a responsible filmmaker. And I think the network and the production studios are certainly more and more responsible to these things. "Nowhere Man" is a thriller. I think we're handling it quite well.

QUESTION: Is there a real good reason why he's the one who is singled out for this? Or is it an allegory? Is he sort of an everyman on this? Are there a lot of nowhere people, and they'll be running into each other? Why is he marginalized that way? Is he that important?

HERTZOG: He has been singled out for reasons of honor, integrity, a point of view that is a threat. Clearly the specific of something that he might have seen or knows. And yes, there are other nowhere people. It would be wonderful to sit up here and say this was conceived a year ago, and all the questions of this sort have been answered. It hasn't been. It's not the nature of the beast. Right now, I would assume that the other "nowhere people" are like Tom. But I would also guess that he may meet some people along the route that aren't quite as wonderful as he is, and are there for other reasons. I think we have to explore that as the series goes on.

QUESTION: As a follow-up to that, do you have an ending in mind?

HERTZOG: Yes.

QUESTION: So, is it written? Are you ready for it any time that you need to use it:?

HERTZOG: No, because I figure, you know, I need to maintain my value to the network and this 900 number. (laughter) If I write it down, someone might find it and I would be less important.

QUESTION: Two questions, one for Larry, one for Bruce. One, why did you select Portland? What are some of its advantages and your thoughts on it? And to Bruce, what's it like working in Portland, Oregon?

HERTZOG: We had to do this pilot in a very hurry-up fashion. Considering when the order came, it was like shoot it and deliver it tomorrow. So we shot in Los Angeles. Part of being a "Nowhere Man" is being everywhere at the same time. And to give the show a look that could be anywhere, particularly anywhere in the United States, a feel that we are places we've been, places we've seen, things like that. And in Los Angeles it has such a defined and specific look with palm trees, et cetera, et cetera. I think we did well on the pilot. I think we really made it not L.A. looking. And that took a lot of effort. To do that on a weekly basis would be difficult. For an accessible city, Portland has a feel of being everywhere. We can get mountains, we can get suburbs, we can get small, nowhere towns. With the travel involved in episodic, and the amount of distance you can go on a per episode basis, Portland constantly gives us a different look for the show.

QUESTION: Bruce, this is a theme that Rod Serling's played with. Ray Bradbury has done stories on it, Theodore Sturgeon. Have you been a fan of these types of films and stories, and did you do any research on them?

BRUCE GREENWOOD Well, I was a tremendous fan of "Twilight Zone." And I think by the time "The Fugitive" was on I was so into sports I just didn't spend any time indoors. So I'm going to have to backtrack and dig into "The Fugitive" when I have the time. But we're up here basically doing 18-hour days. So the research is for the most part opening a script and seeing what you have to do today, tomorrow and the next day and just digging into that. So, we're really in another time zone, you know. We're just so deep into the process of the show that's removed research at this point -- it's impossible.

QUESTION: Bruce, you didn't answer about what it was like to work in Portland.

GREENWOOD: Well, I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia. So, I'm kind of back home. I'm a Pacific Northwest boy. And it's just, the weather is nice. It's cold, and it's moody, and then (makes exploding sound) it's hot. And it changes a lot. It's green everywhere. And it's a real nice break from L.A. for me.

QUESTION: Bruce, most of us remember you from "St. Elsewhere." Did you leave "St. Elsewhere," or did they write out your character? I couldn't remember.

GREENWOOD: No, I rode the show right onto the beach. The show ended. We all left at the same time.

QUESTION: What was it like for you after that? Did it do a lot for your career?

GREENWOOD: Yeah, I think it gave me some measure of credibility. It's hard to say if a show did a lot for your career, or if your personal momentum and state of mind at the time is responsible for the next job you get, or the next choice you make.

QUESTION: Bruce, do you know why all this is happening to Tom veil? Or are the producers keeping you in the dark?

GREENWOOD: I really don't know. I suppose, like the audience probably supposes, it has something to do with the photograph I took, and maybe something I saw that happened in the periphery of the photograph, or just out of frame. But I don't know exactly what it is I've done. It makes it really interesting to play because I honestly don't know why the hell they're doing it to me.

QUESTION:iS that difficult for you as an actor, or exciting?

GREENWOOD: Well, it is and it isn't. Because it plays into the trust issues that we all have. If your trust and your belief in humankind has been abused by somebody mercilessly, and you want to reach out to people, but you feel you can't, because you can't set yourself up to be abused again. It just plays into all those trust issues that I, anyway, having lived in L.A. for ten years, have a lot of. (laughter) So who can I trust? You know, can I reach out to somebody when I'm in desperate need for human contact? Do I dare to reach out for them? Or do I not? Do I close off? And am I going to be in a relationship at one point that seems to have everything going for it, and then decide for my own reason that it's not working, it's not right? I've got to step away and then realize after the opportunity has passed that it was good. You know, those themes are interesting to me.

QUESTION: I'm curious to know if there's any social subtext to the show? One of the theories about "The Invaders" was that it was about the McCarthy hearings, and communism, and that this guy was always on the run. I'm curious to know whether there's any subtext to "Nowhere Man" that you'd care to talk about.

HERTZOG: Well, I think it's all subtext in a lot of ways. I think my answer to the earlier question about, you know, searching for clues and making it a mystery show and avoiding that....I've said in the past that I think the show is more about questions than it is about answers. I think the subtext is how can a man who believes he has some integrity -- and Tom certainly does -- maintain that integrity, (whatever that is to any individual person) in spite and in light of the enormous pressures that are put on us to become what other people need us to be? In this case, in the broadest view, the system. The system will demand that we fit in; be round pegs that fit into round holes. And Tom is currently, I suppose to these people, a square peg for a round hole and they have a mallet and are hammering with a lot of energy. And it's how much he can resist. Without giving too much away, I will say that Tom's faced very early on with the potential to answer all the questions about what's happened to him. The question becomes how much will he do to get it? Will he behave the way they want him to behave to get it? And I would like to really explore these issues for the entire series. I feel really lucky to have the show on the airs for that reason. Because it's the first series I've ever been able to do that, at least personally, is really about something other than an exciting hour of detective action. So to me, the show's entirely subtext in that way.

QUESTION: You mention both "The Prisoner" and "The Twilight Zone" as sort of forbearer to this. And "The Prisoner" especially, really lived in the surreal. And that's what made it a very intriguing show. I'm wondering how much this is going to go into the surreal.

HERTZOG: We're discovering as we go along how much we feel personally we can tolerate anything. You know, again in episodic television we have to get ahead of ourselves, just in publishing, in articles, in newspapers and magazines sometimes things are written well in advance. And I think there are certain surreal qualities to the pilot. I think that there will be surreal episodes. But hopefully, and I hope this is not a contradiction, one of the things I believe despite the odd things that happen in the pilot, hopefully there's a feeling that this just possibly could happen. And I would like to keep that alive in the episodes, even if they happen to start to get pretty close to the incredible. We're trying to mix and match, and feel out. Once we see the episodes on the air and cut together, and start seeing more scripts come in, we'll feel our way through it. but since I really did love those shows I would like to walk toward the edge of that. But I think we'll fall into a hole if you watch the series and suddenly stop identifying with Tom. This is so weird, I don't believe it anymore.

GREENWOOD: And I think also the mundane can be absolutely terrifying. The circumstantial of the innocuous can be terrifying. So you can also play with very, very simple things. Meeting somebody on the street, in a small town in which you've never been, that you knew when you wee a kid. In the context of Tom's experience that becomes absolutely terrifying. For anybody else it would be, oh god, how are you? Where have you been? But for Veil, he's got to play that. In his mind, it's got to be how did they get here? What are they doing here? And how are they going to undo me? Why are they here? So the most innocuous, innocent incidents can have these sinister implications that I think are going to make it more interesting for the average guy out there to go, of god, yeah. If I were in his position of course I would feel that way. Tom it's innocuous, let it happen. but he can't.

QUESTION: Isn't your problem here that you run the risk of being a victim of your success, because if you are very successful, and it's renewed and renewed and renewed, then the explanation has to be put off and put off and put off. And then there's a danger that the viewer is fed up because he never gets an explanation of what he's really up against.

GREENWOOD: Except that it's more about the context -- it's more about my experience than the context of my experience. So, from show to show, the personal relationships that I have, and what's happening between me and the other character in the moment is, hopefully, going to be interesting on a human level -- interesting enough that it'll keep you there. and those big questions about what got me here in the first place are going to be secondary to, how am I going to deal with the situation at hand?

UPN'S MIKE SULLIVAN: One of the things that Larry and I talked about when we were developing the show is, just what happens in a one-on-one relationship, when a person you're intimate with seems to change completely. You think you know who they are. You think you have their identity as a given. And then suddenly that falls away, you get this incredible feeling of emotional vertigo. Those kinds of sensations will, as Bruce was saying, color all of his encounters.

QUESTION: Once you set up a mystery, you know -- big, basic mystery -- you have a commitment to explain that mystery.

HERTZOG: But "The Fugitive" was a mystery, in a way....

SULLIVAN: But it's also a condition. You see, there's two factors to it. "Twin Peaks" was not a condition, there's a state of being that he's thrown into that is also very prominent and important. It's not just the mystery.

QUESTION: Bruce, the one constant in your life has always been music. I wonder if you're going to infuse music into this in some way or fashion. And the last time we talked, you said you were about ready to sign a deal for your music? What's happening? Where's the record?

GREENWOOD: Well (he laughs) (laughter) -- I've got a couple of things playing on The Disney Channel right now, songs that I've written with a couple of friends of mine. And I still play songs with a couple of artists that have deals around. I'm not doing anything right now, of course, because I'm too busy. But I'm still playing a lot just to keep my sanity, sort of between scenes, that kind of thing, and at home on the weekends. But I don't think we're going to turn Tom Veil into Woody Guthrie any time soon (laughter) -- although he may be riding the rods from town to town, he's not going to haul out an old Sears & Roebuck guitar.

QUESTION: How hard is it to teach writers how to write for this show?

HERTZOG: It's been so fast right now, and furious, to get everything up and ready for fall season, especially an early fall season, that I don't know the answer to your question yet. I think more than teaching them how to write for the show right now is people have only had mostly the experience of being able to see the pilot, and that doesn't necessarily tell them, if they come in with ideas, where we're going with the show. So, it's a little bit more educating the writer about what the series is so that they can start to conceive ideas for episodes, than it is to teach them how to write for it. But I certainly hope I have a lot of good students very soon.

QUESTION: This is a question for Mr. Hooper. Are you going to direct any additional episodes? And secondly, the director of a pilot has the assignment of creating a world -- of bringing a world to life and setting a style that other directors will follow throughout the rest of the series. What kind of a work, in your mind, have you created here? And how do you think the stylistic elements reinforce that?

HOOPER: That's several questions. Yes, I intend to do more "Nowhere Men." I directed the pilot, the first episode, and tonally, the ambiance of "Nowhere Man" is -- to backtrack on a question that was asked earlier about "The Prisoner" and about the surreal -- relative to the times that "The Prisoner" was produced and made, today, by those standards, we live in the surreal. What I created inside the pilot was a surreal world, but yet one that was plausible and wouldn't separate the audience from the dramatic piece. In other words, something that wouldn't wave flags and say, you know, "Look at me. Look at my fillmmaking ability," but concentrate on these characters.

GREENWOOD: That's one of the nice things about working with Tobe -- I was just saying to my wife this morning -- in a funny way, he's really egoless. He's there, he's present all the time helping you, but you never get the sense of, "Look at me, I'm making this thing." It's always, (whispers) "Come on, let's just do some stuff," you know. And, in a lot of ways, it's a really, really healthy atmosphere, and one I haven't run across a lot.

QUESTION: Mr. Hooper, have you noticed a trend? Are you impressed by some way that TV has raised its cinematic qualities in recent years, that anything from "X-Files" to "NYPD Blues" is putting movie-quality looks on a TV screen? Have you noticed any of that kind of trend on TV?

HOOPER: Yes, I have noticed that. In fact, television offers certain freedoms now that feature directors are attracted to. And that is we can be involved in material that has a bit more substance in the overall. We don't have to do as much flicka-flicka, flash and explosion. And it's very refreshing to be able to do stories, to work with characters that, say, came out of times like Frankenheimer's "Manchurian Candidate," "Seconds" -- another Frankenheimer film. Bringing the visual style to a film by a veteran director should be so second nature to him that it has given him now the freedom to work with other things -- other things than, say, just gags.

SULLIVAN: After the rough-cut screening of the "Nowhere Man" pilot, Tobe came up to me and he said, "You know, this is the kind of picture I've always wanted to make."

QUESTION: Lawrence, can you talk about why you would do this for the UPN and not for one of the other networks -- what the difference in working for the two is. And do they pay the same relative licensing fee? (laughter)

HERTZOG: Okay, in answer to your second question -- no. In answer to your first question, I don't think I could have done this on any other network. I did not hear Mike's opening speech, and if I get personal for a few seconds, forgive me, but I've been doing this a long time, and this show is important. to me. To me, whether you love it, don't love it, it is about something. And I really do care about it. I have found very often in my experience working in television that what you care about and what you really want to do is of no matter. And maybe that's as it should be, I'm not putting that down. But when I walked into Mike's office, he looked at me and said -- and, again, if I'm repeating something, bear with me -- he said, "If you could do anything you absolutely ever wanted to do, but you don't think you should ever pitch it, or would ever pitch it, because basically you'd be thrown out of the office, what would you do?" I think my first reaction was the most shocking: after 15 or 16 years of doing this, I didn't have an answer to that question. I had so long ago stopped thinking about what I really wanted to do because I'd been busy doing things I had to do. But it took a few minutes of talking with Mike, and it was certainly not far under the surface. And I got very enthusiastic about "The Prisoner" and things like that. I've never been given this kind of Carte Blanche, and don't know why I was then -- I felt a little bit like Tom Veil in that situation (laugher); I didn't' really believe it. Mike said, "You got it. Go do it." And I walked out of the office and called a few other friends of mine who are writer-producers and said, "You're not going to believe it -- I've just had the meeting we have all dreamed we'd have, that someone really cares enough about what we care about to let us take a chance and do it. You know, there's a scary side to that, too, because I realized that after my initial enthusiasm, that I was going to have to kind of crawl back home and do "Hard to Hart" again for another few years if this doesn't work. But right now UPN is young and I think sincere in trying to do it, and if it works then it will have proven a point I've always believed in: that we'll get better television, or at least more interesting television if someone at the network level gives the creative community a chance to work like that. For me, "Nowhere Man" -- even if it's not perfect, even if it's not brilliant, even if it fails on a certain level -- I would love to see more TV where the creative community is out there, and we're saying we encourage you to do something you care about. That would give all of us more interesting things to watch, even if they fail. I'd sometimes rather see a small film that's interesting and I didn't like it, than a big, slick, entertaining thing that I say, hey, that was pretty good because someone's trying.