COVER STORY

Isaacs goes from reading words to speaking lines in ‘Case Histories’

By Kate O’Hare © Zap2it

Long before Jason Isaacs became involved with PBS’“Masterpiece Mystery: Case Histories” the concluding two-hour episode of which premieres Sunday, Oct. 30 — he was intimately involved with the Kate Atkinson novels on which it’s based, having read them for audiobook versions.

This doesn’t mean, though, that prior to filming, Isaacs could have told you much about them.

“I’d forgotten it,” he says, calling in from the set of his upcoming NBC series, “Awake.”“When you follow directions from a GPS, and someone asks you which route you took, you can’t remember, because you just went left and right when it tells you.

“I just lived through all the characters and brought them all to life. I rediscovered them when we shot. Although sometimes, I’d be in the middle of a scene, and I’d suddenly remember what it was like when I played an elderly South African lady.”

Aired as six one-hours early in the summer in the U.K., “Case Histories” premiered Oct. 16 with a two-hour episode based on the first book (actually called “Case Histories”) featuring Yorkshireborn private investigator Jackson Brodie.That was followed on Oct. 23 with an episode based on the novel “One Good Turn.”

Oct. 30 sees the premiere of an episode based on the last of the Brodie series, “When Will There Be Good News?”

Set and filmed in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh — known for its stunning architecture and multiple arts festivals — the story finds Jackson injured in a train wreck while investigating a suspicion of infidelity.

A teenage girl (Gwyneth Keyworth) saves his life and then insists, in return, that he find her missing employer. But that’s not before Jackson, while barely conscious in the hospital, makes a startling declaration to his former police colleague, D.I. Louise Monroe (Amanda Abbington).

Jason Isaacs stars in “Case Histories” on PBS’ “Masterpiece Mystery!” Sunday.

Also starring are Zawe Ashton, Millie Innes, Edward Corrie, Maarten Stevenson, Paterson Joseph, Natasha Little and Kirsty Mitchell.

If you’re expecting a lot of thick Scottish brogues, kilts, bagpipes and sheep, you might be surprised.

“For anyone who’s actually been to Edinburgh,” says Isaacs, “one of the most remarkable things about it is it’s almost completely absent of Scots. It’s such a fantastically beautiful place that like a magnet, it has attracted people from all over Europe.

“There’s an enormous variety of folks.There are some Scots, for sure, but many English people, many Eastern Europeans and Europeans of all hues and descriptions.”

2 x 3" ad

Thrifty White Drug

The difference, Isaacs says, extends into the storytelling as well, since Atkinson’s books are considered “literary thrillers”(as opposed to “pulp thrillers” or just “thrillers”).

x 3" ad Hudrick Carpet

Web Links

The female-centric espionage drama “Covert Affairs” returns to USA Network with new episodes on Tuesday. Get your spy on at www.usanetwork.com/series/ covertaffairs/

Premiering Sunday on PBS, “America in Primetime” looks at the roots of popular TV shows. Learn more at www.pbs. org/about/news/archive/2011/ america-in-primetime/

BY JACQUELINE CUTLER

Michael Chiarello crosses knives with other ‘Super Chefs’

Michael Chiarello’s effortless expertise as a chef makes viewers wish they were his friends and could be invited to his table.

He’s been on TV for a decade, most notably with “Easy Entertaining With Michael Chiarello.” Beginning Sunday, Oct. 30, he competes on “The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs” on Food Network.

“It’s real interesting; most of the chefs are friends, and we know each other for a long time,” Chiarello says. “ ‘Super Chefs’ is an extraordinary array of talent. It is not a battle of 20-somethings. They were battles. On any given Sunday anybody could win.”

For the first challenge, chefs were presented with a whole pig, “which I was very comfortable with,” he says.

Part of Chiarello’s charm is that he seems so comfortable and welcoming to those lucky enough to eat at his tables.

The Californian always knew he wanted to be a chef, he says from the coast of Spain, where he is traveling for

Michael Chiarello

research. He has just finished lunch and is walking through a

His love of great food began as his mom supervised him making gnocchi when he was a boy. He recalls being in third or fourth grade, “and I wanted to be a cook and wanted to own a restaurant one day. Everybody else wanted to be firemen, policemen, football players, and I always wanted to

Chiarello knows how deep the ties are with food.

“It is an extraordinary gift to bring that kind of satisfaction to people on a regular basis,” he says. “We grew up in a very modest household, and all of the riches happened in the kitchen. There is a great sense of community on who you are cooking with.”

His mother’s family from Calabria, Italy, includes butchers and cheese makers. Everyone, he says, made wine and olive oil and went mushroom hunting. He grew up making salamis, prosciuttos and cheeses. Chiarello relishes his roots and says, “We lived as they did in the old country.”

He still shops for groceries daily, which Chiarello admits “makes my wife crazy.”

• What are you reading now?

“ ‘Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food’ by Colman Andrews.”

• What did you have for dinner last night?

“I had a 12-pound crab, butter crab, in Cambados, Spain, in Galicia. On the coast, the seafood, the barnacles, clams and scallops, everything, the fish is so fresh it doesn’t go through rigor mortis.”

• What is your next project?

“I don’t know yet. I just finished a live fire cooking book – hot boxes, on top of the grill, baking, in the coals.”

• What was the last trip you took (where and why)?

“I am on it – to Spain – for two weeks. It is a research trip. I have a passion for the cuisine.”

In Focus

“Allen Gregory,” www.fox. com/allen-gregory/ Premiering Sunday, the animated comedy focuses on Allen Gregory de Longpre (which, by the way, is the name of a street in Hollywood), voiced by Jonah Hill, who is a precocious home-schooled student leaving the stunning architectural loft he shares with his father, his adopted Cambodian sister and his father’s “life partner” in order to attend elementary school. The home page offers up clips, tweets, background info, images and news updates.