TV Drama MIPCOM 2015

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TVDRAMA

WWW.TVDRAMA.WS

OCTOBER 2015

MIPCOM EDITION

Drama Commissioners / Reboots & Remakes / Greg Berlanti / The Good Wife’s Julianna Margulies / Game of Thrones’s Emilia Clarke Masters of Sex’s Michael Sheen / War and Peace’s Andrew Davies & Simon Vaughan

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CONTENTS FEATURES

Spoiler Alert It happens around the world; tech-savvy, hyper-connected people having to avoid the internet, for hours, for fear of finding out what happened in their favorite show.

Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Joanna Padovano Sara Alessi Associate Editors Joel Marino Assistant Editor Victor L. Cuevas Production & Design Director Phyllis Q. Busell Art Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Alberto Rodriguez Sales & Marketing Managers Terry Acunzo Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Drama © 2015 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvdrama.ws

Of course, many channels are airing high-profile shows day-and-date with the U.S. or U.K. broadcaster. Some are simulcasting, following that up with an encore broadcast in prime time. But time zones can be inconvenient, and in that gap when you’re waiting for your turn to watch an episode, you could very well have your prime-time viewing ruined by #RIPJonSnow (I did warn you—spoiler alert).

Thanks to social media and rabid (and vocal) fans, live, appointment-viewing is alive and well in the on-demand era. And that’s largely thanks to a wide range of powerful, addicting dramas being made right across the world.

In this latest edition of TV Drama, we have insightful interviews with three stars of three very big shows that have both critics and audiences cheering: Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones, Michael Sheen from Masters of Sex, and Julianna Margulies from The Good Wife. All three articulately weigh in on their craft. We also hear from the team behind BBC One’s highly anticipated War and Peace. Writer Andrew Davies and executive producer Simon Vaughan explain how Leo Tolstoy’s classic is being brought to the screen.

Comic-book fans are eagerly awaiting The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow and CBS’s Supergirl, plus the return of Arrow and The Flash. Greg Berlanti gives us an inside look at those shows, as well as his other new series, Blindspot.

Berlanti is not the only creative mind bringing wellknown characters to the small screen. A feature in this edition explores the wave of reboots, remakes and sequels in the drama business today, speaking with distributors about why these shows are so valued by broadcasters.

And we hear from the broadcasters themselves.

Commissioners from the BBC, SVT and TV4, among others, shared with TV Drama what their upcoming slates look like and what they’re looking for to fill their grids in the year ahead.

Whether they’re being watched live—and tweeted about in real time—or binged on demand, scripted shows are having a heyday. But they’re often very expensive.

Production values are rising, broadcasters want to see more money on screen, and the high-end talent descending on TV doesn’t come cheap. As the international media business convenes in Cannes, there will be many conversations about how to manage the costs of drama, without disappointing audiences (who will, no doubt, tweet if they’re dissatisfied).

—By Mansha Daswani

26 26 MASTERS OF DRAMA Top drama programmers share their programming strategies.

34 SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW A host of remakes, reboots and sequels are being offered to international buyers.

INTERVIEWS

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Greg Berlanti

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Julianna Margulies

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Emilia Clarke

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Michael Sheen

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Andrew Davies + War and Peace’s Executive Producer, Simon Vaughan

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A+E Networks UnREAL / And Then There Were None / The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe A+E Networks has been ramping up its drama slate, which includes highlights such as the A+E Studios-produced series UnREAL. The show is set against the backdrop of a fictional dating competition series. “Drama and scripted series are increasingly important to our large U.S. channels,” says Joel Denton, the managing director of international content sales and partnerships at A+E Networks. “In a digital world with multiple places and means to view, ownership of key content and control of windows and media is increasingly crucial for our company.” Further highlights for the market include the miniseries And Then There Were None, set on a mysterious island, and The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, about the life of the film icon and sex symbol.

“We’re in a golden age of scripted programming, and we’re excited to bring great shows like UnREAL, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, And Then There Were None and Roots to the international market.”

—Joel Denton The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

all3media international Partners in Crime / Indian Summers / Hinterland Based on the works of Agatha Christie, Partners in Crime is headlining all3media international’s MIPCOM slate.

“Agatha Christie’s fiction is recognized globally, and this brilliant new series has been a great joy to launch,” says Stephen Driscoll, all3media international’s senior VP of international sales. The company is also showcasing the second season of Indian Summers, which is in production.

In addition, the sophomore season of the detective procedural Hinterland is being unveiled in Cannes. “All three [titles] represent our focus on dramatic television from highly talented producers, delivering engaging stories that will appeal to as wide a range of audiences as possible,” Driscoll says.

“We remain focused on delivering the best new programming we can for the international market.”

—Stephen Driscoll Partners in Crime

AMC Networks International AMC / Sundance Channel AMC recently extended its footprint with a launch in the U.K. on BT TV. “We’ve been looking to expand our channel offering in the U.K., and BT is a terrific partner that shares our vision to offer the best original series and films,” says Bruce Tuchman, the president of AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global. The channel launched with the exclusive premieres of series such as the Walking Dead spin-off Fear the Walking Dead and the drama Rectify. AMC originals Mad Men and Breaking Bad are also being showcased, alongside a lineup of exclusive films featuring some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The new martial-arts action adventure series Into the Badlands will debut simultaneously on AMC across the globe in November.

“On the scripted side, we’re looking for dramatic series for both AMC and Sundance Channel with great stories and dynamic characters.”

—Bruce Tuchman Fear the Walking Dead on AMC 398 World Screen 10/15

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CJ E&M Corporation Second 20s / Oh My Ghost / My First Time A wife and mother who decides to go back to school is the central character in Second 20s, one of CJ E&M Corporation’s scripted highlights for this year’s MIPCOM. “Fans will welcome the return of beloved actress Choi Ji-woo in Second 20s,” says Diane Min, the company’s senior sales manager. CJ E&M is also presenting to international buyers Oh My Ghost, about a shy girl who is possessed by a lusty spirit, leading her to begin a romance with a chef she likes. Then there is My First Time, which stars Choi Min-ho from the popular South Korean boy band SHINee. “Deviating from the typical Korean drama, our scripted titles have proven their uniqueness with catchy and fresh plots,” says Min.

“For scripted titles, we are introducing more remakes and hope to showcase more volume in the future.”

—Diane Min My First Time

Eccho Rights White Nights / Nurses / Karadayi Turkey is this year’s Country of Honour at MIPCOM, and Eccho Rights is on hand with a selection of Turkish dramas.

From Ay Yapim, Eccho Rights is presenting White Nights, about a young single mother who is being pressured to marry a well-respected businessman who is actually an evil drug dealer. It stars Cansu Dere, who was previously in worldwide hit series such as Ezel and Sila. Also from Ay Yapim, Karadayi is the story of Mahir, who becomes head of the family when his father is wrongly convicted of murder. Fredrik af Malmborg, the managing director at Eccho Rights, also believes that Nurses, which follows the personal and professional lives of four female colleagues working in a trauma ward, will be of strong interest to buyers.

“We were delighted to see that Turkey has been selected as the Country of Honour for 2015, especially since we have been championing Turkish drama for many years.”

—Fredrik af Malmborg Karadayi

FOX International Channels Content Sales Outcast / Wayward Pines / Happiness A tale about demonic possession, Outcast comes from The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and stars Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous, Gone Girl). “It’s a rich story, with strong characters and bursts of action,” says Prentiss Fraser, the senior VP and global head of content sales at FOX International Channels Content Sales. The company is also presenting at MIPCOM Wayward Pines, which stars Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard and Juliette Lewis and was executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan. “The show has such strong auspices; it fits nicely into our premium offering,” says Fraser. Another highlight for FOX International Channels Content Sales is its slate of Turkish dramas, which includes Happiness (Adi Mutluluk).

“As Turkey is the Country of Honour this year, we’re very focused on our original slate of Turkish dramas.”

—Prentiss Fraser Happiness 400 World Screen 10/15

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FremantleMedia Modus / Capital / Mary: The Making of a Princess The Swedish detective thriller Modus follows psychologist and ex-FBI profiler Inger Johanne Vik as she is drawn into investigating a series of deaths. The eight-part show is on offer from FremantleMedia, along with Capital, about the interconnected lives of a group of Londoners linked to a fictional street in the city. “Adapted by BAFTA winner Peter Bowker from the best-selling novel by John Lanchester, [Capital] cleverly interweaves a vivid and unforgettable ensemble cast of urban characters in a story bursting with unfailingly piercing and funny observations on modern life and urban existence,” says Sarah Doole, FremantleMedia’s director of global drama. The company is also highlighting Mary: The Making of a Princess.

“We are confident in our upcoming [drama] pipeline and have a multitude of projects that we are very excited about.”

—Sarah Doole Capital

Global Agency Kosem / Broken Pieces / A Part of Me Global Agency’s drama slate is led by the new series Kosem. “We can consider Kosem as almost a continuation and a more innovative version of the process started

by Magnificent Century,” says Izzet Pinto, Global Agency’s founder and CEO. “The story is as universal as it was with Magnificent Century, but this time, it [skews] younger, is more colorful and thus much more dynamic.”

Global Agency is also showcasing another season of Broken Pieces, which will feature new stars and dramatic story lines. Meanwhile, the second season of A Part of Me will be filled with even more drama and revenge, as a surrogate mother fights to keep the baby after she discovers it is actually her biological child.

“Turkish dramas are now the most popular segment of entertainment media.”

—Izzet Pinto Broken Pieces

ITV Studios Global Entertainment Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands / Jekyll and Hyde / Jericho Among the highlights from ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) are Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands and Jekyll and Hyde, a pair of action-adventure series produced by ITV Studios. “We have no doubt that these shows will appeal to our broadcast and digital partners around the world and will deliver big prime-time audiences, as families will be able to enjoy them together,” says Dan Gopal, the company’s executive VP for EMEA distribution and global digital partners. Also in ITVS GE’s catalogue is Jericho, an ITV Studios epic drama set in Yorkshire during the 1870s. “We know our drama buyers will enjoy the rustic, Wild West- and carnival-like atmosphere of Jericho; it’s a place where people with secrets can hide and where love can flourish against all odds,” says Gopal.

“We are always working hard to accelerate windows to get our content to audiences quicker and give them the flexibility to consume whenever and wherever they want.”

—Dan Gopal Jekyll and Hyde 402 World Screen 10/15

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NeweN Distribution Lebowitz vs Lebowitz / Candice Renoir / Beyond the Walls NeweN Distribution is looking forward to presenting buyers with a new procedural, Lebowitz vs Lebowitz. The 8x1-hour series tells the story of Paule Lebowitz, a respected lawyer in Paris who will have to share her firm with a 25-year-old exintern, Irene. “We are also bringing new episodes of our hit police series Candice Renoir, which has been a ratings phenomenon in France, drawing more than 5 million viewers per episode on France 2,” says Christophe Nobileau, the president of NeweN Distribution. Last but not least, NeweN will pitch the next series from Hervé Hadmar, creator and showrunner of Witnesses, titled Beyond the Walls. Nobileau describes the show as a “stylistic and thrilling story” about a young woman trapped within the walls of a mysterious house.

“We are obviously keeping track of the increasing nonlinear consumption of series and want to support our clients in this digital move.”

—Christophe Nobileau Lebowitz vs Lebowitz

Park Entertainment On the Farm / In the Blood / Petroleum Spirit The true story of the investigation and trial of serial killer Willie Pickton plays out in On the Farm, a movie highlight from Park Entertainment. “On the Farm features a story that shocked the world,” says Paul Howell, the company’s sales director. “[Pickton’s] trial and subsequent appeal were extensively covered by the world media.”

There are two new British indie films in the company’s catalogue as well: In the Blood and Petroleum Spirit. In the Blood is a crime thriller from director Marc Abraham, while Petroleum Spirit is billed as a thriller road movie.

Park Entertainment is also home to a selection of movies from the Aegis Film Fund portfolio, which includes Burke & Hare and Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.

“We want to confirm our position as a supplier of quality movies and television series, and to announce the company’s move into the production of television drama series with five concepts in advanced stages of development.”

—Paul Howell On the Farm

Passion Distribution Churchill’s Secret / Dead of Winter: The Donner Party Starring Michael Gambon, Churchill’s Secret is a two-hour drama set during the summer of 1953 that tells a little-known part of Winston Churchill’s life story. The film chronicles Churchill’s recovery from a life-threatening stroke, which his inner circle conspired to hide from the public. It also examines the strain his public service created in his private life. “The production values of Churchill’s Secret are truly stunning, and we look forward to it gracing ITV’s schedule in the U.K.,” says Elin Thomas, Passion Distribution’s global head of sales. The company also represents the television event Dead of Winter: The Donner Party, narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Powers Boothe. It uses dramatic reenactments, expert interviews, CGI and archival footage.

“Passion Distribution is bringing to MIPCOM premium primetime drama and event television.”

—Elin Thomas Churchill’s Secret 404 World Screen 10/15

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Red Arrow International Cleverman / The Romeo Section / Peter & Wendy The drama slate that Red Arrow International is bringing to MIPCOM boasts acclaimed talent in front of and behind the camera. For example, Game of Thrones star Iain Glen leads the new genre drama Cleverman. Chris Haddock, the creator and showrunner of such series as Intelligence and Da Vinci’s Inquest, is behind the new espionage thriller The Romeo Section. The family adventure movie Peter & Wendy, based on the classic story of Peter Pan, stars Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games), Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad) and singer Paloma Faith.

“Our aim is to work with the most creative people in our industry, people who share our passion for storytelling and desire to see great drama travel the world,” says Henrik Pabst, the managing director of Red Arrow International.

“Red Arrow International is increasingly becoming a home for ambitious, international drama.”

—Henrik Pabst Cleverman

Series Mania European Co-Production Forum April 19-21, 2016 The aim of the Series Mania European Co-Production Forum is to support high-end European drama projects in attaining financial partners, mainly through co-production deals or presale agreements. The 2016 edition is being held from April 19 to 21 in Paris. This time, 16 European TV series in development will be selected for pitching to 250 potential investors, representing co-producers, international distributors, TV financiers, channel executives and buyers from new OTT platforms. Since its launch in 2013, the event has contributed to the discovery of several notable European series that have now been released in the international market, including the Swedish thriller Jordskott. The event is organized by the Forum des Images, which is led by Laurence Herszberg as general director.

“Series Mania CoProduction Forum is the best place in Europe to discover highend drama projects in development and meet the decision-makers of the industry.”

—Laurence Herszberg Series Mania European Co-Production Forum 2015

Zodiak Rights Rebellion / Murder / The Returned A collection of four standalone, hour-long films, Murder mixes documentary with drama to tell the stories of gruesome crimes from every angle. Zodiak Rights is also distributing Rebellion, a five-part drama about the Easter Rising of 1916 and the partition of Ireland. Caroline Torrance, head of scripted at Zodiak Rights, says, “Told through the eyes of a group of friends, and predominantly from a female perspective, Rebellion has a contemporary feel despite the period setting, and at its heart is a collection of human stories framed by history, rather than defined by it.” Tensions also run high in another of Zodiak Rights’ drama offerings, The Returned (season two), when a mysterious man arrives in town and a new wave of resurrections begins.

“Each standalone film of the electrifyingly tense collection Murder throws a stark and unsettling light on a gripping new case.”

—Caroline Torrance Murder 406 World Screen 10/15

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ITV’s Black Work.

MASTERS OF DRAMA Leading drama commissioners weigh in on the kinds of projects they need to cut through a cluttered landscape.

By Steve Clarke o say that drama is a must-have TV genre is an understatement. Scripted shows are driving primetime schedules around the world like never before.

Hit dramas such as HBO’s Game of Thrones, Netflix’s House of Cards and AMC’s The Walking Dead bring a buzz unmatched by any other type of show.

Even for channels that aren’t typically identified by their dramas, high-quality shows can help enhance their reputations.

“Drama is important for viewers and for the reputation of a broadcaster,” explains Steve November, the director of drama at ITV, a channel whose fortunes were transformed by the success of English-country-house saga Downton Abbey. “Everyone is looking for signature shows that are channel defining.”

Across the Atlantic, Sharon Tal Yguado, the executive VP of scripted entertainment at FOX International Channels (FIC) and head of FOX International Studios, agrees that in the digital era, the right kind of drama is a powerful tool for entertainment platforms.

“It is getting harder and harder to have appointment-toview TV when people watch on catch-up or like to bingewatch on box sets,” notes Tal Yguado, whose group cofinanced The Walking Dead and The Bridge. “For shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, you can still find strong appointment viewing,” she continues. “People feel the urgency to watch them when they air.”

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“Drama is something that brands a channel better than anything else,” insists Piers Wenger, the head of drama at Britain’s Channel 4, which recently achieved its highest-rated new drama in 20 years with Humans, a sci-fi show co-produced with U.S. cable channel AMC. “Drama gives the audience a depth of experience and creates an emotional attachment to a channel that no other genre can,” elaborates Wenger.

Of course, TV drama is expensive to make. Premium sports rights aside, it is the most expensive of any TV genre.

BIG SPENDERS Encouragingly, commissioners in the U.S., the U.K. and mainland Europe seem to have the money to keep levels of investment high—or are prepared to form partnerships if they don’t.

Precise figures are difficult to nail down. “Our budgets are definitely up,” says Josefine Tengblad at Sweden’s biggest commercial station, TV4. “We didn’t have a lot of drama before. It is becoming increasingly important for us.”

Tengblad was appointed to the newly created post of head of drama at the Scandinavian broadcaster a year ago. One of her first commissions was the noir crime thriller Modus, an eight-part series adapted by Emmy Award-winning Danish writers Mai Brostrøm and Peter Thorsboe from the novel Fear Not, penned by Norwegian crime author Anne Holt. The budget is $8.6 million. “We’ve put in around half the money,” explains

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Doctor Foster is a new psychological thriller commissioned by BBC One.

Tengblad. Modus is produced by Miso Film, in collaboration with TV4 and Germany’s Nadcon, with FremantleMedia International handling distribution.

emphasizes, “I want thrilling plots, but they’ve got to be character-driven.”

She reckons the shine is starting to wear thin on supernatural and period dramas. “I am looking beyond horror, supernatural and sci-fi, which are showing signs of increasing fatigue. I’d say the same is true for period, but the vogue for period might last a little longer. There have been a lot of supernatural shows.

The genre’s become exhausted.”

What, then, is the next big thing?

“What is missing from TV? I don’t want to tell you too much about my development slate, but I’m working on some really wacky ideas,” she says.

If that all sounds intriguing, for now Tal Yguado is betting big on Outcast, created by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame. She claims it turns “the exorcism genre on its head.”

BUILDING A BUDGET In Britain, ITV’s November indicates that the channel’s drama MINDING THE MIX spend is getting bigger. “It is very difficult for me to be specific ITV’s November acknowledges that horror is hot. “We want to about budgets,” he says. “Next year there will be more have a variety of drama genres on ITV,” he says. “We don’t want drama in the schedules, which roughly equates to a to have too much of any one thing. No one is more excited by a slightly higher investment.” crime drama than us, but we are moving beyond crime into The BBC is a big player in drama. The department’s new conhorror—not horror-horror, but very dark, psychological troller of drama commissioning, Polly Hill, is estimated to have thrillers.” One example is Mammoth Screen’s three-part police inherited a budget of around £200 million ($308 million) a year. drama Black Work.

This may be affected by cuts as the British government forces This all sounds very different from the genteel, upstairsanother round of economies on the world’s best-known publicdownstairs world of Downton Abbey. The sixth and final seaservice broadcaster. son of the program broadcasts in the U.K. this fall. “We won’t “We continue to look for a broad range of drama and crenecessarily replace Downton with another period drama,” says atively will be writer-led,” says Hill, sidestepping a question November. “We might do something very different.” regarding budgets.

Even so, ITV is lining up several new costume pieces. These Likewise, Sky’s head of drama, Anne Mensah, declines include an eight-part show focusing on Britain’s Queen to provide financial details. But with Sky U.K. having Victoria, made by Mammoth Screen, which scored a U.K. hit bought Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia, there are with the revival of Poldark on BBC One. Also upcoming is economies of scale to be gained from the new pan-European structure.

“Sky is making more drama than it’s ever made,” she says. “It’s not about the money; we are trying to make great shows. We are not making shows for slots. I don’t have to fill spaces in the schedule just for the sake of it. We back great, original drama because that’s what our customers want and expect from us.”

Channel 4’s Wenger says the broadcaster’s drama budget is heading north. “Drama budgets were up in 2015 against 2014, and next year will be the highest ever.”

FIC’s Tal Yguado says her budgets are static: “We try to be cost-efficient while keeping the quality high.”

At Swedish public-service broadcaster SVT, Christian Wikander, head of drama, says that his budget remains fixed at around $35 million a year.

What are these commissioners investing in? Tal Yguado wants “character-driven shows” that provide “universal appeal.” She Channel 4 has renewed Paul Abbott’s No Offence, a comedic cop drama, for a second season.

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Thicker Than Water is one of SVT’s top dramas and has proven to have international appeal via deals done by ZDF Enterprises.

Jericho, created by Sherlock and Doctor Who writer Steve Thompson. The eight-episode program is set in a late 19thcentury industrial shantytown in Northern England.

Over at Channel 4, drama that wrings stories from contemporary themes are in demand. An exception was Indian Summers, set in the early 1930s as the British clung to power in the Indian sub-continent, which was ordered for a second run.

“For us it is not so much about genre as it is about topicality and telling stories with strong, contemporary themes,” explains Wenger. “Humans didn’t come about because we desperately wanted to make a sci-fi show. It was because the writers had an interesting take on artificial intelligence.

They wanted to make a piece that wasn’t a Marvel-type supernatural or sci-fi piece, but one that was grounded in ordinary life. That is how we start. We look for big preoccupations of our audience.”

HYPING UP HYBRIDS At Sky, it appears that no genre is off limits. “I’ll look at pretty much everything,” reveals Mensah. “What we do tends toward contemporary, but then we do something like Penny Dreadful [a hybrid crime-occult series set in the 19th century].

We tend to follow passions rather than trends.”

Sky Atlantic’s recent heavily marketed Fortitude began as crime but morphed into horror. One of Mensah’s latest shows, The Last Panthers, co-produced with CANAL+, is a crime show recounting the story of a gang of jewel thieves.

The BBC’s Hill says she needs modern tales. “We are always looking for a show that can offer our audience something new and original in any genre. However, we are always looking for more contemporary drama,” she says.

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In Sweden, crime evidently pays. TV4’s Tengblad is keen to broaden her palette. “We do a lot of crime, but we try to push the genre all the time,” she says.

An example is Torpederna, a comedy drama broadcast last November. The central character is an ex-convict who tries to go straight and live the suburban life but fails. Costume drama is on Tengblad’s radar too.

“Last year we did a period crime, Agatha Christie-style drama set in the 1950s that was based on Maria Lang’s stories,” Tengblad adds. “It was our first period drama in a long time and was a big hit in Sweden.”

NEW PERSPECTIVES The new series Modus “is not a traditional thriller,” Tengblad continues. “We meet the killer at the start. It is not a whodunit; it is a why-he-did-it. We are not doing any romantic or supernatural shows at the moment, but it is only a matter of time before we do something in those genres.”

At SVT, Wikander is seeking ten-part, one-hour shows for two peak-time slots on SVT1: the Sunday-evening crime slot and a Monday-evening slot reserved for feel-good drama.

“Beyond that, we do three-part miniseries,” he explains. “For these, it could be any genre, including crime or classical serials.”

Recent commissions have included the second season of the dysfunctional family drama Thicker Than Water, produced

by Nice Drama with co-production partners YLE and Filmpool Nord, and the International Emmy-nominated 30 Degrees in February. There’s also Delhi’s Most Beautiful Hands, based on the novel by Mikael Bergstrand, and The Most Forbidden.

Producing drama is a time-consuming process. As viewers’ expectations continue to rise, production time lines are becoming longer still.

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Fortitude, Sky Atlantic’s most successful original drama, is due to return for a second season in 2016.

“We used to do a show in a year; now it’s moving toward two years,” says Wikander. “The costs are so high we need to have enough time to ensure our shows are of the highest quality. There are always problems. These dramas cost around SEK 8 million to SEK 10 million [$920,000 to $1.2 million] an hour. Five years ago it was SEK 7 million to SEK 9 million [$800,000 to $1 million] an hour.”

“Time frames are very variable,” adds ITV’s November. “The minimum is 12 months from pitch to screen.”

The Last Panthers took around three years to make; it debuts on Sky Atlantic in the U.K., Ireland and Germany and on CANAL+ in France this fall.

“It takes as long as it takes,” says Sky’s Mensah. “I wouldn’t move fast for the sake of it.”

“The cycle can take two to three and occasionally five years,” says FIC’s Tal Yguado.

Explains BBC’s Hill, “The commissioning time frame differs on each show, depending on how long the development process takes, how long the shoot is and when the channel needs it. We can commission anywhere from 12 to 18 months ahead.”

His commercial rival in Sweden is in the same boat. “I have to do co-productions,” says TV4’s Tengblad. “We can’t put up that kind of money.”

With a global network of FOX-branded channels to provide content for, Tal Yguado knows her approach is different from that of her British peers.

“At FIS [FIC’s studio], the objective is to make two to three tentpole shows a year that are aimed at both the U.S. and international markets,” she stresses. Tal Yguado highlights the benefits of scale. “My experience on the international channels side taught me a lot about the global appeal of shows. I have a good sense of what works well and where. Regardless, we work closely with our local channels and sales arm, who keep us updated about specific trends and needs.”

Both ITV and the BBC have in-house distribution businesses, but November and Hill insist their priority is to commission with local audiences in mind, rather than the requirements of ITV Studios Global Entertainment or BBC Worldwide.

“I always look for the best show, regardless of where it comes from,” November says. “My priority is the U.K. broadcast audience. That’s where my editorial values lie. That’s how we got Downton Abbey, Broadchurch and Scott & Bailey”— all produced outside of the ITV Studios network.

Adds Hill, “We don’t commission shows on the basis of an international appeal, but on the quality and originality of the drama. We are looking for the most original British drama to offer our British audience, and we see that great drama has international appeal and finds an international audience.”

Indeed, from Poldark and Wolf Hall to Bron to Les Revenants, it’s clear that many dramas commissioned for local audiences across Europe are resonating with viewers around the world.

IT TAKES TWO A show involving multiple co-producers may take several years to get off the ground. Increasingly, however, co-production is central to a commissioner’s strategy.

“We have to start with the writer and the creative idea and ambition, as that is what we commission. So co-pros don’t influence the decision to make a drama,” Hill observes. “However, they can be vital in bringing to screen those ideas that require substantially more investment than our license fee.”

ITV’s November knows that partnerships are often essential in today’s bottom-line-obsessed culture. “Co-production used to be a dirty word. It is the way of the world now that we are very interested in co-production. That’s how you get bigger talent—writers, directors, actors—and bigger stories.”

In the more hard-nosed U.S. market, broadcasters are keen to collaborate with British and other European partners.

“It is always helpful to increase volume at a great price,” observes Tal Yguado. “There is great content coming from the U.K. and other markets.”

At SVT, more than 80 percent of the drama Wikander greenlights is co-produced. “It’s hard to raise co-production funds outside Scandinavia, but we work with partners in the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S.,” he explains. “We need international co-production money to be able to make our core budget go further.”

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FOX International Channels teamed up with Robert Kirkman to develop Outcast.

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Twentieth Century Fox’s Minority Report.

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SOMETHING OLD, Something New The drama business is awash with reboots, remakes, sequels and prequels. By Jane Marlow oes the burst of horns heralding the Hawaii Five-0 team conjure a frisson of excitement, reminding you of your 1970s self? Do you ever find yourself wondering if The X-Files’s Mulder and Scully discovered if the truth was out there? Are you still mulling over the fate of Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks? If the answer is yes to any or all of these questions, then the primary reason for the spate of drama sequels, remakes and reboots is evident: audience curiosity and audience recognition. Trading on the name and reputation of a tried-and-true show is an invaluable shortcut when connecting with viewers, new and old.

Marion Edwards, the president of international television at Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution, has the muchanticipated new season of The X-Files on her slate, as well as Minority Report, the television series based on the book and movie. She says the sheer volume of new content means dramas must find ways to cut through the noise, so a point of reference can be a crucial marketing tool.

“You’re vying for the attention of people in a world that’s crammed full of information and content of all different lengths, kinds and styles,” says Edwards. “You’re trying to convince them to spend some time with you, and it’s getting more and more difficult with a younger audience to get them to spend more than just a couple of minutes with you. It’s a different process.”

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RISK MINIMIZATION Inherent in the value of audience recognition is a desire to minimize the risk in high-cost drama, notes Joel Denton, the managing director of international content sales and partnerships at A+E Networks, which is heading to MIPCOM with a remake of Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None.

Denton explains, “It’s much easier for broadcasters to make a decision to go back and look at shows that have been a success and try to work out what those ingredients were and reimagine them 10, 20, 30 years on for a modern audience. There’s a reason those shows were successful and the underlying story and themes were popular and well done at the time.”

Sarah Doole, the director of global drama at FremantleMedia, suggests another reason for the trend: writing talent is at a premium in some territories. Doole, who has the Prisoner: Cell Block H remake Wentworth in her portfolio, notes, “Some territories find it difficult to access local writing talent.

So when there’s a great story being told and they can access those scripts, that’s like gold dust. Whether you’re in the U.S., Holland or France, the one thing everyone’s chasing is great writing talent. Over the last few years, we’ve seen that if there’s a great story with a universal element to it, the script will work in different places.”

As far as reversions are concerned, exploiting existing IP can also be a springboard for a whole new creative process that excites writers and buyers, according to Katie O’Connell Marsh, the CEO of Gaumont International Television, whose NBC series Hannibal ran for three seasons.

“Bryan Fuller had a ton of inspiration from the Thomas Harris novels [that introduced the character of Hannibal Lecter] first and foremost, and then from the movies,” says O’Connell Marsh. “But he absolutely authored this version and made some really important changes that made sense to him.

It’s not simply, ‘I have the rights to this product, let me go through a cadre of writers [to make it].’ Bryan had been a student of Harris his whole life. That’s the secret sauce.”

A NEW SPIN Creativity and invention are paramount when approaching a reversion. “Some of our buyers don’t remember the original,” says Barry Chamberlain, the president of sales at CBS Studios International (CBSSI), of the Hawaii Five-0 reboot, which has been a big seller for the studio. “It is one element of a sales pitch or an element of what the show is about, but it’s got to deliver on its creative and ongoing story.”

Charlie Higson’s Jekyll and Hyde is an inventive reinterpretation of existing IP. Set in 1930s London, the show focuses on the grandson of the original Dr. Jekyll and is described as combining mystery, fantasy, horror and sci-fi. ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) is bringing the ITV commission to MIPCOM alongside the brand-new Poldark. It will also be introducing the Prime Suspect prequel, Tennison.

“The core of Jekyll and Hyde is very much about having that character and the alter ego; the good and the bad,” says Ruth Clarke, ITVS GE’s executive VP and director of acquisitions and co-productions. “You can create new nuances because you’ve brought it into a different era with a different character.

You can bring the audience on a journey that still has the core original at heart. You have to evolve with the audience and engage with what a modern audience is looking for.”

The Frankenstein Chronicles has a similar instantly recognizable concept at heart. From Rainmark Films and sold by Endemol Shine International, it also incorporates a modern twist—this time in the form of a crime story. Sean Bean takes the role of inspector John Marlott, who is pitted against a “chilling and diabolical foe.” Cathy Payne, CEO of Endemol Shine International, says the crime element has helped broaden the original Frankenstein story. She adds that there are also pitfalls that must be avoided when reimagining classic IP. “People know what Frankenstein is, but you have to make sure people don’t assume it’s horror,” says Payne. Using as an example Humans, based on the Swedish original Real Humans, she explains how to break down preconceptions

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shrunk over the years. There’s more advertising in a lot of these pieces, which makes it more difficult to hold and keep an audience. The way you tell the story has to change.”

BRAND RECOGNITION

Prisoner: Cell Block H was remade by FremantleMedia Australia as Wentworth, which has been a huge hit for Foxtel.

Prequels, sequels and spin-offs are also creative ways of trading on the success of a known brand. This August, for example, AMC premiered Fear the Walking Dead, a so-called “companion series” to its megahit The Walking Dead.

“On the back of the 17 million fans who watch The Walking Dead in the U.S. alone, AMC put out a trailer [for the spin-off] at Comic Con and within 48 hours, 7 million people had viewed it,” says Stuart Baxter, the president of Entertainment One Television International, which is showcasing the series. “Fear the Walking Dead has audiences all around the world salivating. It’s really well done. If you’re a fan [of The Walking Dead], it gives some insight into how the virus started. It creates a parallel world with different characters, but very much the same audience, the same drama, the same tension.”

Westside, a prequel to the TV3 New Zealand dramedy Outrageous Fortune, will be on offer by all3media international this MIPCOM. Maartje Horchner, the head of acquisitions at the distributor, notes that the key benefit of a prequel is that it trades on the loyalty of the original brand but isn’t encumbered by its story history. Outrageous Fortune was a contemporary series, but Westside is set in the 1970s, so as to create distance from the original show. “A sequel has a layer of history that maybe you don’t understand if you haven’t watched the previous show,” says Horchner. “It’s an easier sell as a prequel than a sequel.”

In this instance, the new proposition, Westside, also created renewed interest in its parent show, Outrageous Fortune. At ITVS GE, meanwhile, Tennison, the prequel of the global hit Prime Suspect, is starting to echo the sales pattern of the original series. “Those people who had [Prime Suspect] before and for whom it worked, they’re already thinking it’s great that they can get this back in their schedules,” says ITVS GE’s

about genre. “When we were marketing Humans, a lot of buyers were saying it was sci-fi—but it’s more than sci-fi,” says Payne. “It’s really about the relationship—how someone can be as threatened by a synthetic robot as they are by a real person.

The mother feels the same type of anguish from having a robot nanny look after her daughter as she would a real nanny. We wanted it to be considered broad and didn’t want people to put it in a sci-fi box. When you’re doing something that is a remake or has been adapted, the way you market it to prospective buyers is really important.”

Like Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde, Agatha Christie is a classic brand with a global reputation; but for And Then There Were None, a story that is set in 1939, the challenges were slightly different. The big question is how contemporary you go. “It’s not easy and it’s much debated about whether you really contemporize those pieces and bring them forward or just change the style of writing and themes and the pacing,” says Denton at A+E Networks, which is handling distribution of the BBC One and Lifetime co-production.

“People’s attention spans have Westside, from all3media international, is a prequel to the TV3 New Zealand series Outrageous Fortune.

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BBC One and PBS’s Masterpiece were the lead partners on the remake of Poldark, repped by ITVS GE.

Clarke. “It’s a crime piece with a strong character in Jane Tennison. [Broadcasters] know how it walks and talks because they have a pre-existing history with it.”

Clarke continues, “It’s set in the ’70s and Jane Tennison is becoming a policewoman. [Creator] Lynda La Plante is having a lot of fun imagining what Jane would have been like as a young woman. That’s when we join her. It was an interesting world back then as she’s fighting her way through the police ranks. It’s about how she becomes the woman we already know.”

GREAT EXPECTATIONS Inevitably, a reboot is going to be held up and compared to the much-loved original. “The good news is that you have an audience that is already engaged and hopefully optimistic,” says Gaumont International Television’s O’Connell Marsh. “The challenge is that you’ve got an audience sitting in judgment.”

The more iconic the show, the riskier it gets—and you don’t get much more iconic than The X-Files. Fox’s Edwards says that bringing the show back for a limited season in 2016 is “a very smart move and I believe it would

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never have happened if all the creative individuals, from [the show’s creator] Chris Carter to the actors, hadn’t agreed to do it.”

She continues, “When it’s a fan favorite and a show that people are still very, very interested in, you run the risk of making changes, but you also reap the rewards when it’s done properly. We have all the faith that we’re bringing something to air that will be equal if not superior to the original.”

Online chatter about a reboot can help in a publicity campaign, says Rachel Glaister, who heads up marketing at all3media international. “The debate between the virtues of an original versus a remake with core fans is all useful publicity, so long as an overriding positive slant can be the louder voice. All manner of social media can aid that, of course.”

Amid all these remakes, one does have to ask, is the focus on exploiting these known brands to the detriment of creativity and original ideas? O’Connell Marsh says no. “Reinventing, elevating and enhancing have to be part of the conversation, and not just in a cursory way,” she says.

“It has to be in a visionary way or it will feel opportunistic as opposed to an artistic endeavor.”

CBSSI’s Chamberlain says that, as far as franchises are concerned, there are both risks and opportunities. “The risks haven’t come into play with us, because we’ve been successful in extending series into franchises or portfolios with NCIS and Star Trek. But you have to be really careful that you’re making a quality series that can stand on its own and just happens to have the built-in recognition of an overarching brand.”

CBS Television Studios’s NCIS now has two stablemates— NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans—but how far can a premise be stretched?

“I don’t think anyone is looking to make five nights a week of NCIS,” comments Chamberlain. “The network [CBS] needs to ensure they offer viewers enough variation to keep them interested, or you get too niche. The studio is looking to ensure that the creative community knows it can come to them for a variety of projects.”

How long will this spate of remakes last? As is the nature of trends, their longevity is reliant on their success in delivering audiences. “As long as it’s working, we’ll continue to make them,” Fox’s Edwards concludes. “When we start to see more misses than hits, we’ll move on to something else. That is how Hollywood functions.”

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GREG BERLANTI Greg Berlanti’s first foray into television was on the series Dawson’s Creek, for which he worked as a writer and then as executive producer. The show had huge appeal among teens and young adults, and Berlanti went on to create or executive produce several series that resonated strongly with that demographic, including Everwood and Eli Stone. Berlanti has also been involved in broader-skewing shows like Brothers & Sisters and the miniseries Political Animals. A comic-book enthusiast from a very young age, Berlanti co-created Arrow in 2012, the first in a string of shows based on DC Comics characters. Berlanti Productions is housed at Warner Bros., as is DC Entertainment, and, in addition to Arrow, the collaboration between the three has produced The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. Berlanti will have those four shows on the air this season, along with The Mysteries of Laura and Blindspot—that’s six shows on three networks. He talks to TV Drama about mentoring young showrunners and the importance of casting and creating rich characters.

TV DRAMA: How have you built a company that allows you to make so many quality shows at the same time?

BERLANTI: Pretty naturally over time. I work with a lot of the same creators, showrunners and individuals, so it’s been an outgrowth of the good fortune we have been lucky to have together. We’ve developed a shorthand and a real system. For some of the new showrunners and creators that have come on, the process of making a pilot with them [has allowed me] to develop a shorthand with them as well. Everyone is equally hardworking and incredibly intelligent and passionate about the stories they are telling. That is my litmus test. The main thing that allows me to do multiple projects is that everyone involved in each show pulls their own weight and doesn’t expect me to do their job for them. That being said, it’s my job to make sure that everyone on the different shows—whether they are independent of one another or have some connective tissue between them—is rowing in the same direction.

And you learn lessons through the years. One of my favorite things is to work with newer showrunners on their passion projects, try to impart my own experience and help them translate what they see in their heads to the screen, be it through casting or production or breaking stories with them. Then it becomes my job every day to work with them. The problems on any given day determine where I end up spending most of my time. There is no shortage of problems, because you are trying to make something that you believe is really, really good and you are doing it quickly. That is the nature of television—there are a lot of decisions that have to be made quickly. I try to be involved in as many of the key ones as possible that I think will affect the quality of the show.

TV DRAMA: Millennials are a tough group to reach and please, and yet many of your shows do exactly that. What have you

found to be the best way to reach this demo, which has so many other entertainment options?

BERLANTI: We are dealing with characters that are loved across generations. We have a built-in brand with a lot of Millennials and that’s incredibly helpful. We are re-introducing these characters to a new generation, but we are not introducing these characters to the world. Some of the burden is off of us because there is real name recognition. Like their parents and grandparents, Millennials are incredibly savvy and you can’t ever write down to anybody. You have to presume they are intelligent. The final thing I would say is that they are an incredibly open generation. They want shows that are colorblind and deal with things that they are dealing with. [They want characters that] look the way they and their friends look, and that’s a wonderful thing. It allows us to play with changes, sometimes in gender, sometimes in sexual orientation and sometimes in the race of characters that have previously existed as white guys.

TV DRAMA: What have you learned from the returning Arrow and The Flash that you are applying to the new series Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow?

BERLANTI: That you don’t make these shows for one group of people, you try to make them for everyone.

They have a little bit of everything and that’s a lot of fun. They have action. They have drama. They should often have romance and they can have comedy even in scenes where there is action and drama. They are full characters with rich lives, even though they may wear a hood or a cape. The more you treat them as characters with rich lives, the more they seem to work on TV, because people are showing up for the characters, not for the superpowers.

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TV DRAMA: Is the other balancing act remaining true to the legacy of these characters while building new stories around them?

BERLANTI: Yes, that is the other thing we want to do. For our DC shows in particular, I’ve got our own little Supreme Court of people who work on them. When we make a big change to a character that existed previously or we make a decision of almost any kind, as long as it excites and interests us, we feel we are our own test audience. Between that and obviously our partners at DC, we can do both: connect with what was beloved about the comic itself but also introduce it to a new generation and make alterations.

TV DRAMA: How did Supergirl come about, and was it important to have a female superhero on television?

BERLANTI: The show came about because DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. asked me, “What project would you like to work on this year?” There were a couple of DC properties we were intrigued by, then they brought up Supergirl, but I think they saw her in her teens and probably closer to a show like Smallville. But I really thought that “S” was probably the most famous letter in all comic books. It was known throughout the world and there was an opportunity if we aged her up a touch to make a television show for everyone, which happened to be about a female hero.

The Flash, a spin-off of Arrow, returns to The CW this fall for a second season.

TV DRAMA: Am I correct to say that you are balancing several elements when making these shows? The first is keeping each show distinctive while enabling crossovers between them?

BERLANTI: Absolutely, that is a perfect assessment. Our goal is to make each one distinct and then have each one fill in its own world. I think we have wonderful templates for that in the forms of the comic books themselves that we all grew up reading. In a way, comic books were the first crossovers that I knew about. Still, the books would very much have their own tone and their own style, but they were worlds that lived together.

We use that notion as a touchstone and then we try to imagine what these shows would be like if there were no powers or abilities. Flash would be a family show. Arrow would be almost a gothic family melodrama. Legends of Tomorrow would be a fun rompy high school show. And the actors really help distinguish them, because you start associating the different shows and the tones of the shows with the performances of the actors.

TV DRAMA: Casting is really key, isn’t it?

BERLANTI: It’s 90 percent of what we do. Ten percent is everything else, including picking the right stories, but most of it is the casting. It’s where you can kill something or make something a lot better than it is.

TV DRAMA: Tell us about Blindspot.

BERLANTI: Blindspot is the brainchild of Martin Gero, who is a writer I’ve wanted to work with for a really long time and we pursued for a while. He came to me, and when they come in we always ask, “What is your passion project? What’s the thing that you would do if you could only make one TV show?” And he told us his idea. It started with this naked lady completely covered in tattoos, found in a bag in Times Square, with no memory of how she got there. We envisioned a thrill ride from there, like we really hope the audience will, and then it became about helping him execute that and casting people like Jaimie Alexander and Sullivan Stapleton. Just like

Supergirl, starring Melissa Benoist, is one of CBS’s most hotly anticipated new shows for the fall.

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Melissa Benoist as Supergirl, our casts are really lovely people and really pop on the screen. What I am probably most excited for this fall is for the audience to get to know these actors in this way, in these roles.

TV DRAMA: Has the TV landscape and viewers’ tastes changed to the point that a show like Brothers & Sisters would be difficult to get picked up nowadays?

BERLANTI: I think even then Brothers & Sisters was becoming more of a rare thing because mainstream network television, as opposed to cable and like blockbuster films, has really become eventized. The event of a show like that was watching that cast—it was an unbelievable cast. Whereas two years prior to that when I had done Everwood, it was really challenging to get emotional family drama or smart character dramas on networks. It’s hard for the networks to launch them. The audience looks for them more and more on cable; that has already become a habitual thing. The TV landscape definitely is changing that way and it was changing prior to Brothers & Sisters.

TV DRAMA: You have worked primarily in broadcast television, even though cable television can offer more freedom in terms of language and subject matter. Have you always felt you had the freedom you needed when you worked for broadcast networks?

BERLANTI: Yes, pretty much. I did a show for cable called Political Animals. That was a blast! We couldn’t have done that on network TV—it was raunchy. You do have to know what the beast is that you are working on. There are enough battles to fight to make a great network show, rather than try to change what network TV is about on top of that. I’m not saying that those rules aren’t made to be broken, or that there aren’t incredible shows that are inside people’s heads that

shouldn’t defy other shows that have been done before in network television. When those types of shows come along, they are great. But for the most part I think you do have to know your audience and know where you are making the show.

TV DRAMA: A lot of shows nowadays are straight-to-order series. Do you prefer producing a pilot, given the amount of special effects that a lot of your shows have?

BERLANTI: It’s a flawed system but there is definitely a lot you learn from it. The advantage of doing a pilot first is that you really don’t know, no matter what anybody tells you, if this thing you’re making is really a TV show until you’ve made it.

It’s a challenge in the casting of it. We’re going straight to series on Legends of Tomorrow and the advantage there is that it’s a world and characters and a cast that we have all worked with— that makes it a touch easier. We went straight to series on Political Animals and it was really hard breaking episodes four, five and six without having seen the chemistry of the actors. That is another thing that comes out of [producing pilots], you learn the strengths and the things you are excited to watch on the show yourself as a viewer, and that’s a great thing that TV can do and film can’t do. If you go straight to series there are economic [considerations] that are cool and you get to call your friends and tell them you’re making a TV show! But there are qualitative perils that come with that, too.

TV DRAMA: We can’t ignore the fact that a lot of what we call television is alchemy; until you see it on the screen you can’t tell if all the ingredients are going to work.

BERLANTI: And how cool it that? It’s its own kind of jazz.

No matter how many plans you have, you are improvising as you go along, and that is what makes for some of the best television.

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Arrow, based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow, has spawned two live-action spin-offs and is one of The CW’s biggest hits.

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Playing strong women who must overcome adversity is not new to Julianna Margulies. As Nurse Carol Hathaway in ER she survived a suicide attempt and financial difficulties and raised twins alone before finally finding true love. In The Good Wife, Margulies plays Alicia Florrick, married to a state’s attorney who serves time in prison because of a sex and corruption scandal. With intelligence and determination, Alicia perseveres, returns to work to support her children, builds a career as a successful lawyer and even runs for state’s attorney. Margulies takes us behind the scenes of the hit drama and talks about her responsibilities as lead actor and producer.

TV DRAMA: Compared to the days when you were on ER, today there is so much chatter and buzz about shows online and in print. Do you read what is written and does it impact the story lines that are chosen?

MARGULIES: I don’t do social media and I don’t read reviews. I hear things from people on the street and most people come up and tell me what they like. No one is going to come up and tell me what they don’t like, I don’t think! At least it hasn’t happened so far. I do believe that some of the writers tweet during the show and find out what the audience likes and doesn’t like.

But I always remind [showrunner] Robert [King] that when he wrote the pilot, nobody had seen the show yet and everybody loved it. I always go back to the first episode, because I think it’s important to remain true to who you are.

ourselves producing partners and we try to solve every problem before having to call L.A., which makes the day go faster, and it also keeps it more in-house and doesn’t worry the writers. I just want them to do their good jobs. I was recently writing an e-mail to an actor who I had a little bit of sway in [getting him to] do the show this year. He is spectacular. I wrote him an e-mail not just welcoming him but telling him, if you have any problems, I know the lay of the land. We want you to be happy here, call me, e-mail me; don’t let anything fester. Let’s have fun. So I try to take charge in order to [keep the production] running smoothly. If I see some huge problem, I’ll always discuss it with Brooke and Kristin first before going elsewhere. But for the most part, I have to say, it’s more the minutiae than the big things.

TV DRAMA: You are the lead character. What responsibility do you feel for setting the tone on the set?

MARGULIES: The biggest compliment I’ve ever gotten was from our casting director Mark Saks, who said to me, Every single actor who has been on the show has written an e-mail thanking me, because the tone you set on the show is so welcoming. I really believe that it’s important to make sure everyone feels welcome, because when you feel safe you do your best work. I look at my job as acting is reacting, so if I’m reacting against someone who is fantastic, I’ll be fantastic. I want to set that tone so everyone feels they are safe and they can try anything and do anything—that makes it fun and challenging. To me it’s like an acting class every day because I’m working with these incredible actors and I want them to feel at home. This is where they get to play and do whatever they want, as long as it engages the rest of us.

I like to set a bar where I’m never late and I know my lines.

Because if number one on the call sheet, who was on the set 14 hours the day before, sets that tone, then everyone has to set that tone. We have a crew that all wants to get home to their families. So it’s important for all of us that it’s not just about the actors, it’s about the cameramen, it’s about the boom operator, it’s about the set designer, it’s about the costumer. Every single person to me is of equal value on the set.

TV DRAMA: I’ve heard the courtroom scenes are the longest to shoot. Why is that?

MARGULIES: Courtroom scenes are brutal and it’s because there are so many people to film. You have the jury, you have the defense, you have the prosecution, you have the judge and you have the defendant. You have so many different angles. And then you have people sitting in the courtroom. Even if they don’t have lines it’s important that they hear what is going on while they are being filmed. Those are the longest days and I always feel really bad for the judges because usually in court scenes we shoot the lawyers first. Then we turn around the entire courtroom, which takes a good half-hour to an hour of lighting and then we shoot the judge and all the witnesses on the stand. So they are always long days. We have gotten it down to a science. It also depends on who the director is and on whether it’s federal court or state court, because [one time] in federal court we managed to do an entire scene with a Steadicam. It took a lot of lighting and a lot of rehearsals but it was incredible, it was cinematic. But those are few and far between because you have to get everybody in there.

TV DRAMA: You also have a producer credit on the show. What does that entail?

MARGULIES: I take it quite seriously. I said to [our executive producers that] if I’m going to do this it’s not a vanity credit because it will be a lot of extra work. What you realize when you are an actor who is a producer is that all the actors come to you with all their problems, and that’s OK. From the casting to wardrobe, if there is a problem on the set that I can solve, I will try and solve it before calling L.A., where most of my executive producers are. We do have one EP on set all day, Brooke Kennedy, and we really look at our relationship as partners.

And Kristin Bernstein, who is our line producer, is also a partner.

One of them is always on the set with me. We really consider

TV DRAMA: In front of and behind the camera, The Good Wife has a lot of women in various positions. Over the course of your career, how have you seen television become a better place for women than film, if that is a correct statement?

MARGULIES: It is a correct statement. When I was on ER we had one woman producer and one in-house woman director.

On my show there are six women producers, seven male producers, so it’s very even. There are two in-house female directors and we’re always looking for more, and our entire sound company, aside from our mixer, is made up of women. They hold the boom [microphone]. Our on-set producers are all women and there is a woman lead. When I was on ER, women were not the leads in television, they were part of ensemble casts. And women didn’t run sets. Women run our set because the three of us are always present and we happen to be women. And we have a lot of women in our crew.

It’s a very different environment.

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Emilia Clarke Based on George R. R. Martin’s bestselling novels, the HBO series Game of Thrones has legions of devoted fans across the globe. It is so popular that it is thought to be the most pirated show in the world.

Cinematic in its production values, Game of Thrones tells the tales of ambition, intrigue and lust of several noble houses as they vie for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms. Off to the east, a young queen raises an army in an effort to take back the throne, once held by her father. She is Daenerys Targaryen, played by Emilia Clarke, who talks to TV Drama about her scene with Peter Dinklage and the benefits of not looking like her character, and responds to critics’ claims that the show is too violent.

TV DRAMA: At the end of season five, we see Daenerys in a position where she’s the only person she can trust. Do you feel she has made mistakes as a leader?

CLARKE: Daenerys is in a bit of a precarious situation, probably the most precarious situation she’s been in since season one, really, because she is without a soul and without a hope, and she is being surrounded by a lot of rather angry looking Dothraki. Yes, I think that her mettle is going to be tested even more this time, and in a way it might be freeing because she’s out of the confines of the day-to-day politics of being a ruler of a land that isn’t hers, and trying to appease both the rich and the poor. Now she’s in this live-or-die situation with people who don’t deal with the monetary value of things, but deal more with, You’re a man and I’m a woman, and that’s what we’re discussing here. So she has a golden opportunity to prove her worth, and I think the outcome will be satisfying in a way that hopefully she won’t die. That’s what I am hoping for! I think she’s made a ton of mistakes, but a brilliant aspect of Daenerys is that she never makes the same mistake twice, and she always learns, so I think this will be the most exciting lesson that she will have come across.

TV DRAMA: What was it like to finally have the chance to act with Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister?

CLARKE: It was amazing. I was an absolute fan girl; I just couldn’t get over it! That was probably the most nervous day at work I’ve had in five years. It was ridiculous, I was like, Ooh, I’m going to have to act with Peter! I know him, we get on really well, but just the idea of me acting with Tyrion, I just completely fanned out! It took a while to get into the scene, because I kept having to pinch myself that these two characters [would have a scene together]. It was incredible because you get used to acting with certain people that you work with regularly. I’m a fan of the show, I watch the show avidly, so it was just wonderful being tested as an actor in such a different way through acting with Peter, because he, as the character and as an actor, really keeps you on your toes. You want the same quick wit and intelligence that he just oozes, and I just think he’s marvelous and wonderful. It was a scene I was definitely most proud of.

TV DRAMA: We’re hoping to see more of the two of you together next season!

CLARKE: Well, me too!

TV DRAMA: Some critics have said that the show has too much violence and too many scenes of rape. How would you answer them?

CLARKE: Violence and rape are sorry aspects of our society, and when having this discussion about what Game of Thrones is saying about violence and rape, we need to discuss whether we’re talking about the Western world or the rest of the world, because it’s two different discussions. I also think that Game of Thrones is depicting a moment in history where the rights of men and women were very different, and it’s definitely commenting upon that. I think it’s good that it’s bringing those topics to the table for people to discuss, but I don’t think that the show, myself, or any of the actors involved believe that it belies our true feelings about the real world—the violence and rape that happens day to day.

Ultimately it is a fantasy show. Yes, it’s got a huge amount of shock factor, but that really is characteristic of the show in trying to depict a reality of that time.

TV DRAMA: Because in real life you do not look like Daenerys, do you still have a semblance of privacy when you go to restaurants, or shopping, or whatever?

CLARKE: Yeah! I’m really lucky. It’s weird—airports are a nightmare. In airports I can’t seem to come out of the loo without someone going, “Oh my God!” I went to this literary festival in Cornwall, and I was there for two days, wandering around with my pint of cider and I just had two or three people the whole time [come up to me]. They were terribly British and middle class about it and really funny, apart from one guy who said, “Aren’t you ‘What’s Her Tits’ of that show?” and I was like, “What name? What name is ‘What’s Her Tits’?” and he was like “I don’t know, ‘What’s Her Tits’” and I was like “Oh, bad for you, I don’t know who you’re talking about.” I was mildly insulted being referred to as “What’s Her Tits!” But other than that I really am so lucky to have an incredibly normal life outside of filming. I’m very happy with that.

TV DRAMA: The other benefit of not physically resembling Daenerys is that you’re not typecast. People wouldn’t immediately associate you with Daenerys if you play another character, right?

CLARKE: Exactly, and aside from the private life aspect, that is one the most wonderful things. Because I hate it more than anything when I go and watch a movie and I’m thinking about the divorce that actor just had or the kids that they have. Just knowing so much about their personal life stops you from suspending your disbelief. But if you can try to look different then that immediate visual association is null and void, and you can hopefully get commented upon for your acting rather than anything else.

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MICHAEL SHEEN

By Anna Carugati

During Michael Sheen’s distinguished career on stage and in film he has played myriad roles, but is perhaps best known for his portrayals of Tony Blair in The Deal, The Special Relationship and The Queen, and David Frost in Frost/Nixon. In Masters of Sex, Sheen plays Dr. William Masters, who, alongside Virginia Johnson, played by Lizzy Caplan, conducted pioneering research into the human sexual response.

As scientists, they decide they can gain a deeper understanding of their field of inquiry if they study it for themselves and have sex with each other. Masters of Sex not only documents the scientists’ work—it also delves into the most intimate and complex aspects of human nature.

TV DRAMA: You and Lizzy Caplan have many intimate scenes. I imagine you developed a comfort zone to be able to shoot them.

Is that a difficult process?

SHEEN: It hasn’t felt like a difficult process at all. It was never awkward. We connected early on with the rush and excitement of doing this show and starting this journey. That helps; that gives a kind of momentum to prepare yourself. Neither of us had partners at the time, which helped! We were doing very intimate and vulnerable scenes and that would have been difficult for partners to deal with at that point. I’m glad no one had to deal with that!

Then very quickly, not just doing the physical things but also emotionally and psychologically, coming to grips with the material, the characters and the relationships, we came to feel trusting of each other quite quickly. And that was combined with learning about what it takes for everyone to be comfortable

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and confident and secure doing those kinds of scenes. Because it’s one thing when you are doing maybe one sex scene in a film, where there are a lot of grey areas and people don’t really talk about everything because they feel awkward or embarrassed.

But in our show there is a lot of sex in every episode; there was no room for grey areas. We had to be very clear about what the process needed to be, what a closed set actually means, what the actors need when the director says cut, and what needs to be set up the day before the scene. Nothing is left till the day itself.

Everything is being talked about; every expectation is explored, whether it’s costumes or the director or the other actors or whatever it might be. There was some difficulty in the beginning to learn all those lessons, but that has made it so much easier ever since. Lizzy and I have such an ease and trust of each other that I can’t imagine it being any other way now.

TV DRAMA: The show deals with human nature and women and sexism, making it so contemporary for people today.

SHEEN: It’s interesting that people are rightly seeing that the show is dealing with feminine sexuality and exploring that in a way that hasn’t been done before. But it’s equally interesting that people haven’t picked up as much on the exploration of male sexuality, not just sexuality but masculinity and what that means and how that has changed. The idea of male impotence and male sexual dysfunction, how that affects a man and his sense of his own masculinity and therefore how that affects

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Masters of Sex recently scored a fourth season renewal from Showtime.

his relationship to his partner, whether it’s a male or female partner, that is something that has been underestimated.

So ultimately my overriding interest has been how we as human beings deal with intimacy, not just physical intimacy but emotional and psychological intimacy as well. How do we cope with knowing that for any relationship to be truly meaningful, we have to allow into that relationship the aspects of ourselves that we most want to defend and hide from people, because that is what creates the meaning for it. But when you do that you are then so frightened about losing that relationship. There is that image of two animals with their fangs very deeply buried into each other’s necks. If one of them lets go it will kill the other one because it would bleed to death, so they just hang on. And there is something about that, even though it’s a brutal negative image.

[The irony is that] when you have so much emotional investment in a relationship with another person, it brings out every insecurity, every warning system that we have and makes us say, I am vulnerable, I am not protected here, I could be killed at any moment, and yet I have to act as if that’s not the case. I have to be open and I have to be vulnerable. We defend against vulnerability all the time in every aspect of our lives. It’s the greatest challenge for us. In evolutionary terms we have evolved the way we have because we are guarding against our vulnerability. So when a relationship requires vulnerability it’s such a difficult game we have to play to stay vulnerable with someone who has all the ammunition to hurt us. And that is in every relationship we have, but obviously the stakes become much higher in a relationship with a sexual aspect as well. Everyone is dealing with it every minute of the day. That’s why even though there are no gun fights on our show, or any of the more sensationalist aspects of a lot of the shows that are popular, I really do feel every day when I go to work on Masters of Sex, it’s about the most important thing that we are all dealing with every day as human beings. No matter what country we are in,

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no matter what ethnicity we are, no matter what sexual or religious orientation, this is what it is to be a human being and having relationships with other human beings.

TV DRAMA: Is it easier to play characters based on people who lived in real life because you have so much more material to draw on, or is it more challenging because the audience has such a clear image of the person that you’re playing?

SHEEN: It’s easier in some ways and it’s harder in some ways. If you are playing Bill Masters, even people who have heard of him or know about what he did certainly don’t look at me on the show and think, Bill didn’t look like that or he didn’t sound like that. That’s different from playing someone like Tony Blair or David Frost, who are much more current and much more familiar to the audience. But in some ways having audience familiarity with a character and some expectation gives you another instrument in your orchestra, you can riff on what the expectation is. The writer Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), who I worked with playing lots of characters based on real-life people, was so brilliant at being able to play with people’s expectations and convert them and create that lifting-the-veil kind of thing—whether it’s suddenly feeling sympathy for someone like Richard Nixon, or seeing a more vulnerable side to the Queen. That is a really positive thing and it gives you the structure you need to look at the actual life of the person. There’s usually a lot of material and video, and with the internet now there are all kinds of stuff you can look at. That gives you things that are tangible that you can work with, as opposed to a totally fictional character where there are more choices and more freedom. Having that structure can be really great. But with someone like Bill Masters, where there are certain things that are known and there is structure to work on, we have to invent because there is so little known about the private life and what was really going on inside him. So by necessity we have to invent and there is a freedom in that as well.

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ANDREWDAVIES

By Mansha Daswani Ranked as one of the best novels ever written, Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace, detailing the lives and loves of a group of aristocratic families in early 19th-century Russia, has been a frequent source of inspiration for film and television producers. The latest in a line of adaptations is set to hit screens in early 2016. The BBC One commission was penned by Andrew Davies, the acclaimed British screenwriter who is best known for bringing a series of classic novels—among them Pride and Prejudice and Little Dorrit—to television. Made by BBC Cymru Wales in partnership with The Weinstein Company, Lookout Point Productions and BBC Worldwide, the series will have a U.S. simulcast on A+E Networks’ three flagship channels, HISTORY, Lifetime and A&E. Davies and executive producer Simon Vaughan give TV Drama an inside look at the process of bringing a new take on Tolstoy’s tome to viewers across the globe.

TV DRAMA: Had you thought about adapting War and Peace before BBC approached you with the project?

DAVIES: It hadn’t been on my mind. In fact, I’d been thinking, it’s about time I got around to reading it! It’s something I had been saving up for many decades! It was a nice surprise when Faith Penhale [head of drama at BBC Cymru Wales] asked me if I’d be interested in adapting it. I said, I have to read it first. So I took it away on holiday with me and read it and enjoyed it very much. I found it to be a much more approachable, lively, almost modern book. And then we began the big process of chopping it up into parts and making a drama out of it.

TV DRAMA: How did you go about condensing the story into eight parts?

DAVIES: With all these things, I just try and soak the novel up and think about, Who do I love in this novel? Whose story is it really? Who do we want to concentrate on particularly?

And sometimes it’s just one person. With War and Peace, it’s really three characters who fascinate us. Pierre is right at the center. He’s a puzzled seeker of the meaning of life who unexpectedly finds himself one of the richest men in Russia, from having been a disregarded, illegitimate son. Then there’s Natasha, who is the lovely, innocent, much-loved young daughter of a very cozy family, the Rostovas. And there’s Prince Andrei, who had been brought up in a very austere environment. He’s apparently quite cold and contemptuous, a bit of a Mr. Darcy. Those three, their lives are all intertwined with each other. I tried to make every scene either have them in it or relate to them in some way. I built the whole drama around them and their families and friends and the people they fall in love with.

TV DRAMA: You’ve said that there is more comedy in War and Peace than most people realize. How did you bring that element to the adaptation?

DAVIES: It is there. Pierre is quite funny really. He’s got this contradictory nature and he’s so earnest and determined to

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do well. He says to his friend Andrei, “The wine and the women, I will give them up!” And then he thinks, no, I’ll just have one night off. Then he launches into the most enormous, debauched night of drinking and fighting. And then he’s terribly sorry the next morning. He wakes up with a terrible hangover and everybody is cross with him.

It turns out he’s done awful things like tying a policeman to a bear and throwing them both in the river. It is funny! [Laughs] I’m amazed people haven’t found the novel funny before!

TV DRAMA: Were there aspects of the novel that were more challenging to adapt than the previous literary works you’ve brought to television?

DAVIES: The scale of [the novel] is huge. The history is quite complicated. It was about finding a way to tell the historical and the war sides of it really clearly and simply, without distorting it and without being too shorthanded about it. Really the key lies in seeing everything through the eyes of our principal characters. Tolstoy goes in for quite a bit of straight history in his book. I thought it was very important to go into all these battles and explore the pros and cons of things through the eyes of characters that we know and care about.

It was difficult to do that, but I think I managed it.

TV DRAMA: Can you take more liberties when working with a translation as opposed to adapting Charles Dickens or Jane Austen?

DAVIES: Because one’s working with a translation, one doesn’t feel absolutely bound to use the lines of dialogue in the book. It’s a translation anyway, so I can use my own language, what I feel fits the period and also makes the right impression for the audience.

Tolstoy didn’t choose to write all the scenes, so I’ve written quite a lot he didn’t include in the book. Scenes with Natasha and her cousin Sonya together—I like writing those scenes of girls in their nighties talking about love. I wrote various other scenes that are implied in the plot that Tolstoy didn’t dramatize.

TV DRAMA: How does the budget for War and Peace compare with your previous adaptations?

DAVIES: It’s been bigger than anything I’ve done before.

Mind you, that doesn’t put it on the scale of a blockbuster movie budget. But I guess it’s getting up to twice the budget I’m used to working with. And that’s been great. I’ve been encouraged to write big, as it were. We had to pull back from some things. There’s a scene in the book in which a whole regiment of Polish cavalry, in order to impress

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BBC Worldwide will be shoring up broadcast slots on the upcoming War and Peace at MIPCOM.

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Napoleon, drive their horses into the river. They get swept away and half of them drown. [The producers] said, “Write it!” [Laughs] But we couldn’t really afford to drown an army of Polish cavalry, so that didn’t happen. But mostly we’ve used amazing, authentic locations in St. Petersburg, which you wouldn’t normally be able to do on a BBC budget.

And we have big armies and loads of horses and so on.

TV DRAMA: There have been several adaptions of the novel in the past. Did you go back and watch any of them?

DAVIES: I avoided watching the Russian adaptation, partly because I thought I might get too influenced. I watched a bit of the BBC one from the 1970s. That seemed awfully slow and stodgy, apart from Anthony Hopkins’s perform-

ance, which is still electrifying. But other than that, it doesn’t feel fresh, it doesn’t feel lively. I thought, I can do much better than that! The American film from the ’50s with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda is not a good movie. And the casting is terrible. Henry Fonda is 20 years too old for the part he’s playing.

You have to be quite arrogant really [to embark on an adaptation like this]. If you go into it feeling timid and thinking, What are people going to think?, it’s no good. You have to go into it thinking, I’m going to do the best one that’s ever been done! And so far I still think that! [Laughs] But we’ll have to wait and see what the audience and the critics think when it comes out. I’m enormously pleased with the results. It looks great.

production designers or cast, there were an awful lot of people who wanted to clear their schedules to do this, because people recognize these things don’t happen all the time.

TV DRAMA: Tell me about the casting process.

VAUGHAN: You always need a bit of magic with casting, and a little bit of luck. Our core trio is Paul Dano, who is an indie-film-actor’s actor; Lily James, who is extremely talented and has a huge commercial profile; and James Norton, who is probably one of the most exciting British actors we’ve had for years. That was the main emphasis. Everything else has to support that. Where the luck comes in is in Gillian Anderson wanting to do it, Jim Broadbent wanting to do it, and you start to build an ensemble that, when you put it all together, really adds up to something.

Simon Vaughan The CEO of Lookout Point Productions, Simon Vaughan has been involved with bringing together a number of high-profile British dramas, including the BAFTAwinning Parade’s End. Vaughan has spent the last few years working on the financing and production logistics of adapting War and Peace.

TV DRAMA: How did the project come together?

VAUGHAN: I have a good relationship with Faith Penhale [at BBC Cymru Wales]. She really is the creative force behind this project. It was her impulse to tackle War and Peace and her concept that it might be possible to position it on the BBC. She is in charge of shows like Sherlock and Doctor Who—some really big flagships for the BBC. So the idea of that very commercial department tackling a classic felt in its own way fresh and exciting. That was the start. Faith, myself and Andrew Davies all know each other, trust each other and get on well. And we started to try to create a wave of enthusiasm. What these projects all need is a creative critical mass.

And then you need to have a sense of ruthless determination to promise the market that it’s going to happen. And then you have to make it happen. That’s what we all have to do: put our necks on the line. You put a stake in the ground and you say, right, we’re doing it, who wants to get involved? And a big, credible War and Peace is certainly something that happens once in a generation.

Whether it was heads of department or cinematographers or

TV DRAMA: Where did you film?

VAUGHAN: It’s been pretty much done in Russia, Latvia and Lithuania, substantially shot on location—so real palaces, interior and exterior, and worlds that you couldn’t dream of building. You could give us ten times this budget and we wouldn’t have been able to build anything remotely approaching the scale and the size of the real buildings we’ve been able to shoot in. There is some CGI, but we don’t rely on it. It’s pretty epic. We probably looked at ten different ways of making it, including doing it all in the U.K. But our producer Julia Stannard was very confident and pushed us hard to take the plunge [in Russia].

TV DRAMA: Where are you in the production process?

VAUGHAN: It looks great: everything is there, all the performances feel good and it finished on time and on budget, exactly as planned. It’s a huge, huge miracle! And now the post-production process is the next miracle that has to be performed to get the whole thing finished and ready for broadcast in the early part of next year. We are trying to make sure we’ve got very high-profile broadcasters that are going to make the most of it. It’s designed as something to really invest in over a six-week period. BBC One does that sort of thing brilliantly. In the U.S., it’s an enormous coup to have the A&E, HISTORY and Lifetime channels broadcasting it simultaneously. The typical home for this sort of thing would be PBS or possibly HBO, both of which would be great.

But what’s fantastic about this A&E/HISTORY/Lifetime deal is that it really is very broad. Each channel has a very different audience. It’s rewarding to make something and then think it can end up getting the broadest possible launch platform. It’s easy for these things to get lost in all the clutter. War and Peace must be an event.

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