The Buzz - BuzzWorthy Radio

Cast of FRINGE on BuzzWorthy Radio Part I: John Noble!

The cast of FOX's hit series, "FRINGE," will be making an appearance on BuzzWorthy Radio this week!

From J.J. Abrams ("Lost"), Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the team behind "Star Trek," "Mission: Impossible III" and "Alias," comes a new series that will thrill, terrify and explore the blurring line between the possible and the impossible.

When an international flight lands at Boston's Logan Airport with no signs of life, FBI Special Agent OLIVIA DUNHAM (Anna Torv) is called in to investigate as part of an inter-agency task force. After her partner, Special Agent JOHN SCOTT (Mark Valley), is nearly killed during the investigation, a desperate Olivia searches frantically for someone to help, leading her to DR. WALTER BISHOP (John Noble), our generation's Einstein. There's only one catch: he's been institutionalized for the last 17 years, and the only way to question him requires pulling his estranged son PETER (Joshua Jackson) in to help.

When Olivia's investigation leads to multi-billion dollar corporation Massive Dynamic and its manipulative corporate executive, NINA SHARP (Blair Brown), our unlikely trio, along with Department of Homeland Security Agent PHILLIP BROYLES (Lance Reddick) and FBI Agents CHARLIE FRANCIS (Kirk Acevedo) and ASTRID FARNSWORTH (Jasika Nicole), will discover that what happened on Flight 627 is only a small piece of a larger, more shocking truth.

The FRINGE pilot is directed by Emmy Award-winning Alex Graves ("The West Wing"), and the series is produced by Warner Bros. Television and Bad Robot Productions. J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner and Bryan Burk serve as executive producers.

Duration:: 29m
Broadcast on:: 03 Apr 2009
Audio Format:: other

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No purchase necessary. V-D-W group, boy we're prohibited by law. 18 plus, terms and conditions apply. Lock told radio. Go get you live. It is Buzzworthy radio. But you can get some latest buzz. I'm all your favorite children. Buzzworthy. Buzzworthy. Buzz. Now. Hi, welcome to a new edition of Buzzworthy Radio. I'm your host, Novell Jaylee, coming at you live right now this afternoon on Friday, April 3, 2009. It is 1 p.m. eastern time, which means it is 10 a.m. Pacific time. We are going to be joined by the cast of Fringe today on our broadcast, this little special edition that we have been trying to get in the works for several months now. And we're finally able to make it happen for you. And here it is. This is just as much a shock to anyone else to find out who is going to be calling in today. So we're going to see exactly who will be here. Now if you want to get in on the chat as well, you can call in. If you have any questions you want to ask the cast, any of your favorites, you can call in at 646-595-4228. We have the chat room running right now. So if you want to ask your questions in the chat, you can also do that as well. Or you can send us an email at mavley@buzzworthyradio.net. I did see that they did call in, we're just waiting for them to call right back in. So we're waiting for them to dial back into the phone number right now. So hopefully they just didn't get disconnected. So they will be here rather shortly. So flu cannot wait until the new fringe episode starts. It starts this Tuesday, so make sure you tune back into Fox to make sure that you are in to know what's going on. You can ask them what's coming up within the next few episodes that they're going to be airing. Just ask whatever you like. There's no holds bar here, so definitely ask them what you want. Sorry for the dead air there, but also I'm trying to get everybody situated. I see people are coming into the chat room right now, waiting hello to everybody. So make sure you guys just follow, follow right in. Now if you do miss the show live, you always download the show. Let's get started. Here right now I'm going to bring them on the line. This is Alex. Alex, are you with us? I got her, but I unmuted her and she hung up. Call back in Alex and we'll go ahead and try to get this through for you. What I was going to say is that while we're waiting for her to call back in so we can go ahead and get this underway, what I'm going to say is that I want you to tune in for my regular sofa listeners that are listening to the show right now. I want you to tune in into tonight's Stardish Radio broadcast. I'm going to be over there with them basically going over what happened this past, over the past two weeks into the, oh my gosh, two weeks since we did the rock, the sofa event in California. We are going to be talking about what happened on the ship, some of the stuff that we saw, some of the stuff that others saw that probably I didn't get a chance to see him witness. So we're definitely going to go over that tonight. It starts at 9.30 p.m. Eastern time. You can check her show up at blog.gradle.com/startish and there's a lot of stars that are coming in. Let's take this car from 9.04. You're on the line right now. How are you? I'm going to screw that. Hey. What's up? I thought it was you. What did you say? I said, yeah, I thought it was you and you asked me, is Josh Jackson going to be here? I said in the beginning, I have no idea who is coming. It's a surprise to me as much as anyone else who is going to be here. So we just have to wait and see. Yeah, absolutely. Are you, how big of a fan of friends are you? What? I don't even watch the show because it freaks me out. I love Josh Jackson. I'm sorry to catch you up. Let me get her back on here in there. She's been trying to get on here. All right. 9.1.7. I got you finally on the line. Hey. It's Alex. I thought Mr. John Noble for you. Great. Great. Hi, Mr. Noble. How are you? Hello. How are you? I'm doing very well. Thank you for, thank you for some of my show here today. Pleasure today, mate. And you played the role of Dr. Walter Bishop in the show, if that's correct. That's correct. Yeah. You want to describe a little bit of your role for us, just a quick minute? Yeah, sure. I guess the viewers would know that he's a kind of crazy scientist guy. He's very brilliant, but he's been locked up in the metal asylum for, you know, 17 to 20 years, and so he's kind of nutty and funny, but also, you know, he's a sad guy and he's very bright. So he's sort of like the lynch brain, you will, to the uncovering of what's happening in the pattern. It's also one of the best things about it is the father of the character that Josh Jackson plays. So we have a really interesting development of a relationship there. That's great. And plus, you know, those crazy characters make the best ones on the series. That's just me. Thank you. It's true, though. I mean, they make the show. So that's great that you play that. Now, how are you approached for this role? Well, it was weird, really. I think that what they do with this sort of thing is they search really worldwide for this sort of stuff. And in fact, in the end of what it was perhaps 18 months ago, I'd heard that was happening and ask my manager to have it look, and they said, "Oh, no, you're too young for this role." Well, it was weird, really. I think that what they do with this sort of thing is they search really worldwide for this sort of stuff. And in fact, in the end of what it was perhaps 18 months ago, I'd heard that was happening and asked my manager to have it look, and they said, "Oh, no, you're too young for that role." So I forgot all about it. And I was back in Australia in January and last year. And I got this call, you know, about this role, would I put down the tape? 'Cause I think that looked at every other actor. They thought it was a little bit too much, can't they? I seriously think that. And anyway, I put down just a tape in Australia with my daughter reading against me. And based on that tape, I was cast on the role. It was an audition tape. Quite unusual. It was already an unusual process, yeah. Yeah, just a little bit. It seems like you would do more of it, but just on a audition tape. Oh, you filmed it in Toronto? I didn't have that many times. That much time to do it wrong, you know, I sort of did the audition. And they rang in and said, "You would like to cast you. Can you get to Toronto?" Which is where we filmed the pilot. Oh, you filmed it in Toronto? I didn't know that. We filmed the pilot in Toronto, and then we came to New York to film the series. Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Now, are you a huge fan? Because, you know, this show is of science fiction. Have you been fascinated by science fiction, science fiction shows or anything like that? Did that help you also to want to go ahead and take this part of her? No, not so much fascinated by science fiction. More fascinated by, I don't know, fantasy is not the right word either. I love stuff that stretches your mind, you know, and makes you think. Yeah. And so within, you know, this is certainly a show exactly like that. You know, we stretch out the limits of the impossibilities, as JJ Abrams says. So from that point of view, yeah, I love it. And, you know, also fantasy. I also kind of like stuff that says that all in the world is not stuff, that there are possibilities that we can, you know, we can improve the world in some way or other. Yeah. And that there are redeeming qualities in people. So it kind of fits into what we're doing here. Absolutely. Now, how did you first start getting into acting with something you wanted to do for a long time? It was an accident, actually. I mean, I was just a country kid and I was sent away to a city to go to boarding school and university. And while I was there, I was sort of discovered as it were. I didn't even know you could be enacted, to be honest. It seemed to me something that was so alien, you know. It was something you could do on Saturday afternoon at the matinees. And so I fell into it, but I had a lot of lucky breaks in my life. And I really never stopped working. So, you know, I was one of the lucky ones. Absolutely. And so what can you tell us if you got the new episode starting up next week? What can we look forward to seeing when they come back if you can give away a little bit? Sure, well, to start with, I think you can look forward to seeing six of our very best episodes. You know, most of you are thinking, you know, really, that show really started to pull together. And, you know, you get to an episode like Ability, which is, I think, the last one we showed, which is kind of everyone's favorite, you know. And then we had a very strong episode coming into this. My feeling is that each of the episodes that you'll see the next six should have, nearly our extremely strong episodes are among our best, you know. So that's the first thing. You know, I think we've really found our feet and we're traveling along. You'll also see a lot of answers to questions. And then about four questions, of course. That's the nature of things. But a lot of the things that have been nagging about, you know, what is it with Olivia? You know, what makes us so driven and, you know, what's going on with that girl? And then you find out things about her that you go, oh, I see, golly. Okay. And also you find out things about Peter. Right at the end you'll find out a major revelation about Peter. You'll find out that William Bell does exist. And that'll be right in the last episode. And in the meantime, you get to see lots of wonderful stories with, you know, creatures and genetic manipulation and all the things that we do. I think maybe they might just be our six best episodes. But certainly they're up there in the top 10, all of them. That'd be great. And I'm looking forward to seeing them, absolutely. Oh, my. That'd be the long way out. [LAUGHTER] When you're going to see them just to critique yourself after they're done, you're going to critique yourself. I'm going to watch it next Tuesday. And I'm going to sit down with my wife. She's been hanging out for it to come back. You know, what are we going to do on Tuesday nights? So, yeah, I'm going to look for, yeah. And I know just from talking to people around the place, you know, people. "Where's Fringe gone?" I'm sort of having withdrawals. Yeah, right across the world there's a lot of interest in us coming back. Yeah, I mean, my friends and I were like talking, like, why is Fringe being kicking off every, like, we're getting into it and it's kicking right off again? And, you know, here comes America. I don't come, I'm sorry. I don't like American Idol. I like Fringe more, you know. Well, you know, it's an interesting piece of programming. We were kind of lucky because we fairly quickly established sort of a hardcore following. And it wasn't massive, but, well, it was actually pretty big. And then when we came back for those four episodes earlier this year, we suddenly went from, you know, that would give $9 million up to $13 million in a week through the roof. And then we're off the air again and kicking off my gut. But we did develop a core audience and I think they're going to be hanging out. And the shows are going to be so good that other people are going to be tuning in. And I think we'll be very strong and I think the numbers will be great. Absolutely. Did you expect, like we were just talking about just now, did you expect the fans to like take to the show like right off the bat? Because this has like a huge club fan following on for this show. It's so, so early. It's really unusual to get it so early, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I can't think of another show that gathered that sort of solid fan base in the first season. Even the great things like X, X files and so forth. And even Seinfeld, you know, they won a few seasons before everyone said, "I've got to watch this get in the back seasons." Right. Yeah, but we did kick in earlier. And I know you look at a lot of it might have been to do with the fact that JJ Abrams has such a following. The fact that the internet now allows us to create this huge viral effect around the world about interest. I think that probably plays into it a bit too. I don't know, but it was certainly a new phenomenon. We did an appearance of the New York Comic Con here a couple of months ago. And we had to give a panel and we walked into a room and there were 3000 people there. He couldn't believe this. I mean, this was like Lord of the Rings time. And here we are now halfway through our first season. So it's really incredible. Absolutely. We actually got a question that came to me. His name is Kirk. He wants to know, "Was there any inspiration for the way that you played the character on the show?" He said that he kind of seems like a cartoon character, Madeline. I wouldn't go that far. He's crazy. No, no, I'd sort of appreciate everything everyone says. In truth, one of my oldest friends that I went to university was in some ways the basis of this character, because he is in fact a mad scientist. And he still is. I told him when I was going to do it. He said, "Well, there's going to be a lot of you in this head." But also, I've read widely about men and women that are in that exceptional IQ that is just so high that they live in a very rare fight atmosphere. Also read widely on mental health. And I also read widely on fringe sciences. It was practiced during the Cold War. All of those elements came into play in developing the character. But obviously, a lot of the things that makes water so funny is the fact that he's memory shot. And that's sad, really, but that's the result of all the drug treatments and stuff that he's had. And he's just sort of these social men as a reporting. I find that very amusing to be honest with you. I love playing that stuff. He comes up with non-sequels out of nowhere, and people go, "What?" "Oh, yes." "Where does it come from?" But I mean, I know people like that, too. There was a lot of reference points for the character. The first one was, I said, that this whole print is mine. And then after just a moment of researching and observing a whole lot of things. I mean, you can read the life of Einstein and find parallels in terms of the way that they thought and behaved. Yeah, absolutely. Now, besides being on fringe now, many, many also never do from doing the Lord of the Rings. I have to talk about it because I was the Lord of the Rings freak. I did watch those movies. And what's the difference between doing the television series and being in a film? With something like this, it's actually less than you'd think. Something like Lord of the Rings, which was just massive, and it's been nothing really on the same scale. What Peter Jackson did was sit the bar very high and say to everyone, "Okay, we're going to go through the roof here." And people went with that, so I think you see a lot of best options in Lord of the Rings in terms of performance and effects and direction, all those things that we want to let the 11 Academy Awards for. But there was a sense that it is possible to be excellent, and that permeated the whole thing. What I found under the guidance of this man, JJ Abrams, is that he expects the same thing. But this is television, so instead of doing it over two or three years, we do it over two weeks. And it's insane how fast we work. A lot of it, therefore, relies on first instincts. You know, you hit with a first instinct, and the actors that are listening will say, "Well, you know that?" That's not a bad thing sometimes. Sometimes those first instincts are the best. Anyway, it's very fast, and I kind of like the speed of doing this sort of thing. There's no why, it just sort of keeps biting me. I love the speed of it, yeah, absolutely. Because those first instincts go in there, make a choice, bang, do it, and go, "Whoa, a lot to say." But then you've moved on. But also, we set very high standards of filming, so we try to create a film quality product. And we do, you know, and it's really hard to do it, but we do it every fortnight, every two weeks. Yeah, yep, you pretty much answered my next question. I was going to ask, like, which John would do you prefer, and you basically just answered it, so. It shocks me, though, I'm sorry to catch you up, but it shocks me that, you know, I hear that people like the fast-paced, because I normally hear majorities that they like it going at a slower pace and everything. So it's interesting to hear your answer that you like the fast-paced workflow that you have. I don't know what that says about me, there might be a bit of water in me, you know, like speeding. I don't know, but I do. I think sometimes, in fact, it's left with too long to think about things, and they can tell themselves up and not. I mean, I've spent many, many years doing theater, and I've been through that slower process, and I do enjoy it. But this, I kind of find exciting to have to make decisions and act on them straight away. It's like doing improvisation classes, or whose line is it everywhere. You know, that shows whose line is it anyway, where they have to make a shuffle. It's a bit like that, you throw it, "Whoa, here we go." It's a bit like that. Yeah. I love that, though. That makes the show interesting, like I said in the beginning, that's what makes it interesting, you know. And one of the things also that I wanted to know as well, since you had a mention in the fast-paced, and you're just going to go with it and everything, as far as production goes, you know, this is probably a difficult one to answer, but as far as production and everything goes, when you're doing the tapes and everything like that, because you can see a lot goes in every single episode that you're making. Do you get like, "Here's the one take, that's it," and then you have to run with that. You don't have to go back and do these, if you like mess up a line, you can't go back and like... No, of course, if there's a mistake, we go back. Absolutely. What they've worked out, and to the credit of the producers, they've worked out a very clever way of shooting it. So whilst it looks like it's covered, you know, in terms of film coverage, it's covered by a film, they've developed certain ways of filming it so that we're actually very fast. But no, we don't accept a take that we don't like. So if something goes wrong with the technical or an acting error, of course, we go back. But we have fast ways of doing it, you know, it doesn't take a half an hour to do the setup again. But no, we never... And, you know, if there's a take that I wasn't happy with, and I would certainly say to the director, "One more, please," and he would say, "Yes." And no, it's not that we compromise that quality. It would become a fairly efficient machine to it as if we worked with this crew now for 12 months. That's pretty quick. Yeah, absolutely. Did you also happen to have any so far of what you have filmed? Did you have a favorite scene or favorite episode that you have done so far? I mean, personally... To be honest with you, my favorite stuff was when I went back to the Asylum in Episode 8, which was called "The Equation," and water had to go back to the Asylum. And I really enjoyed that. It was quite demanding physically and emotionally, but I really enjoyed that. There are all sorts of moments that stick in mind, you know. We're talking earlier about having to improvise quickly. The one that goes to where I think next Tuesday, where they said to me, "Oh, by the way, you need to do a dance in this." Which piece of music do you want to dance to? This was the day before. And so I kind of have that night, and I'm listening to this piece of music, and I said to my daughter, "Help me, help me, I've got to do this. I've got to do a water dance." And so we quickly improvise it, and when I'm sitting next day and do it so funny, because there's no time to be embarrassed about the fact that it looks really bad or anything like that. So, in other words, Walter just did the dance. John Ziga didn't have a chance to get involved at all. That's the improvisation, speed of the improvisation that I like, and all sorts of other things happen like that. You know, you're throwing a problem, and you say, "Solve it really quickly." And thank you. As I said to you earlier, I love that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. And I just love how you say, you know, with the improvisation and everything, you know, do you often to add a little light with your lines? Can you add that? No. Yes, I can, absolutely. No, we don't. Because by the time we get a script, it's been approved, you know, through a lot of people, including up to JJ, and then to Warner Brothers and Fox. So the scripts that we get, we do, if we need to change anything, then that has to be approved back through the circle cycle, you know, back into our showrunners. So no, we don't. We stick very, very closely to what's scripted. And, you know, if adjustments need to be made later on when they can do that when we're looping and so forth, but no, you can't improvise dialogue. That's the one thing you do. You can improvise half deliberate, but not what it is. What can you say about the whole cast of the whole? Like, what do you love the most about the whole entire show, overall, the cast, the crew and everything? Well, the thing is that everybody has to work at such a pace. I mean, at all, it never gets a day off, for example. She plays Olivia. She works pretty well every day. I don't see her that much, but, you know, that requires incredible fitness, really, and resilience. Obviously, I have a very close relationship with Josh Jackson who's seeking the call because we do most of our work together. And we just laugh on awful luck. And out of that positive trade of energy, we can see it on the screen, I think, that we can do relate to each other. And all of them, you know, they're good actors. They're good pros. You know, you've got Lance Redick and Kirk Atherby, Don Blair Brown, terrific actors. So, you know, given the chance that they show that, it's a good pro car. You know, a good group of professional actors who enjoy their work, I think. Absolutely. Well, I honestly, I cannot wait until the new episodes start on Tuesday on 5. I'm going to be DVRing it because I probably have to probably be away on business, but, you know, it'll always be there when I get back home. So, I'm going to be watching it full frontal force. I cannot wait. Mr. John Noble, who plays Dr. Walter Bishop on the show. Thank you so much for coming out here on the show, starting it up on our fringe series here on the show. It's great talking to you. I had a blast. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the talk. And hi to everyone, and I hope you enjoy our comeback. Definitely. You take care now, all right? You too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. How awesome was he? Now, like I said, this was our first in the series of the cast of fringe coming on. So, this is like cast of fringe part one. There's going to be more in the week down the line, obviously. So, definitely stay tuned for that on who's going to be coming on. So, like I said, it was probably me who's going to be coming on what week and what not week. I kind of liked that. It keeps me on my toes. So, I'll know what to go for week to week and everything like that. And I don't know what to expect and I'm going to roll with the punches, but I still have all the questions ready and whatever. Yeah, I'm giving you a little behind the seesuit for what I do. But yeah, it was definitely, it was great. John Noble is a great, great guy. I love his character on the show. So, it's great to actually have him on for the first time. Now, like I said before in the beginning, if you did miss this show live, you can always download the show on our website at blogtopradio.com/buzzworthyradio. You can check out what you missed or if you just want to hear it again, you can always do that as well. You can also download this off of iTunes. We're on iTunes to search for buzzworthy radio and you'll be able to find us there as well. So, there's a lot of places where you can keep in contact with us. You can also follow us on Twitter. We're on Twitter @navjdbr. We're on Facebook. You can just search for us on Facebook and we're also on MySpace. So, you can get all the latest on what's coming up. And when is our next fringe? Cast a fringe part two series coming up. So, always, always stay tuned for that. But, like I said, make sure you guys tune in tonight. I will be making an appearance on Star dish radio. I want you to check that show out. It's going to be a blast. Joanne Cubasek hosts it. And we're going to be reliving some of our favorite moments from the rock to soap event. That took place in California on Carnival Paradise. We're going to have a few guest stars call in. One of which being Mr. Bob Guinea. Another one being Mr. Greg Rickard. Brandon Barrage and Michael Enite. And, of course, I'll be there to go over some of the favorite moments with you guys. So, make sure you guys check that out. That starts at 9.30 PM Eastern time tonight. Blahtargay.com/Star dish. And, it's a two-hour event. So, make sure you guys don't miss it. I will be there. I hope you guys are there as well. And, also, we're going to be doing a lot more things with rock to soap. So, any of you who were there in the first one or any of them who wants to go into the event in this coming year in 2010. Make sure you guys log on onto my website and send me an email with your email. So, I have them. And, I'll be able to give you all the latest update information of what's to come within the rock to soap within the following year. You can just send me an email off the website at buzzworthyradio.net and we'll get you set up and we'll get you all squared away. So, make sure you guys do that as well. But, for now, this is the about daily signing off. I'll see you guys tonight on Star dish radio at 9.30 PM Eastern time. Make sure you guys turn it into our next show, which is next Friday at 10 PM Eastern time with Mr. Aidan Turter, who plays the role of Aidan Devagan on ABC Daytimes All My Children. So, from all of us here at Buzzworthy Radio, we are signing off. This is Navell Jay Lee, and making sure that you guys get the latest buzz with Buzzworthy Radio. We'll see you guys next week. Take care. Can't get enough of Buzzworthy Radio. Knock on down to www.buzzworthyradio.net. To get the latest news, I'm upcoming guests, past shows and videos of all your favorite stars. Keep getting the latest buzz with Buzzworthy. Shop your local Big R for exclusive deals all season long. At Big R we carry great products from brands you love and trust, like Yeti, Arian, Mountain Knobs, Carhart and more. Planning to upgrade your garage? Big R has you covered with tools from DeWalt and Milwaukee. And for your furry, feathered and four-legged friends, Big R has a wide selection of feed. Whether it is for your dog, cat, horse or chickens. Need your items fast? Shop online for pickup in store the same day. So, what are you waiting for? Swing by your local Big R today, or shop online. Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck. You can make him an offer, he can't refuse. With family, cannolis, and spins mean everything. Now, you want to get mixed up in the family business. Introducing, The Godfather, at ChampaCasino.com. Test your luck in the shadowy world of the Godfather Slodge. Someday, I will call upon you to do a service for me. Play The Godfather, now at ChampaCasino.com. Welcome to The Family. as necessary. VDW Group, boy reparhibited by law, 18 plus, terms and conditions apply.