White Collar Comes Clean – The Paley Center Event – PART II

[elrhiarhodan]

White Collar Comes Clean – The Paley Center Event – PART II

There is something magical about the cast of White Collar. It’s more than just the chemistry between the principals, the excellent supporting cast, the sparkling writing, or the use of New York City as another main character. The magic begins with their genuine decency as human beings and the generosity they have towards the fans of the show. I first noted this when I saw some video of the L.A. Paley Event, and everything I observed on Monday night confirmed my initial impression.

NOTE – MINIMAL SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT.

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Oddly enough, I’ve been a little reluctant to finish this write up. I’ve given myself a lot of excuses – power was down in the office yesterday (but I still managed to get 2k for v-world done), I wanted to finish watermarking my pics last night (didn’t – chatted with dear friends and plotted H/C bingo). I think I am reluctant because I don’t want to lose that last bit of magic.

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Michelle Kung, a writer for the WSJ was introduced and she clearly is a huge, huge fan of the show (she was also the moderator for the L.A. Paleyfest Event). You can see from this picture how excited she was: 

She was actually doing flail-hands as she asked the cast and Mr. Jeff King to come up to the stage. Her enthusiasm was infectious – and while she is an experienced professional, it was hard not to enjoy the delight she had in moderating the panel. (An aside, if I had the opportunity to sit next to Matt Bomer for an hour, I’d be pretty joyful too).

The second part of the evening was a series of moderator-led questions. A video with a few of them can be found on the Paley Center website.

I am not going to go through each question – mostly because I really can’t recall specifics, but I’m going to give my overall impression. We’ve heard a lot about how great the chemistry is between Tim and Matt, but you can’t really believe how much that chemistry incorporates Willie Garson and Marsha Thomason (who, despite her appearance in Pilot, is a relative newcomer to the cast). Strangely, I really got the feeling that Sharif Atkins was a bit of an outsider (at least this evening). It may be that because his character is criminally underused, it may be that he was sitting at the far side of the group – but he didn’t seem (at least at first) to be part of the “magic circle.” 

The panel members that did most of the talking during the moderated portion were Tim and Willie and Jeff King (the co-producer). I think that this is probably because they are the most experienced actors in the group. Willie was, as you can imagine, hysterically funny – and it was like there was simply no difference between Willie Garson and Mozzie (except for the paranoia). Tim was amazing – his answers were thoughtful, funny and now that I think about it, very “Peter Burke-ish”. (Other attendees, please chime in and let me know if I’m just crazy here). Matt spent most of the early part of this section looking at Tim and not adding to the answers. Not that he was shy (not in the least) – be he seemed to be more interested in what others were saying.

While I am sure that these questions were provided to the panel in advance (they were all pretty softball, naturally), and it’s quite possible that they did some rehearsing in advance, the decency and professionalism of the cast was stunning. No one talked over the other, they engaged both the audience, the moderator and each other. Going back to what I noted about Matt in the early part of the evening – it was like he made a conscious decision to not be the star of the show.

The last part of the evening was devoted to audience questions. There were some really, really great ones – my friend redjeweled (and she’s already written about this in her own write up, so I’m not going to repeat it here) asked Marsha about the upcoming storylines for Diana, and we really got a taste of where the some of the story is going. We will be learning about Diana’s childhood and some of the things she’s gone through, which is just plain crack for us fic writers.

A question was asked about when the show picks up – does the story start right after the explosion. The story will pick up three months after the end of Season 1 – and as another audience member noted her write up, they made it pretty clear that they did this so that the show would be able to maintain the lighter tone – and not get buried under the immediate weight of Kate’s death. Another question addressed how will Lauren Cruz (Natalie Morales’) departure be explained. All they would say is that it has to do with the fall-out from Peter’s suspension.

There was an odd question from someone who was a watch geek, a very nervous watch geek – about whether Neal (and I think he meant to say Matt) wears a watch and if he’d ever where a particular type of watch. The question was silly and sweet and the panel addressed it with the utmost seriousness. Basically, Neal will only wear a watch while undercover. He doesn’t wear one otherwise. I can’t recall at the moment the exact excuse Matt gave – but it had something to do with Neal living in the moment (I think).

It was that question that engendered these looks – and you can see that they really thought about the answer.

I did get to ask a question, and I nearly flailed it. But it went something like this.

“Being a lawyer, one of the things I love about White Collar is how well the show gets the law right, nearly 99% of the time."  [editorial – this is a lie, there have been some huge legal plot holes but I was too polite to mention them]  "And one of the things that really hooked me into the show was how the story in Pilot was wrapped up – with the whole Fourth Amendment– Exigent Circumstances Search and Seizure exception."  (I had to really dig to get Exigent Circumstances out of my mouth). I wanted to know if the resolution of the story was written with that twist in mind, or if it came out during the writing process.

The answer was priceless. Tim joked that he provided the ending to Jeff (and I recall shouting out something about selling me a bridge). Actually, it turned out that the scene in the warehouse, where Neal locks himself in the Dutchman (Curtis Hagan’s) office was the very first scene filmed for the Pilot, and was written very early in the process. Marsha spoke up – she was terrified she’d flub her lines (and says that she actually did). There was a long dolly shot where Diana’s the one who answers Peter’s question about the Exigent Circumstances exception, and it’s her first lines, and she’s trying to do them in an American accent (you do know, she’s British [EDITED]). I am sure that there was more said, but my brain just sort of turned to a puddle of goo at this point.

Shortly after that came the now (in)famous question by a clearly older female fan about how the show was really about love – the love these two men have for each other. I don’t think I’m the only one who thought that the question might descent into fan fiction, but it didn’t (again, will need to check the recording to get the entire question). But the impact was really truly the best moment of the event.

I think everyone just turn to mush. I still get the wibbles looking about that shot. Matt just THREW himself bodily onto Tim. There was no calculation, no thought – just WHAM, he’s got his arms around Tim, and grinning like this was the most perfect moment of his life. And there was absolutely no awkwardness or distance or anything other than it was perfectly normal and natural to have Matt Bomer fling himself into his arms. Just look at Tim’s facial expression. YOU CAN’T FAKE THAT- at least I don’t think you can in a truly spontaneous moment.   Also, it seems, based on Marsha and Willie's faces - they do this quite frequently.

There were lots of other terrific questions (I can’t recall them at the moment), and Michelle Kung announced that Matt had to leave early – but he stayed for another few questions. He left about fifteen minutes (maybe less) before the evening wound down. The last question of the night was whether Satchmo would be returning, and Tim just quietly answered, “Yes, he will be back.”

I did not realize that the cast was interacting with the audience and I kind of hightailed it (or as much as I could) to the front to hopefully catch some pictures and autographs as they departed. Sharif Atkins was the first to leave – and the Paley Center staff pretty much hustled him to his limo. Same for Willie Garson – he did pose for one or two pictures (but I couldn’t get a clear shot, sorry). Marsha Thomason spent a lot of time with the fans, and the Paley staff pretty much had to drag her away. I think that Tim was pretty well cordoned off and hustled into his limo.

And so the evening ended. I pretty much floated back to my car (which was thankfully right next door) and with the exception of failing to make the turn onto Second Avenue (I just breezed right past it and ended up in a lovely dead end on 52nd street (talk about gorgeous mansions). I made it home in just over an hour.

All in all, it was a night to remember. I really wish everyone could have been there and I hope my write up gives you a good sense of the magic that is the cast of White Collar.

FIN