TVGuide.com: It's only two episodes into the season, but Rescue Me is ramping up to deliver some stellar plotlines. That altercation between Johnny and Tommy in Episode 2 left me on the edge of my seat!Andrea Roth: I know! Wasn't it crazy? He was scary, huh?
TVGuide.com: Just a tad terrifying, yes. That must have been quite a scene to film.Roth: We filmed that over two nights and that was actually pure fun because we rarely get to shoot with everybody.
TVGuide.com: And not to mention the guest stars who have made fine additions to the early episodes. Roth: We're lucky. Between Susan Sarandon, Marisa Tomei and Tatum O'Neal, we have three Oscar winners on our show.
TVGuide.com: It must be nice to have that increased female presence on the set. Roth: It is. Callie [Thorne, Sheila] is one of my dearest friends, and that sort of blossomed this year because we haven't gotten the chance to work with a lot of women on the show. TVGuide.com: During my chat with Callie, she deemed working with the Ladder 62 guys "delicious." Your take?Roth: All the boys want to make you laugh. And what better thing is there to do than sit around with a bunch of boys wanting to make you laugh?
TVGuide.com: Do the guys ever feel the need to be on their best behavior or hold anything back from you women?Roth: God, no! Those boys are completely uncensored.
TVGuide.com: Things have gotten quite tough for Janet. After losing her son in a tragic hit-and-run, she quickly hops in bed with her husband's brother, Johnny. She's had to really develop a thick skin, especially now that Tommy's found out about her "extracurricular activities."Roth: I think that just from years of being married to Tommy Gavin, she's developed a tough skin. [Laughs] He's someone obsessed with secret, evil plans. He's not normal! But the fact that I'm with his brother is just unredeemable, actually horrific. When they told me, I was like, "What?" But it makes for a good story! I kind of look at it as this roller-coaster ride that I'm on and have no control of. Sometimes I wonder what on earth they could possibly do next, and they just continue to come up with wilder, more dysfunctional and shocking things.
TVGuide.com: And the wild antics will continue once things heat up between Marisa Tomei — as Johnny's ex-wife — and Tommy.Roth: But that's very short-lived. There's a lot of secret, evil planning between the two of them, but it all blows up — like things always do — in Tommy's face!
TVGuide.com: I need a scorecard to keep up with all the bed-hopping and guest-star seductresses this season!Roth: I have a hard time keeping up with it myself. Here's a good teaser that you can't imagine [happening]: Tommy and Janet may end up dabbling together by Episodes 4, 5 or 6.
TVGuide.com: No kidding.Roth: [Pause] I don't know how much you want things ruined... but [SPOILER ALERT] Tommy is going to come over and we get in a bit of an argument. He pushes me down, and we end up having sex.
TVGuide.com: Wow. This season has provided some fantastic story lines. Do you have a favorite thus far?Roth: This year's been really tough for me because I was really confused about what the hell my character was doing. When the very first episode of the season was written, Janet was very angry, and I said to [cocreators] Denis [Leary] and Peter [Tolan], "My child just died. Shouldn't there be some more sensitivity?" And they were like, "Nope. We want you bitter and angry."
TVGuide.com: You do play bitter and angry well. What kind of reactions have you received from fans?Roth: It's really lovely because people tell me I'm a really good actress [judging by] when my child died. "You broke our hearts." People aren't just fans, no one just likes it. They're obsessed! And the rest of the world just doesn't know about [the show].
TVGuide.com: With the summer TV slate largely made up of reality shows and reruns, Rescue Me is a refreshing alternative. But why is it such a scorcher with fans? Roth: It has a dark, dysfunctional soul, mixed with a lot of light, funny drama. The audience has no idea [what will happen], so it's like a big kids' roller-coaster ride. There's enough alcohol, swearing and sex involved so it's a good ride. Every once in a while, because it can get so outrageous, I wonder if people think it's just too over-the-top or soapy, but they just eat it up. The crazier it gets, the more obsessed people get.
TVGuide.com: Tell me about some of the other projects you have coming down the pike. I understand you just wrapped the action flick Rogue with Jason Statham? Roth: That was great fun. I adore him, he's so talented. And so sexy! I was reduced to a blithering, dorky schoolgirl. When I'd be talking to him, I'd touch his arm, feel the electricity, and go, "Oh, my god!" So that, as Callie would say, was delicious. He feels like my first high-school crush.
TVGuide.com: Tell me more about your character in that film.Roth: I play Jason's wife. Lucky me, working with Denis Leary, John Corbett [and now] Jason Statham. But I didn't get to kiss Jason. [Dreamily] Oh, if only....
TVGuide.com: I can't let you go without trying to eke out one final Rescue Me spoiler. Surprise me.Roth: Well, when Tommy comes over and we have sex, it starts off very violent, and you're not really certain exactly what the hell happened. I read in an article that Denis said that scene actually shows how complicated and strong the sexual pull is between these two people and why they are together and find it so hard to be apart. I haven't seen it, but a bunch of producers have said it's their favorite scene.
TVGuide.com: It's also rumored that someone in the firehouse is bisexual. Roth: Yes. And they're wondering and start dabbling. Do you want to know who it is?
TVGuide.com: Well, if you're going to twist my arm....Roth: [Name redacted.]
TVGuide.com: That was my guess.Roth: [That person] is confused and there will be some homosexuality going down. And I do mean going down.

Bart says that — especially as cohost of AMC's Sunday Morning Shootout (think Ebert & Roeper meets Meet the Press) — he has often been asked to identify the ingredients that lead to box-office bizillions. Alas, as countless filmmakers have seen over the decades, there is no easy answer, if any at all. "The most important common denominator," Bart tells TVGuide.com, "is that every hit reflects the vision of one strong individual who was willing to accept all the disdain and animus and anger and rejection and see the damn thing through — only to find that when the picture opened, there was still more disdain and anger and rebuke."
The releases of the Boffo! book and documentary are timed perfectly, here at the start of the summer movie season. As such, TVGuide.com asked Bart to weigh in on the box-office surprises to date, and the highly anticipated films still in wait.
"Certainly, Poseidon, on the downside, was a surprise," Bart opines. "Warner Bros. has always felt that [it can] almost put blockbusters on an assembly line. But everyone was skeptical about whether Poseidon would resonate well." Everyone, in this case, was right. "It opened OK here and OK overseas, but on the downside, Poseidon may be the least successful wannabe blockbuster."
Sandwiching Poseidon's waterlogged debut were offerings from Hollywood's two Toms — Mission: Impossible III and The Da Vinci Code — each of which met expectations, albeit to different degrees. "Surely, Mission: Impossible III didn't perform as well as the first two, and perhaps Tom Cruise's image was a part of the problem," Bart notes. "[Tom Hanks'] Da Vinci Code has been the most successful film so far, in terms of international acceptance, because that's not a typical summer picture. It's a drama, not a shoot-'em-up."
As Bart brings up "Tom Cruise's image" and "problem" in the same breath, we ask if there is a temptation to update his Boffo! book with a chapter on the "outside factors" that can affect a film's performance. "It's such an imponderable area," he says. "You almost need to mobilize the resources of a market-research company in order to find out how, for example, Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a big success, and how [the real-life headline-making of its own stars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie], all worked in that instance.
"I've never seen anybody measure the public impact of Tom Cruise's television appearances or his religious beliefs," Bart continues, "but if you did a chapter like that, you should arm yourself with a lot of data, because everybody's got an opinion."
The Boffo! HBO documentary features plenty of candid insights from the likes of George Clooney, Brian Grazer, Sherry Lansing, Danny DeVito, Peter Bogdanovich, Morgan Freeman and Tom Rothman. In fact, looking back on what is widely regarded as the first blockbuster, Jaws, it is detailed how Steven Spielberg's film drastically and at the last minute changed, apparently for the better, all because the robotic shark repeatedly wasn't ready for its close-up. That's right — Jaws was what it was because of what wasn't seen.
Boffo! also offers some uncomfortable moments, particularly when the bomb-word gets dropped. "When we started this," Bill Couturié, the film's director, shares with TVGuide.com, "one of the first things I said to Peter was, 'Talking to people about blockbusters is a no-brainer, but people talking about their flops...?' This is Hollywood. It's going to be a bit tougher." Indeed, even a revered and award-winning thespian like Morgan Freeman was literally unable to vocalize what went wrong with The Bonfire of the Vanities, one of the biz's biggest bombs. Says Couturié, "Here's this Oscar-winning guy, one of the most respected actors on earth, the movie is 15 years old, and he could barely get a word out about it. It was still that hard on the guy."
Adds Bart, "The psychology of failure is odd. Brian Grazer is one of the wealthiest and most successful producers of all time, but he feels that Cinderella Man was a terrible blight on his career. By any normal standards, Cinderella Man was very successful and it did well with the critics, but he felt it didn't fulfill its expectations. It's all a matter of expectations."
So what does Bart expect from the summer's remaining releases? Which films are all insiders' eyes on? "Certainly, Pirates of the Caribbean [Dead Men's Chest] is the biggest gamble ever taken by Disney," he observes. "I mean, you're talking somewhere between 250 and 350 [million dollars] for the two sequels made simultaneously. To watch the success of that [will be interesting]. Will there be a whole new genre of movies based on theme-park rides? That would be somewhat disturbing."
And what of Superman Returns, flying into theaters June 28 while weighed down with a supposed $300 million budget? Bart recalls the very tough sell he had back in his day with Michael Keaton as Batman. "Basically, Warner Bros. didn't want to make that movie," he shares. "They thought it was ridiculous, that the comic-book audience wouldn't move over." Ah, but they did, and even with film newcomer Brandon Routh in the title role, Superman Returns should be able to avoid being box-office Kryptonite. "[Casting] doesn't make a difference," says Bart, "because they feel that the star is the franchise."
Then again, as Boffo!'s numerous opinionators point out, over and again, nothing should ever be predicted in a business where an action-packed Mission can be faced with Impossible goals, while the march of some goofy Penguins can instead enchant a nation. Hollywood is littered with hits and misses, and scores of blockbuster wannabes that instead were bombs that went off in people's faces. "Success is not a process where everyone applauds you going in and applauds you going out," Bart points out. "Usually they do quite the opposite."

Today, it's a different story. Yamin may have come in third on American Idol, but he endeared himself to millions during its record-breaking fifth run. (As of May 30, an AOL poll placed him fifth on its "Best Idol of All Time" list. Winner Taylor Hicks tied for third; runner-up Katharine McPhee tied for sixth.)
Elliott's graceful, grateful farewell was the kind of two-hanky sobfest usually seen on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In just a few short months, the guy with the bowl haircut, chinstrap beard, goofy grin and health issues — partial deafness and diabetes — was transformed from a kid in hip-hop threads to a charismatic, smart-dressed crooner. His mom, Claudette Yamin, summed it up when she saw her son dressed in white in the May 22 edition of TV Guide: "Elliott looks sexy."
The change was more than cosmetic. As Idol turned his self-described "pipe dream" of a music career into a reality, he was the lovable mutt who, some would argue, became the best-in-show. Even host Ryan Seacrest asked on air what had happened to the old Elliott. "That guy is gone," the singer replied with a smile.
That guy was born Efraym Elliott Yamin in Los Angeles to Claudette, a former big-band singer, and Israeli Shaul Yamin. "My dad was a part-time [house] painter and part-time layabout," Elliott says. After his parents moved the family to Richmond, Virginia, their marriage ended and Claudette, Elliott and his younger brother, Scott, moved into an apartment. Elliott was 14 when his parents split. "It definitely hurt," he says of the breakup, after which, he says, "my mom had to turn into Supermom."
Elliott suffered from ear infections that eventually caused 90 percent hearing loss in his right ear. He left high school his sophomore year. Then, at 16, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. He lived at home and subsisted on menial jobs, but he found a champion and role model in Tony Klisiewicz, the manager of a Foot Locker who gave him a job on the condition that he earn his GED. "I didn't want to see him fail," Klisiewicz has said.
Elliott, who used to turn out the lights to sing in front of friends, was encouraged to go for Idol after waltzing off with the $1,000 first prize at a karaoke contest last year. He and his girlfriend, Amanda Parker, tried out in Boston. While she didn't make it through the auditions, he quickly became a Paula Abdul favorite. "She has a big heart, like I do," Elliott says of the woman he reduced to tears.
Though he acknowledges that his songs could've been more accessible — he favored semi-obscure Donny Hathaway tunes — Elliott chose the music he loves. He's eager to get the "E-train" rolling on the American Idol tour. For the July 29 stop in his hometown, 9,000 tickets sold out in less than 15 minutes, besting the tour led by Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken in 2003. And he hopes to release a classic R&B record.
"Elliott was a little lost boy," Claudette says. "This is what he was looking for." Her son echoes her words. "Before Idol, I was lost.... Now I've actually followed through with something. I am a better man for it!"

TVGuide.com: So you're a star of TV's most-watched — what's the qualifier again? — ad-supported cable drama telecast ever?Jon Tenney: "Ad-supported, original scripted cable show"... that begins with C-L-O or something. [Laughs]
TVGuide.com: Seriously, though, congrats on that!Tenney: Thanks! James Duff, the creator, has got a great home, and the whole team was there watching the premiere. The executive producer was like, "We'll get the call early in the morning," so they let us all know as soon as they heard. Everybody was very happy. We're all proud of the show, so it's nice that people actually watch it. [Laughs]
TVGuide.com: And there you are at the end of the opening credits — "and Jon Tenney."Tenney: G.W. Bailey (Provenza) gives me such s--- about that! The joke is that if we go another season, I want it to be "for Jon Tenney." Or G.W.'s like, "in spite of Jon Tenney."
TVGuide.com: I'm admittedly new to The Closer this season and don't know the entire backstory, so why is it that Fritz puts up with this beautiful but quirky gal?Tenney: I think Fritz loves her. On a very simple level, he just loves her. I sort of did my own little "psychological profile" of what he finds attractive and challenging and all that, but the bottom line is he genuinely loves and respects her. What's interesting about the relationship is that on one level, Kyra grounds the thing, but we all have our piece of the puzzle to fill in. I see my piece as the one that allows you to see Brenda in her personal life and in an area of her life in which she is struggling, as opposed to being as surefooted as she is in the professional world. Professionally, even if you ruffle feathers or piss people off or whatever, you can always fall back on, "Hey, I got the job done. I was right." But that's beside the point in a personal relationship. It's interesting to be that piece of the puzzle.
TVGuide.com: In this week's episode, there's this mini-squabble about Brenda's mother (guest star Frances Sternhagen) coming to town, and Brenda wanting to pretend that Fritz didn't just move in with her.Tenney: We always try to find the humor in things, but to me and to Fritz, that action is representative of a hesitation on her part that can go much deeper. And that affects him. That tension, that conflict, is something that we can extend over the course of many episodes.
TVGuide.com: Are these two kids going to be able to work out the cohabitation thing?Tenney: That's the question. Are they going to be able to work it out? What's it going to bring up? There's the thing with the mom and... I don't want to get ahead of where we go, but just when things seem to be OK, another hurdle gets thrown in their path.
TVGuide.com: J.K. Simmons (Brenda's ex-lover, Chief Pope) is great and all, but you do have the better hair.Tenney: [Laughs] J.K.'s always saying that — "So is she going to go with the bald guy or the hair guy?" But then again, J.K.'s got that whole "powerful boss man" thing going on, and they've had a history.
TVGuide.com: All I see is Peter Parker's editor-in-chief.Tenney: That's right! J.K.'s terrific. I've known him for years from the theater, so it's always "old home week" with him.
TVGuide.com: Do we ever see Fritz "in action" as an FBI agent?Tenney: Last year there was an episode where he and Brenda worked a case together, but I've primarily functioned more on the personal front than the professional front. In the first episode of this season, they're talking about moving in and they wrote into the scene that he's up for a position in Behavioral Sciences. A lot of people may not know that Behavioral Sciences in the FBI is a major deal — that's like Jodie Foster's character in Silence of the Lambs — so to say, "I'm not going to do that because I'm going to commit to this relationship" was significant.
TVGuide.com: Thanks for pointing that out.Tenney: That's important to me, the actor playing it, but to the show's credit a lot of times big, significant exposition points will be laid out almost tangentially. There's a [Season 1] scene I always talk about where Brenda and some of the others are giving a lot of plot exposition, but the way it is shot, it's all about, "Is she going to pick up a donut or not?" What we're trying to do with the show is to always make it character-driven.
TVGuide.com: What would people be surprised to know about you, and about Kyra?Tenney: They would be surprised to know that I'm a very good cook. As for Kyra....
TVGuide.com: She's got a hot little body under those frumpy floral dresses?Tenney: [Laughs] I don't think that comes as any surprise — she's a beautiful woman inside and out, no question. No, people who see her doing this very brusque character may be surprised to know that she is probably one of the most generous and lovely actors I've ever worked with.
TVGuide.com: If not "surprised," they may like to be reassured that she's that way. I can see some people thinking, "Whoa, this is Kevin Bacon's wife?! She's a ball-breaker."Tenney: It's a testament to her smarts as an actress that she can create this character that is so prickly and does so many questionable things, and yet you love watching her. I don't think we'd get those numbers if people didn't want to watch her.
TVGuide.com: Lastly, I want to talk about your role in Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, a recent film that perhaps didn't get its due.Tenney: No, it didn't. I was really proud of that and I think Albert was pretty brave with it. He had an amazing conceit for the film and he was operating from no blueprint — there hasn't been a movie like that, about that.
TVGuide.com: And what fun for you to play the State Department straight man to him.Tenney: I had been a huge fan of Albert's, and he's everything I had hoped he would be — funny, smart, neurotic.... I did that during hiatus, as well as Showtime's Masters of Horror. Joe Dante, who is very politically active, directed this no-holds-barred satire on the war in Iraq, where dead soldiers come back as zombies not to terrorize people, but to vote. At first they are embraced by the religious right and then they are disenfranchised by the religious right, and it's all under the guise of this grade-B zombie movie. It was really fun to do something that was political, in whatever way, in this day and age.

TV Guide: Are you only visiting us because TV Guide has an office in Radnor, Pennsylvania?Josh Radnor: You do? You do....
TV Guide: Maybe your family founded it?Radnor: I wonder.... You guys have been so nice to our show. Thank you, on behalf of everyone. Really.
TV Guide: Are you OK with the fact that you didn't make our "TV's Sexiest Men" issue?Radnor: I just said that outside! [Pretending to flip through TV Guide] "This must be where my profile is...."
TV Guide: What's your favorite thing to do in New York City?Radnor: Well, I'm living in the West Village, which is my favorite area, like, in the world, so I'm just "exploring."
TV Guide: How do you like life in New York versus L.A.?Radnor: I actually love L.A. — I proudly say that after getting over my embarrassment in saying that. [Laughs] I haven't been back here in a while, and I forgot that a great part of New York is, like, turning a corner and seeing someone you haven't seen in years and saying, "Let's get a drink, right now." In L.A. you have to, like, plan it out. "I can see you at the end of the month for an hour."
TV Guide: Back in L.A., are you still mooching off your friend's cable?Radnor: Oh, you mean going across the street? I kind of stopped watching TV entirely — sorry, everyone! [Laughs] I've been so busy.... I like watching The Office. My friend Mindy [Kaling] writes for it, and she is the funniest.
TV Guide: What's happening on How I Met Your Mother next season?Radnor: Is that what this is about, getting plot points? [Laughs] I have no idea. I had dinner with [series creator] Carter [Bays] and I was trying to get info from him, but... they don't know.
TV Guide: Is there any buzz about how much time will have elapsed? Will the summer have passed?Radnor: Yeah, I think it will be like three months later — unless they show [Ted and Marshall] coming in from the rain for like a moment, after getting drenched. But I don't know how long Ms. Scherbatsky and I are going to go. That might not last as long as Ted would hope. I feel like he was more in love with the chase of it all.
TV Guide: Besides, for all he and Robin know, the sex could be really bad.Radnor: No, that, I hear, is going to be fantastic. Seriously. They might keep us kind of "enjoying each other" without totally being together. [Laughs]
TV Guide: Has your own dating life perked up, as hoped?Radnor: It's not bad.... [Smiles]
TV Guide: Do you like how the show gets some things right about NYC, and some things not so right? The New Year's Eve episode had some glitches....Radnor: Yeah, that was like, "Don't pull the thread, don't pull the thread." There were so many logic problems with the limo episode. Like, how did we get to all these parties? Where did Marshall appear from? That was the hardest episode we filmed. We were in a broken-apart limo for three days, and we were all getting sick. It ruined limos for us, which is such a sad story. [Laughs]
TV Guide: What are you doing on your hiatus?Radnor: Jason Segel got a house in Hawaii on the North Shore for a month, so I went and visited him for a week. Alyson [Hannigan] and [husband] Alexis [Denisof, aka Sandy Rivers] went to visit him, and then Cobie [Smulders] came when I was there.... I went to Coachella [Music Festival in Indio, Calif.], which was amazing.... I went to my 10-year college reunion, in Kenyon, Ohio. I was scared, but it wasn't that weird. People were really happy for me.
TV Guide: And didn't Neil Patrick Harris book a play?Radnor: Yeah, he did All My Sons at the Geffen [Playhouse in L.A.], and it was great. He and I did a play together, like, two months before we got cast [on Mother]. When I heard he got cast, I called him — "Are you kidding me? We're in the same pilot?!"
TV Guide: What has been your favorite episode, moment, saying or "thing"?Radnor: We just recorded [Season 1] DVD commentary, and I was shocked at how well the pilot held up. It was really good. I think the club episode is really funny — from top to bottom, it just works. People really like "The Slutty Pumpkin," and I know it's this whole Charlie Brown thing, but I was really confused by it. For three years, he goes to the roof, wearing the same costume, waiting for this one girl? But it turned out great. And in "Mary the Paralegal," there was some stuff I couldn't believe they let us do. That line where she says, "Talk about anal!" — I was like, "Are they going to let us do this?" They said, "That's why we're shooting it in one tracking shot, so they can't cut it." And I liked the last two episodes, including the one where [Lily] runs away and I have to go pick her up.
TV Guide: Lily and Marshall have to get back together... right?Radnor: I don't know. I think they're going to have some fun with the fact that Marshall hasn't been on a date since he was, like, 17!
TV Guide: So have they completely dropped Ted's grown kids from each episode's opening?Radnor: I think the boy was aging very aggressively. [Laughs]
TV Guide: Admit it — you started dating Lyndsy Fonseca, your "daughter," and it got kind of "icky."Radnor: Lyndsy got a pilot, actually. She's very sweet.
TV Guide: Have you met... Bob Saget?Radnor: Yes, and he is so funny. And filthy. A filthy man. At the network run-through, one of the stand-ins reads all the voice-over stuff, and one time we were in the middle of a scene and we heard Saget's voice. He was visiting the set, and suddenly his voice was there. We were like, "Ahhhh!"