Pilots take flight

From:NEWS.com.au
Date:March 28, 2006
By Peter Mitchell

US TV executives have their fingers crossed that some of Australia's best known actors, including Rachel Griffiths and Simon Baker, will lead their networks to ratings gold.

The US networks have just unveiled their plans for new TV series and it was largely bad news for the many Australian actors who travelled to the US to audition for roles during Hollywood's traditional pilot season.
In past years, Australian actors with little experience in the US have emerged with key roles in major new TV series, but the networks went with established American and Australian names this year. It continues a new trend in US TV where new series need a major star to launch the show.

There is also less of a stigma for movie stars to attach themselves to TV series.

Along with Griffiths and Baker, the other Australians who booked roles on new TV series were Melissa George, Alan Dale and Jonathan LaPaglia, younger brother of Anthony LaPaglia, who is the star of Without a Trace.

The American film stars turning to TV included James Woods, Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jeff Goldblum, Ving Rhames and Alicia Silverstone.

"It was quite an extraordinary pilot season for Australians," Rob Marsala, a Perth-born talent manager in Hollywood and the president of the LA-based Australians in Film organisation, said.
"Usually there are a few Australian actors who are not well known in the US who score roles in a TV series, like Emilie de Ravin did for Roswell and Ryan Kwanten did for Summerland a few years back.

"This year it was Australia's better known actors who are established in the US who had the success."

A pilot is the first episode of a proposed TV series and pilot season runs in Los Angeles from February to March.

More Australian actors each year make the pilgrimage to LA to audition for the more than 100 pilots on offer.

But even if an actor wins a role on the pilot, there is no guarantee it will be picked up by a US TV network and turned into a TV series.

Of the 120 pilots produced last year, only 48 were picked up.

Already 15 have been cancelled after poor initial TV ratings and two other pilots might never air. It is usually only the successful US series that make it to Australia.

Griffiths, returning to TV after her successful stint on Six Feet Under, and Jonathan LaPaglia, scored two of the plum roles in the ABC network's new drama, Brothers & Sisters.

Brothers & Sisters has already created plenty of buzz in the US as it also marks the return to primetime TV of Calista Flockhart, best known for her Ally McBeal legal comedy-drama series which ran from 1997-2002.

George, a veteran of many pilots that never went to air, will star in NBC's Lipstick Jungle, a series based on the book by Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell.

The show, according to NBC, will follow "the sexy, funny, and dramatic stories of three friends balancing life and career, who also happen to be three of the most powerful and influential women in New York".

Former Neighbours star Alan Dale, best known to US audiences for the teen hit The OC, will star in the new TV drama Ugly Betty, which is set at a fashion magazine.

Baker, who has carved out a successful film career with LA Confidential, The Ring 2 and the upcoming The Devil Wears Prada and who starred in his own US TV drama, The Guardian, a few years back, returns to the small screen in the star-studded TV series, Smith.

Baker's co-stars are last year's best supporting actress Oscar nominee for Sideways, Virginia Madsen, and tough guy actor, Ray Liotta.

Other well-known actors in pilots include Friends' Matthew Perry in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Heather Locklear in Women of a Certain Age, Rhames in Aquaman, and Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett in 'Til Death.

From NEWS.com.au.