A week and a half ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a teleconference for NBC’s new drama, The Philanthropist, which follows Teddy Rist, a somewhat reformed playboy billionaire who has decided to use his funds for good, rather than novelty. The Philanthropist premiered June 24th on NBC and will be airing this summer on Wednesdays at 10/9c.
Available for the Q&A were Tom Fontana, executive producer, and James Purefoy, who plays the lead character, Teddy Rist. Joining me for the Q&A were Joshua Maloney [Niagara Frontier Publications], April MacIntyre [monstersandcritics.com], Troy Rogers [thedeadbolt.com], Abbie Bernstein [IFmagazine.com], Amy Amatangelo [Boston Herald], and Monica Garsky [Flash News].
The character of Teddy Rist seems like a novel approach at preventing sort of a modern day do-gooder, a modern day action hero. What do you guys like about the character from your perspective as an actor and Tom from your creative point of view?
T. Fontana: The role that James is playing is inspired by an actual philanthropist, a man named Bobby Sager. […] We obviously fictionalized the circumstances of his life, but the heart of what Bobby believes and Teddy Rist believes is that the solution to a lot of the world’s problems has to do with generating for people who are living below standards, that they should have a certain sense of dignity about their lives and the best way for [that] is through creating a situation where they can either create a business or have jobs that generate an income and also benefit the others.
Bobby’s line to me when I first met him was “yeah, you can teach a man to fish, but if you teach a man to fish how to fish, all he’s going to eat is fish. But if you teach him how to package the fish, and market the fish, and ship the fish, he can also get some potatoes and some meat and some other things. At his heart, he’s a capitalist.
J. Purefoy: It only really made sense for me when I met Bobby Sager and had a bit of time with him. This is a man who made a great deal of money, but now spends ten months of every year flying around the world to invariably very poor places because his money can work best and have the greatest effect in those places. But, he also demands a very high return. He’s not just about charity, he doesn’t just give money away: he invests in projects.
What’s it like working with Jesse L. Martin and Neve Campbell?
J. Purefoy: Well, great, they’re very committed to the job and they’ve been out with me and the rest of the cast in South Africa and the Czech Republic for seven months we’ve been out there, and I think it has all had a profound change on our lives because […] we were engaging [the people] with on a very, very personal level.
[…] We’ve had schools built, for example. I know we’ve had schools built; I was very heavily involved in getting those done. We were filming in a little man’s house one day; e had a rolled up mattress on the floor and our art department created a very small rural hotel set. He had two kids. In the room that we were filming in, which was a three-bed room, we made sure production left behind the beds and the wardrobe. That made a huge difference in that man’s life. You should have seen the look on his face at the end of the day. Fantastic.
James, it seems to me that you’re doing a lot of your stunts yourself. A very physical role.
J. Purefoy: [laughs] I was until I was banned by production from doing anymore because I kept hurting myself.
Did you really injure yourself?
J. Purefoy: Yes, I really did injure myself. I had a seven-centimeter tear in a hamstring, which forced the hamstring into a rather unsightly bulge behind my knee, that was rather unpleasant. And then I was running across a frozen road in northern Czech Republic about two o’clock in the morning, slipped on black ice. All the tendons on my ankle came off with bone attached and that had to be operated on, set right, and then I was wound up and set back into combat.
T. Fontana: I have to tell you, James did the most extraordinary thing. We needed to do some reshooting and he was in London having his extremities taken care of and he very voluntarily came back to South Africa to do this week of reshoots when he should have been on his butt taking care of himself. He came back to do it and it was a remarkable thing because it would have put the production very, very much behind and very much over budget if he had been the least bit of a diva and said “Screw you guys, I’m staying in London.” But he got on a plane, flew with a bad leg, worked the weekend.
What’s the reality level of the tone of the show? This is based on a specific person, but sounds like it might have a slightly more adventurous tone.
T. Fontana: Well, I would say besides the fact that the character Teddy Rist is inspired by a real human being, out into the world that puts himself in jeopardy constantly to do good. We’re not using any specific instances in Bobby Sager’s life in the show, but the level of danger he puts himself in is much more than I would do. It is realistic in that regard, and the story we’re doing are stories about what is really happening in these countries right now. […] The specific incidents are all things that are possible whether they happen in the sequence we lay them out. It’s as realistic, it’s not more realistic than Oz was.
J. Purefoy: The other important thing about this in terms of the economic temperature that it’s around at the moment, this is not something that’s ignored in any way, shape or form. There are constant references to bailouts, to credit crunch, to “Teddy, do we really need to take the jet.” It’s very much rooted in a financial economic reality that is present right now. It’s a series that probably is not going to able to be watched in ten years time, when people won’t know what we’re talking about.
T. Fontana: I hope that’s not true. [laughs]
Teddy isn’t quite the definition of a normal hero, kind of an exception to the rule of an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. He’s an extraordinary guy in a very different situation, so is Teddy really a hero?
T. Fontana: [laughs] A hero is a word I have a tough time with. A classic television hero? Probably not. Maybe a hero for the age of Obama, maybe a hero for 2009, because he’s not a guy who gets into fights, he doesn’t shoot a gun once during the entire series. He’s not a classic television hero. What makes him maybe courageous is that he has this willingness to try anything to get the goal that he’s set for himself accomplished. And the goal that he’s setting for himself is to help other people. But as James said earlier, there’s a certain amount of selfishness involved in it. One of my concerns about this show is that it doesn’t play by the same kind of television rules for a hero.
J. Purefoy: We’re creating new television rules, aren’t we? […] I have a quote in front of me, and I love this quote. Nelson Mandela, when he was asked about who his heroes are, said, “My hero is not necessarily the president of a country or a prime minister; it is someone who is prepared to give human beings hope that there is a future for him or her. Those are my heroes.” It doesn’t get much better than that. […] That’s what Teddy does. He goes and gives people dignity and hope and respect, people who are being ignored and who are invisible to most people.
I find that with North American or British productions, when Western thinking goes into other parts of the world, we tend to simplify things. Do you play with that, that there are moral people in the West and there are good people and bad people in every part of the world?
J. Purefoy: [laughs] If you watch every episode, you will see that there are plenty of bad people everywhere Teddy goes, plenty of them.
T. Fontana: I think that part of it is that Teddy definitely learns something about himself from interacting with the people he comes into contact with, good and bad…
J. Purefoy: He also uses his commerce imaginatively. One of our episodes is set in Kosovo, and what he does, which is none too popular when he suggests it to the [locals who have been at war with each other]. […] He calls a town hall meeting and says to them, he will help […] but he will only do it if they work together. So, that’s the kind of thing that Bobby does all the time, when he goes into a community which is very torn apart and polarized and bring people together through a business of what they’ll do with their live, their employment.
T. Fontana: It speaks to his character; it’s how you sell it. To be honest, in the first two thirds of the first episode, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I liked Teddy.
J. Purefoy: I don’t know if you should. I think we need a growing character who is finding out about himself. He’s incredibly arrogant… if we don’t start from a point of view where he’s a brash, western capitalist, going in and thinking he’s got all the answers. But of course, the answers don’t lie with him; they lie often with the people on the ground.
There are some bad people there and some good people, like anywhere. Tom has written complex about these different countries. There are by no way means simplistic. It’s coming from Tom Fontana, it’s going to be complex.