The TV Chick

Life Unexpected, a new drama coming to the CW, premieres tomorrow. I couldn’t be more excited about it! The show centers around Lux (Britt Robertson), who wants to emancipate herself from the foster care system when she turns sixteen. The journey brings Lux to her biological parents, Nate “Baze” Bazile (Kris Polaha) and Cate Cassidy (Shiri Appleby), and they all wind up with the family they never knew they had. I think this show represents all that is great about the CW, and hopefully a new age of heartfelt dramas. I recently had the chance to speak with Kris Polaha (Baze), and we talked about how he relates to his character, the brilliant creator Liz Tigelaar, and why he thinks you should tune in!

What drew you to the character of Baze?
Oh Baze, Baze. Well, it was Liz Tigelaar’s wonderfully written, well-crafted script. I have been saying — it was a year ago today, I got a script from my agent and I opened it up and started reading it and I couldn’t put it down and there was just a fully comprehended, completely realized world, and the characters were just — it’s interesting — when you are an actor, and you read a script, characters are going to pop off the page, and you sort of imagine yourself as that person, and you can start making choices as an actor for that character — I immediately related to Baze. I started seeing myself as the part, and I started making choices — like I can see this moment and this moment, so I just responded to the material and went in, auditioned, and they felt mutually, sort of excited about me, I guess, and the rest was history. We filmed the pilot last January, and we’re off and running. We’re on our 10th episode right now.

Baze is sort of a guy who refuses to grow up. How do you relate to your character?
(laughs) Do I refuse to grow up? I’m still a child! Don’t give me something I want, and you’ll see, I’ll be like “Come on!” I relate to this guy because here’s the deal, all guys, like every dude in this country wants to drink beer, play video games, hang out with his buddies, and if you were to say…”hey, if your dad were to buy you a building, and you were to turn that building into a bar and then live above the bar, would you do that?” There’s a part of everybody, I think honestly, like even the most ambitious, intelligent, young male American, would be like “Yeah, I could see that being an option.” And Baze took the courage to take the option to live like a bum. But I think a part of that is the fact that well it’s an interesting character — I think that part of that decision to be a bum comes from — he got this girl, Cate, played by Shiri Appleby, pregnant in high school, and he didn’t take responsibility for that. And I think that at that moment in his life, he sort of shut down in a way. He stopped maturing. He sort of stopped this process unnaturally, so I think it’s combination of Baze just being sort of a ne’er do well, Peter Pan like man-boy-guy and then actually, sort of having messed up a little bit, and not wanting to deal with it. And when Lux comes and knocks on his door, he’s forced to deal with it. He does the right thing — like sixteen years later, he takes responsibility.

The show centers around a secret from the main characters’ youth. Do you have any secrets from your youth–obviously nothing as big as that.
Well, I don’t have any kids that I know of, let’s put it that way. I mean, God forbid someone shows up and says you’re my dad, although that’s possible, so…we’ll leave it at that.

(laughs) Fair enough. And you have great chemistry with Shiri. Was it instant when you started filming?
It was instant after all the off screen fighting stopped…you know?

(laughs)
No, I’m kidding. I’m joking. She’s an amazing actress. She is a pro, so when I go on set, she comes on the set, ready to roll, and we have a lot of fun working together. She’s very, very good, because I think she has equal chemistry with Ryan, played by Kerr Smith. She has great rapport with Brittany Robertson, who plays Lux. So I think that’s a testimony to Shiri’s talent as an actress. But she and I actually get along really, really well off-screen. I was telling somebody else, Kerr, Shiri and I went up to Whistler last week to celebrate her birthday, and we have as much fun off-screen as we do on screen. It’s a really fun cast.

There is a very sweet moment in the pilot where you bond with Lux (Brittany Robertson). What was it like filming that scene?
It was really sweet, because she has this ability to open up, and be so vulnerable as an actress that I sort of instinctively want to take care of her. I could be her dad in real life, so I think that she and I actually have this really wonderful — she’s a really smart person, she’s a fantastic actor, so there’s a lot of mutual respect that I have with Brittany, and I think that’s what people are going to see in scenes between us — she’s learning from me and I’m learning from her, and you kind of see that.

Do you have a favorite moment from filming the show so far?
Brittany and I have a couple of moments — you’ll see them later on, where just sort of the bottom drops out and your heart just rolls out, any time I get to work with Brittany in those types of moments is always — it’s a fun place to go as an actor. She’s hurt, she’s vulnerable and I’ve messed up — Baze has messed up — or he hasn’t been able to fix the problem, but it’s these moments of heart to heart. But I would have to say that my favorite scene to film so far is – have you seen [episode] 3 yet?

Yes!
Do you remember the scene at the dining room table at my mom and dad’s house?

Right, right.
That’s just me being like, I didn’t want to tell you because I lied because–that as an actor is so much fun. Jerry Fleeter who was directing, is an amazing director, such a great actor’s director and I just had so much as an actor because usually, you don’t really get that many opportunities to start acting like that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I know what you mean. Liz Tigelaar is a favorite writer of mine, and I had put out a request for questions on Twitter and she said to ask you why the writers of the show are so hot? So I wanted to put it out there.
Why are they so hot? Here’s what I say to Liz: I say she’s the hottest writer in Hollywood.

(laughs)
Because she is.  I don’t think you can refute that.

What has it been like working for her?
She’s amazing. I have been speaking about her with other people, and I have been able to sing her praises. Here’s what I will say: Liz has written something from the heart, and she has written it in a way that was immediately compelling, like Kerr Smith, whose had 6 years on Dawson’s Creek–he’s on the show, and he wanted to be on the show, he wanted to go back to the CW to do this. Shiri Appleby who worked for the WB, too. She’s an amazing team leader, and she’s our boss, and she creates this atmosphere of collaboration so as writers and actors and directors, we all feel like we are a part of this process. She listens, she uses the stuff that’s worth using, and has no ego about it. And in return, we have the utmost respect for her. We’re all bringing our A game, and I think people who watch the show will see that it’s a special project, there’s a lot of involved. And it’s personal stuff for Liz.

What would you tell viewers — why should they tune into Life Unexpected? I’m sold already, but what would you tell others?
Because it’s the best thing on television, ever, and they need to watch it. Here’s the deal: If they want to spend an hour in front of the television, where they will laugh and cry, and then laugh a little more, then they should watch Life Unexpected. Healing, healing television.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow night at 9 pm on the CW for the series premiere of Life Unexpected. And I will be posting my interview with Britt Robertson tomorrow, so check back for that as well!