John's Blog - 2/13/2006

Hank and K. J. Steinberg (Without A Trace) at Warner Bros. for ABC. It's a very exciting project (as always, digits crossed that it sees the light of day) about the aftermath of a botched bank heist. The show follows the lives of the hostages and the robbers post-trauma (we learn, through a season's worth of flashbacks, what transpired in the bank during the 56 hour 'standoff' with the cops). I play a mild-mannered schlub who is at the end of his tether (ball-busting wife, something I can't personally relate to, but we actors must use our imaginations, after all) and who, in the crisis, comes through with flying colors - the attendant outpouring of media attention (he dons the mantle of 'hero) makes him re-evaluate his dead-end life . . . anyway, Chi McBride is attached as well as a few others (I think you can log on to WWW.THEFUTONCRITIC.COM for more info) and it starts shooting in March. Also appearing on Prison Break in a recurring role, shot two low-budget genre pictures (The Man From Earth about a guy who claims he's 12,000 years old, written by Jerome Bixby and a zombie comedy starring Dean Cain called Dead and Deader). Also - Miss Bonnie is up for a series regular part herself, which she doesn't want me to talk about cuz it might prove jinx-ish. But I'll keep everybody posted. Anyway, that's the professional situation - life-in-general-wise, I have nothing new to report. Recently read two deeply disturbing books that I highly recommend - THE LONG EMERGENCY by James Kuntsler, about the world's bleak prospects in the inevitable 'post-oil' future and the classic psychological treatise by Erich Fromm, ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM, about man's fear of independence . . . both very relevant, sadly, in this dark time . . . also enjoyed Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, Peter Carey's Illywhacker, Peter Taylor's A Woman of Means, and Walter Isaacson's The Wise Men . . . The girl cat is now officially bigger than the house which poses problems of ingress and egress.