ATX Television Festival Season 10 – Day 3

Home » ATX Television Festival Season 10 – Day 3

Jun 13, 2021 Posted by Kyle Nolan in Features | Comments

The third day of the ATX Television Festival Season 10 kicked off with The Daily, where festival co-founders Caitlin McFarland & Emily Gipson gave a rundown of yesterday’s events, including some surprise pop-up Zoom sessions that occurred, and previewed the day’s schedule. Then they showed a video of them out and about on South Congress at the Hotel San Jose parking lot and picking up their favorite food to eat. Afterwards, they had some breakfast tacos and chatted with festival favorite Phil Rosenthal.

Home Before Dark presented by Apple TV+

The Apple TV+ original series Home Before Dark returned this week to kick off its second season. This panel, moderated by EW‘s Samantha Highfill, opened with co-creator/executive producer Dana Fox discussing how the series first came about, getting the rights to the life story of journalist Hilde Lysiak (who’s also on the panel), and figuring out the right tone and approach to the series. She talked about how she was a bit scared about the idea of centering the show around a little girl, and described what it was like working with director John Chu. She also discussed some of the goals and themes of the series, and trying to depict strong female characters that both boys and girls could look up to. Star Brooklynn Prince (“Hilde Lisko”) talked about doing her research on Hilde and what it was like meeting her for the first time. Star Abby Miller (“Bridget Jensen”) talked about her meetings with the real Bridget and Matt, which led into a discussion of a YouTube video of the real 9-year-old Hilde chasing down a drug dealer. And star Aziza Scott (“Deputy Mackenzie ‘Trip’ Johnson III”) talked about working with Brooklyn and playing one of the only adults who takes this 8-year-old girl seriously and the dynamic between the two characters. Dana Fox also talked about how the character of Trip changed after she met Aziza. The cast talked about the instant chemistry that formed between the Lisko family members, and Fox talked about how the kitchen island scenes are challenging to both film and for the editors, due to there always being so much movement, because that how it is in real life. The women shared stories about what it is like having Dana Fox as their showrunner and how she balances being a mother, leader, role model and inspiration…which led her to jokingly question if she was dying and didn’t know about it. The panel closed out with the panelists talking about some of the changes for the characters in season 2.

Younger: Inside the Fashion

In this panel moderated by Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson, costume designer Jackie Demeterio and stars Molly Bernard (“Lauren Heller”) & Nico Tortorella (“Josh”) look at clips and talk about the series, including the fashion on the show, the sex-positivity, their favorite/least favorite costumes, how the wardrobe evolved over the course of the series, choosing the right looks for the characters’ final scenes, filming the final season with the COVID restrictions, the mood while filming the finale, and more. In ATX fashion (so to speak), they started things off discussing the season’s adult diaper scene.

Buying & Selling with 20/20 Hindsight

Dan Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter hosted this interesting industry executive conversation discussion on how the TV industry has changed, adapted and evolved over the past 15 months due to the pandemic. The topics ranged from pilot season, pitches, writing rooms, casting and auditions, COVID protocols, and more. Panelists included Bryan Seabury (EVP Drama Development, Broadcast and Cable Programming, CBS Studios), Kathleen McCaffrey (SVP Programming, HBO), Ali Krug (Vice President, Television, Annapurna TV) & Amanda Burrell (President, Team Downey).

Guess Who’s Laughing Now presented by GLAAD and The Syndication Project

This panel, moderated by Alex Schmider, Director of Transgender Representation for GLAAD, took a look at the changing role of trans and non-binary characters, becoming the source of the comedy and not the target of the punchlines. The panelists included actors Jesse Leigh (Rutherford Falls), Nava Mau (Genera+ion), Armand Fields (Work in Progress) & Rain Valdez (Razor Tongue, also creator/EP).

Sex/Life: First Look

The new Netflix drama Sex/Life doesn’t premiere until June 25, but festival attendees got an early look at the pilot. The series follows housewife Billie Connelly (Sarah Shahi), who had an adventurous sex life before she settled down with her straight-laced husband Cooper (Mike Vogel) and started a family. However, things have gotten stagnant and routine, and she’s starving for those wilder nights out on the town in NYC with fellow single girl/best friend Sasha Snow (Margaret Odette). Billie starts to think about her old flame Brad (Adam Demos) and wonders “What If?” She wants to feel that rush again, and starts to delve into her past and writes her thoughts in her journal. However, when her husband learns of her desires, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. In a small way, the show kind of reminded me of Desperate Housewives, with some light humor in addition to the drama, and Billie providing narration and her inner thoughts. However, this is certainly not a network show, containing lots of sex and nudity.

The entertaining and amusing panel was moderated by People‘s Breanne Heldman, and the panelists included creator/showrunner Stacy Rukeyser, executive producer J. Miles Dale, and stars Sarah Shahi (“Billie Connelly”), Adam Demos (“Brad Simon”), Mike Vogel (“Cooper Connelly”) & Margaret Odette (“Sasha Snow”). They started off talking about how their parents and relatives reacted when thy heard about the sexy series they were involved with, and then the discussion turned to how the series came about, the themes of the series, the characters and relationships, looking at characters in two different periods of their lives, telling the story from the female gaze, the use of nudity and filming the sex scenes, the role of the intimacy coordinator, the COVID filming precautions, casting the series, the wardrobe, and more.

We Are Lady Parts

The first season of the new Peacock series We Are Lady Parts dropped a couple weeks ago. The panel for the show was moderated by Vanity Fair’s Sonia Saraiya, and the panelists included series creator/writer/director Nida Manzoor, and stars Anjana Vasan (“Amina”), Sarah Kameela Impey (“Saira”), Juliette Motamed (“Ayesha”), Faith Omole (“Bisma”) & Lucie Shorthouse (“Momtaz”). In this fun and entertaining discussion, the panelists talk about how the series came about, the types of music they enjoy, casting the series, how the actors learned to play their instruments over the course of filming the series, learning to do tricks with the instruments, their favorite band movies, the different ways the characters express themselves as Muslim women, and more.

Selena: The Series

The cast and creators of the Netflix’s Selena: The Series discussed working on the series and bringing the singer’s story to life in this panel moderated by Entertainment Tonight‘s Deidre Behar. The panelists included creator/executive producer Moisés Zamora, executive producer Jaime Dávila, and stars Christian Serratos (” Selena Quintanilla”) & Ricardo Chavira (“Abraham Quintanilla”).

Small Axe with Steve McQueen presented by Amazon Prime Video

Channing Godfrey Peoples (writer/director Miss Juneteenth) sat down with Small Axe creator/co-writer/co-editor/director/executive producer Steve McQueen to discuss his work and the five films that comprise the Amazon Prime Video anthology series.

Faking It Reunion

On this fifth anniversary of the series finale of Faking It, which ran for three seasons (2014-2016) on MTV, the cast and showrunner reunited to discuss the series. The panel was moderated by Jim Halterman of TV Guide Magazine, and featured showrunner/executive producer Carter Covington, and stars Katie Stevens (“Karma Ashcroft”), Rita Volk (“Amy Raudenfeld”) and Michael Willett (“Shane Harvey”). Greg Sulkin (“Liam Booker”) and Sophia Ali (“Sabrina”) couldn’t join the chat, but they left messages that were shown at the beginning and end of the panel. The showrunner talked about how the series came about, and then the cast shared some fun stories about the audition process. The panelists also discussed the show’s characters, relationships, depictions, and messages, fan reactions, and more. In the middle, Kimberly Zieselman of interACT joined the conversation to talk about the introduction of intersex character Lauren. And later in the conversation, they brought in two actors who joined the show in season 2, Yvette Monreal (“Reagan”) & Keith Powers (“Theo”) to share stories about their characters and experiences on the show. The showrunner also talked about some of the things they had wanted to explore in the fourth season, and some of the show’s famous guest stars, and the cast talked about the music and singing on the series.