Adrienne Barbeau Interview • February 7, 2005

Beth Blighton: Let's talk about the show that aired this weekend, "Creed, OK." Ruthie is starting to figure some things out, isn't she?

Adrienne Barbeau: Yeah! (chuckling) Yes! And I can finally talk about them because it's already aired.

Beth: Yes! Thank goodness! And we can say it now… She saw Lodz!

Adrienne: Yes, and she saw Apollonia.

Beth: She's seeing a lot of Apollonia…

Adrienne: She's seein' dead people!

Beth: That was a nice scene with… What was the ex-boyfriend's name, the carny guy?

Adrienne: Oh! Oh… Oh, shoot! Skeeter… Skeeter Lewis!

Beth: That's it.

Adrienne: Skeeter Lewis! (laughing) You have to realize, we filmed that last May! (laughing) And I've been out of town working on Sunday nights, so I haven't seen all of them. But yeah, Skeeter Lewis…

Beth: Skeeter Lewis. That was nicely done, because she's just looking at him having a conversation, and I couldn't figure out why Gabe was looking so funny about that.

Adrienne: Yeah. And then he stands her up!

Beth: But that was rather clever of Samson to try to get a date out of that situation. Samson & Ruthie do have some great scenes together.

Adrienne: (chuckling) I think Ruthie and Samson are a great. I love seeing their work together. And, I mean, I feel that way about Michael. It's just always a great joy to have a scene with Michael, you know. They tend, I think, they tend to be able to find some of the humor in the two characters, when they're together.

Beth: And they bring such color to the show. They're the ones who have the great stories to share and the background, where you feel like they've really traveled this road together.

Adrienne: Yeah.

Beth: So, why do you think Ruthie's seeing dead people?

Adrienne: (sighs) Oh, Beth…

Beth: (laughing) Without giving too much away!

Adrienne: (pauses) Ya know what? I haven't got a clue! (laughter) Well, I think she's seeing… Obviously something happened when she died, and when Ben brought her back to life. It has something to do with the fact that she passed over and then she returned. But what the ultimate outcome or reason why, or the use of the device is, I couldn't begin to tell ya!

Beth: It will remain a mystery. But now Ben seems to be… Last year, after they got together, he just seemed to be pushing her away. Now he seems to be more worried about protecting her. Do you think that's what it's about with him, the way he's keeping the distance between them?

Adrienne: Actually, I don't. I actually think that he… It was just more than he could handle, what he perceived to be the sinfulness of it and, ya know, maybe the actual differences in the ages, and all of that. And he just… And maybe because it was so painful for him to almost lose her, and he doesn't want to be… He just doesn't want to let anybody in close like that again. I didn't get the sense that he was doing it to protect her.

Beth: I was thinking that he has learned, through that experience with Ruthie almost dying that way, that the people he cares about can be gotten to.

Adrienne: Well, that's true. I guess… I don't know! I'd have to ask Nick – what were you thinking when you said those lines?

Beth: (laughing) And every time she looks at that snakebite. I'm wondering, once she figures out what's really happened – if she does – is that going to change anything for them? Is she going to understand more what he's about, once she figures out what really happened? Cuz I get the feeling Ruthie doesn't realize she was actually dead.

Adrienne: Hmm…

Beth Blighton: Do you think she knows? She said she heard Ben calling to her, and she followed that voice. But does she realize she actually died?

Adrienne: No, I don't think so.

Beth: I don't think so either. And that's a pretty heavy burden to put on Gabriel, keeping that secret.

Adrienne: Well… I don't know what Gabe thinks! (chuckling)

Beth: Gabriel's being a good boy and keeping his promise to Ben. He hasn't even told Mama.

Adrienne: Yeah! Ya know, it's been so long since we've filmed the episodes that, when I saw the first one, I was watching it and I was thinking, "Why are they doing this? We've already dealt with…" And then I realized that they're all sort of running together in my mind, the sequence of events. And I actually thought some of what happened in the opening episode this year we had already seen last year. (chuckling)

Beth: Oh!

Adrienne: I was thinking, "You mean, that's just THIS year?" It seems like forever since we filmed it!

Beth: It really just about has been forever, hasn't it?

Adrienne: Well, yeah! I mean, it was last May, June, you know… and here we're coming up on February/March. It's been awhile.

Beth: It has been a while. I wish they could have brought it back sooner.

Adrienne: Me, too...

Beth: It was great watching you and Brian filming the strangulating snake scene.

Adrienne: Yeah, but… (sadly) that means they're gone. And I don't know what Ruthie's gonna do.

Beth: All her snakes are really gone then, huh?

Adrienne: Well, some of them died. And then we killed this one. I don't know if she's gonna… I don't know if she can get back to it, having had that… This is two… I mean, she stopped originally, when she was almost killed by a cottonmouth -- years ago, before we first caught up with everybody. Then to come back to it and have, not only a bite, but an almost strangulation… How many times do you go back to that well? I don't know!

Beth: And then her snakes are killing each other…

Adrienne: Yeah!

Beth: And getting out…

Adrienne: Yeah, she doesn't know what's going on. Something has changed, since she almost died.

Beth: And they're sensing maybe something's not quite the way it was?

Adrienne: Mm-hmm.

Beth: Where do you think she'll go without the snakes? Will she just be a barker for Gabriel? Or do you think she'll have some new things that she can do now, as a result of her near-death experience?

Adrienne: I don't know… I hope we get a third season, so we can find out! (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) I hope we do, too!

Adrienne: (laughing)

Beth Blighton: But I thought, poor Ruthie. If the snakes are gone, she's going to be doing an awful lot of barking for Gabe.

Adrienne Barbeau: Yeah. Well, she may have acquired a new gift, ya
know?

Beth: I'm wondering…

Adrienne: She sees dead people. Maybe… Maybe she can pass that on to the people who come to the Carnivale, I dunno!

Beth: She could do a whole "Crossing Over" kind of thing, couldn't she?

Adrienne: (laughing) Yeah!

Beth: She could even take over for Lodz a little bit, which would be
poetic. And it certainly looks like Lila is going to be stirring the
pot in the Carnivale…

Adrienne: Yes.

Beth: Do you think it will come down to people choosing sides? What is she trying to do there?

Adrienne: Well, at this point, all we know is she's still trying to find out what happened to Lodz, and certainly not trusting Samson. Or Management.

Beth: That wasn't such a good lie they told.

Adrienne: No. And I just can't talk about too much…

Beth: (laughing) Okay, we've found something you can't talk about then!

Adrienne: No… (laughing)

Beth: Okay, we won't talk about that part then. But I do think this season is really coming along, and is really interesting, though. It's definitely building to a head.

Adrienne: Are you finding it as… engrossing?

Beth: I think they've changed the pacing a little bit. They're making things a little less mysterious, and are handing you some things, saying, "Look here."

Adrienne: Yeah, and is that for the better or the worse?

Beth: For me, personally? That's for the worse. But if it's to benefit the show, to give it a wider audience, then so be it. I just hope that's what it does.

Adrienne: I agree with you one hundred percent. I really loved the luxuriousness of the pace of the first season. You know, just going off in all those directions and exploring the relationships, especially among the carny workers.

Beth: Oh, definitely!

Adrienne: And I think they've streamlined it a little bit, because there were too many people who said, "I don't know what's going on. It's making me nuts." So, hopefully, those people will come back and be engrossed. But I've realized, this season, that I'm so close to it now, I just can't judge it at all anymore.

Beth: Well, I wonder if that isn't the same for all of us, myself included. I think that we, the fans, have been so immersed in it… Because we talk it out in such detail on the discussion lists…

Adrienne: Uh-huh…

Beth: That I wonder if I was just a casual fan watching this and didn't have nearly three thousand people talking about it, would I know half of what I think I know – and could be completely wrong about? Would I have entertained any of these theories if I didn`t have other fans to talk to, or would I just be topping off the peaks of this show, and not really getting into the valleys, where all the good stuff is?

Adrienne: Mm-hmm… And I love the secondary characters that have come in this season. The Evander Geddes character last night, I thought, was fantastic!

Beth Blighton: Wasn't he? That was just the creepiest thing!

Adrienne Barbeau: And then Ben's grandmother, Ellen Geer.

Beth: Amazing! It was so different seeing her in that kind of role.

Adrienne: Yes! And John Carroll Lynch who, of course, I worked with on "Drew Carrey." He's SO GOOD in this!

Beth: Now there's a villain who enjoys his work!

Adrienne: Yes!

Beth: The show this weekend was the closest, in feel, to last season, I think. We got back into the mystery and the symbolism, and… the creepy factor, I guess. I don't think we've had a show as creepy as that one before.

Adrienne: No. No that was… Yeah, but you've got some good stuff coming up!

Beth: Oh, good! Can't wait to see it. I found myself talking to the TV screen last night. Maybe that's a bad sign…

Adrienne: Really? No, that's good! That's really good. (chuckling)

Beth: Well, whatever they're trying to do is working!

Adrienne: Good!

Beth: The thing that we saw, that I couldn't figure out, during Sofie's tarot card reading, was the guy whose face appears to have melted or been burned. That was…

Adrienne: You know, that looked to me… Well, no… I think I know who it is. So, I'd better not say.

Beth: (laughing) Okay! My first gut thought, and also the first thought of the lady who does the "Decoding Carnivale" radio shows with Clancy, was that it was Hack Scudder.

Adrienne: It looks like Scudder, doesn't it?

Beth: And I just thought, oh, my goodness! Is that what happened to him when he did that deathmask? But then someone also brought up the accident at Los Alamos, and that made a certain amount of sense, too. I guess there was some kind of accident there, while they were perfecting the method.

Adrienne: Oh!

Beth: But my first gut instinct, without giving it any thought other than, "Eeesh!" was that it was Scudder.

Adrienne: (laughing)

Beth: But then, there have been times where I've sat back after a show and thought, "Well, they fooled me with that one!"

Adrienne: Didn't they do a great job on the vision that Ben had when he touched Management's hand, of the nuclear test?

Beth: Oh, yeah! That was chilling.

Adrienne: I thought that was just a fantastic visual.

Beth: That whole first episode really kicked it into high gear.

Adrienne: Yeah!

Beth Blighton: They had a lot of stuff to get out of the way.

Adrienne Barbeau: And I don't know if your readers know, but we have one new DP (director of photography) this year. Jeff Jur is still with us, but the other DP was the director of photography on "Maria, Full of Grace" and "The Woodsman." He had two very important film credits out at the same time.

Beth: Wow!

Adrienne: His name is Jim Denault. And there's a wonderful interview with Jeff Jur in a magazine in January called "International Cinematographers Guild: ICG Magazine." He goes into great detail about how he gets the effects, and how he gets the lighting – for those people who are into the technical aspects of it. It's got some great photos, backstage photos.

Beth: Thanks for telling us about it! The one thing that was surprising to me, and I thought, at the time, it must have something to do with the way they photograph the show… When you see Brother Justin in his preacher outfit, it's all black with a white shirt. But when you see Clancy standing there in it, it's actually a light yellow shirt. And I wondered if it's light yellow so they can adjust the color one way or another to give the show that almost sepia, old photograph look to it?

Adrienne: Well, that's interesting. He talks about some of that in here. He talks about the post production producer Todd London, and the finish color timer Pankaj Bajpai at Encore Hollywood, and their work being crucial to the look of "Carnivale." He says, "They have helped bring out the distinctive color palette that is one of the trademarks of the series. They work very hard to de-saturate the colors just enough, and suppress the bright blue Southern California skies and green vegetation. The Carny world is muted, dusted, desperate in tone, and this is contrasted with the world of the preacher, Brother Justin, who is building his congregation in California. And so the colors there are a bit deeper and cleaner."

Beth: Hmm…

Adrienne: But somewhere else in this article, he talks about, he gives specifics about how they accomplish getting those colors.

Beth: It is amazing and very unique to this show. The colors are interesting. You feel like you're looking at an old photograph, in a way.

Adrienne: Mm-hmm.

Beth: Is there anything you want to tell us about? Any new projects? You've got a new movie you're just finishing up?

Adrienne: I just finished filming a feature. But I'm actually, well, I'm working on my book. And I'm also working on a two-character play about Judy Garland.

Beth: Wow, interesting!

Adrienne: It takes place back stage at the theater in Copenhagen, where she did her very last concert. And so, I'm in rehearsals for that.

Beth: Did you write this?

Adrienne: No, actually, my husband wrote it, Billy Van Zandt.

Beth: Excellent!

Adrienne: And it's quite good. We're waiting to hear what the "Carnivale" filming schedule will be, if we come back for a third season. We can't… He wants to take it into New York, he has producers who want to take it into New York. But we can't do anything until we know when I'm free.

Beth: Do you know when they usually make those decisions?

Adrienne: I dunno… I can't remember. Last year, I think, we went on the air in September, and I think we went off in November.

Beth Blighton: That sound right, around Thanksgiving, I think.

Adrienne Barbeau: And I think we got our pick up before Christmas.

Beth: I think you're right.

Adrienne: Cuz I was out of town. So, maybe it was Christmas vacation that we got the pickup. So, who knows? I guess we'll know between now and June!

Beth: And we'll just cross our fingers till then.

Adrienne: Cuz, we want a third season!

Beth: We want that.

Adrienne: We want seven seasons, at least!

Beth: Five is minimal, for me! (laughing)

Adrienne: (laughing) I'd like ten, actually.