Category Archives: interviews

Exclusive: Feltbeats.com Interviews Tom Felton Part 1

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In anticipation of tonight’s season finale of “Murder In The First”, Feltbeats.com had a chance to ask Tom Felton a few questions about his character Eric Blunt, the filming process, and weather, if he was a jury member, would Eric be guilty.

MURDER IN THE FIRST

Feltbeats: Tell us about Erich Blunt.

Tom: He’s a very unique individual. He’s a tech genius and a ruthless business man that has come from nothing. Erich’s a rock star of our generation.
 
Feltbeats: How much leeway did the director give you to make the character your own? Any adlibbing?
 
Tom: We had the luxury of fantastic writing from Steven Bochco & Eric Lodal so we never had to change much. We did ad lib quite a bit as we grew to know our characters but mostly just for fun.

Feltbeats: If you were part of the jury, would you think Erich was guilty?

Tom: Definitely maybe.
 
Feltbeats: Was it tough playing Erich not knowing if he was guilty or innocent?

Tom: It made it easier if anything. Giving me one piece of the puzzle at a time allowed me to just completely focus on that and not think of what’s to come. I begged Steven and Eric for months to tell me.
 
Feltbeats: How does the filming of episodic television compare to filming a movie?
 
Tom: It was enjoyable and definitely different from film making. It was a lot quicker pace of filming (10 pages a day usually) and you really have to be ready to jump in and out of character. I loved every second of working on Murder In The First, the crew and cast were amazing and Timber got to come to set everyday, she loved everyone!
I look back now and think it was the best 6 months of our lives.

 
Feltbeats: You’ve done Full Circle, and Murder In The First is going strong. Would you ever like to try your hand at a comedy series?
 
Tom: If I thought I could bring something funny to a character then yes definitely, I’d love to work with Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, Jonah Hill.
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Stay tuned for Part 2 of our exclusive interview with Tom Felton in the next couple days! Be sure to check out the season finale of Murder In The First tonight at 10 pm est on TNT!

Video: Tom Felton on ‘Good Day LA’ – He discussed ‘Murder in the First’ and more

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Earlier today, Tom was on Good Day LA.
He discussed Murder in the First , Harry Potter and more.
BTW, you can also see Tom’s reaction to Daniel Radcliffe’s video message which he sent him via GDLA last Thursday (at 4:20). Watch the video below:

Tom Felton: It Was More The ‘Right Place At The Right Time’

Los Angeles News | FOX 11 LA KTTV

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Don’t miss the season finale of Murder in the First TONIGHT at 10/9c on TNT.

Feltbeats.com Interviews Murder in the First Writer/Producer Eric Lodal

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Eric Lodal, writer and producer of Tom’s current TV series Murder in the First, was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions for us this week. In this exclusive interview, he discusses Tom, Erich and the creative process behind the hit TV show.

What was the casting process like for Tom? When did you know you had your Erich Blunt?

Easy. I’ve always been a huge fan of Tom’s and I thought from the beginning that he might be perfect for this role. Once we knew he could pull off the American accent, it was a no-brainer.

What’s something you learned about Tom that you didn’t already know?

What an incredibly good guy he is. You really get to know someone when you work this closely with them. Tom’s a wonderful person and a true pleasure to be around. He’s the ultimate pro, very down to earth, and treats everyone on the crew with the same amount of respect regardless of their position, which I admire greatly.

Any behind-the-scenes funny moments you’d like to share?

Sure, but then I’d have to kill you.

Will we see more sparks fly between Erich and Hildy?

I’m going to hold to our policy of not answering plot questions or providing spoilers.  I’ll just say everything comes to a head in these last two episodes.  It’s a pretty wild ending.

Erich Blunt comes across as super creepy and yet sometimes vulnerable. Great acting, great writing, or both?

Incredible acting that’s for sure.  I always imagined Blunt as an almost operatic villain and Tom is one of the few young actors in the world capable of pulling that off.

Erich is known as a Silicon Valley genius whose company is called Applsn, how much of his character’s inspiration is drawn from real life people such as Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs?

Hopefully Blunt is his own creature. We certainly weren’t trying to draw any direct comparisons. But I think that a universal theme when you study all entrepreneurs is that there is a fine line between madness and genius and to create something from nothing, as they do, you must have a little bit of both.

Is there any chance of an Erich appearance if there’s a second season?

Anything is possible.

Has the series been green-lighted for a second season? And if so, have you begun to prep for season 2?

No.

What has been the fan reaction in relation to the show?

Pretty positive? A little hard to tell from my position. You tell me?

Do you have any lawyers or homicide detectives consulting on the show?

Absolutely. We were lucky enough to have the help of the legendary Howard Weitzman, a close friend of Steven’s and one of the world’s best and most renowned criminal attorneys.  Howard worked with us on all of the story and scripts related to the trial and criminal case to make sure we were as close to reality as possible.  And Joe Toomey, a forty-year homicide inspector with SFPD and a bit of a legend up there, was our police tech-consultant on set every day making sure we did things properly.  So we were in very good hands.

To what extent do you use real forensic psychology and techniques

All the time and as much as possible.

Are there any scenes that were improvised / were added spontaneously?

You always leave room for improvisation within scenes, but you try to never add scenes on the fly. That would create chaos on set and in the prep process.  For the most part we stick to the scripts.

Most crime shows, such as Law & Order, have different crimes each week. Where did the idea come from to take one case and stretch it to an entire season?

Well my partner Steven Bochco was the first to do this on network TV with MURDER ONE in 1995.  It was ahead of its time.  Ours is different in many ways, we put the cops at the center as opposed to the lawyers, etc. but the first show to track a case over an entire season was Murder One.

Thanks very much to Eric for answering our questions! Murder in the First screens tonight at 10/9C on TNT. You can follow their twitter account @MurderFirstTNT, and Eric’s Twitter @EricLodal. Don’t forget to choose your side over Erich’s innocence or guilt!

And follow along with admin Lori on the @feltbeats twitter as she livetweets tonight’s episode!

Tom Felton by Ramona Rosales for Bust Magazine + Interview

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Tom is in the latest issue of the BUST Magazine.
Ramona Rosales uploaded two photos of him from his photoshoot for the magazine.

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We also have the interview with him.
The beginning of the interview is a bit sad. 🙁 You will understand when you read the interview:

Tom Felton has just gotten back to Los Angeles from a shoot in San Francisco, so when he calls me, he’s doing what everyone does as soon as they get home: walking his dog. “She’s a Chesapeake Bay Retriever,” the 26-year-old actor says proudly after I’m done squee-ing over the mental image of the former Draco Malfoy of Harry Potter fame strolling with a pooch. “We had to get a special passport for her and everything,” Felton says of the lengths he went to with his long-time girlfriend, actress Jade Olivia, to travel with their pet from the U.K. “But obviously, we had to bring the whole family.” They’re loving the West Coast: the weather, the outdoorsy hiking, the fruit trees. “Our neighbor has a plum tree,” he marvels. “And it turns out we have a fig tree! I don’t think I ever even knew what a fig looked like before this.”

The Londoner has a much more compelling reason to find himself Stateside than the abundance of fresh fruit, though. This summer, he’ll be stealing scenes—and displaying an American accent of Hugh Laurie-esque perfection—in Murder in the First, Steven Bochco’s new detective drama on TNT, which follows a single case, investigated by a pair of cops played by Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson, over an entire season. Felton plays Erich Blunt, a Silicon Valley techie who is drawn into the investigation when people connected to him keep turning up murdered. “He’s the world’s youngest billionaire,” Felton says, “a young tech guru who’s something of a rock star in his world.” He’s also given to fits of entitled anger—in the pilot episode, Erich fires the stewardess on his private jet when she spills a drink, even though he’s sleeping with her—that would make any Slytherin proud. So does Felton feel especially drawn to characters with a spoiled dark side? He laughs. “Oddly enough, on the show, we’re shooting everything script by script, so we have no idea how it’s going to end up. I’m still not sure if I’m a bad guy or not. But I’m already as in love with Erich as I was with Draco.” He admits the characters share a certain lordly arrogance, “but it comes from a different place,” he says. “Draco is very much a product of his parents and isn’t a very strong-willed wizard, where as this guy, Erich, is completely self-made. Draco’s rationale for his arrogance is basically one of fear. I mean, it’s the oldest racism in the book, to be terrified of anything that’s different from you. Whereas Erich’s arrogance comes from being a creative genius. He’s operating on a different plane than everyone else.”

Now that we’ve fully given ourselves over to the psychoanalysis of Draco Malfoy ( jubilation!) I ask him why he thinks the Harry Potter cast seems to have fared so much better in the mental health department than our homegrown child stars here in the U.S. His answer is pure class. “I really can’t speak to that,” he says diplomatically. “I can say that every time we would come to the States for a premiere, we were all surprised at how big and overwhelming it all was, compared to the U.K. I don’t know what it would be like, having to deal with that all the time. But I will say, just for myself, that back in London, my family kept things down-to-earth. I mean, I grew up with three brothers, and it didn’t matter to them if I was in Harry Potter. Nobody put me on any kind of a pedestal.” With Murder in the First, that may be all about to change. But I’m pretty sure a wizard of Tom Felton’s caliber can handle it.

by Rachel Shukert

You can buy the print issue here and the digital issue here.