Pushing Daisies

Who were there:

• Bryan Fuller (creator)
• Lee Pace (Ned)
• Anna Friel (Chuck)
• Kristin Chenoweth (Olive)
• Chi McBride (Emerson)
• Ellen Greene (Aunt Vivian)
• Peter Ocko (coexecutive producer)
• Dan Jinks (executive producer)
• Bruce Cohen (executive producer)
• Swoosie Kurtz (Aunt Lily) could not join the panel since she was tending to her mother.

According to TV Guide, Kristin Chenoweth received the most applause from the audience while Chi McBride was the second most applauded cast member.

Photo from thepieholeLJ

Funny guy: McBride kept the audience in stitches with one zinger after another. Among his more memorable cracks:

• “I try to make my choices based on material — except for that one show I did, Killer Instinct. Or as I called it, ‘Kill It, It Stinks.’”
• “The Nine was the first show in TV history named after its audience.”

Speaking of The Nine: McBride revealed that his character, Malcolm, was behind the bank robbery. “He had too many bills… it’s a long story.”

Kristin’s Choice: Chenoweth chose Daisies over a starring role in Broadway’s Young Frankenstein. “You have these decisions that come along in your career and sometimes they’re not easy,” she said. “But I definitely feel like I made the right one.”

FYI: Ellen Greene is fluent in two languages: English and Crazy. And we love her for it. She also laughs like a donkey.

Pushing Back: On rumored backstage tensions with Warner Bros. over the show’s budget, Fuller said the studio eventually “came around and got behind us and gave us a budget that” we could live with.

Wish List: Fuller wants Carol Burnett on the show.

Child’s Play: Asked whether Ned and Chuck are capable of having a child together, Fuller responded, “I think her egg would die when his sperm hit it.”

Best Buys: Daisies’ first season DVD streets in early September. A soundtrack is also being discussed.

For PETA’s Sake: Although it’s never been addressed on the show, Fuller confirmed that Ned is, in fact, a vegetarian. Why? Because once the meat made contact with his insides, it would come back to life “and crawl out of him.”

Strike Fallout: “I think in the long-run, [the break] was a really good thing for the show,” Fuller admitted. “It gave us a chance to look back at the nine episodes and [figure out] what was working and what was not working. The arc of the first nine was a soft, romantic arc. In the second season, we want to do something a little harder and a little more aggressive in the style of storytelling. So we learned a lot of lessons.”

Spoiler Alert: Chuck will definitely find out who her real mother is in Season 2. “It’s going to be interesting to see how she reacts to that information,” said Fuller, “and how the Pie Maker tries to control her trajectory and how that will complicate their relationship. There are going to be some nice surprises.”

Also, no one from the cast and crew actually know what Ned’s last name is. And Emerson Cod had become a private investigator in the first place, in order to find his missing daughter.

Source: Ausiello - TV Guide
Photo is courtesy of The Pie Hole, a fan based Livejournal Community, which also has transcripts of the said event.

Paley Fest, Pushing Daisies