Interview with Grimm’s David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf

As you know, I’m a lover of Grimm and its intense bromances. So, I danced for joy when I sat in on a conference call with producers David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf. For those who don’t know (but should), Grimm surrounds the adventures of Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), a Portland cop who discovers that fairytale creatures DO exist and he’s descended from a long line of Grimm reapers who profile and dispatch the fairytale baddies. As I said in my preview (which producer Sean Hayes tweeted!), it’s essentially the male version of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

What makes conference calls enjoyable (other than talking to cool people affiliated with shows I like) typically surrounds listening to my fellow bloggers’ enthusiasm for the show. If the people asking the questions are uber-fans (and not just specific producers or actors), that says a lot for the show. However, even more this go-round, I enjoyed listening to David and Jim respond to the tongue-in-cheek names of our sites when the operator introduced us individually. Their favorite site name, so far? “TV is my pacifier” (TVisMyPacifier).

I asked them a few questions about casting the awesome Russell Hornsby (Hank Griffin), competing Once Upon a Time storylines (OUT just did a Hansel and Gretel plot and Grimm will do one this week), and shaking up the show’s formula. David answered frankly  that they chose Russell because he proved the best guy for the part. He came across as really warm and really cool in the audition. They both sounded incredibly excited for one of his storylines featuring lady troubles. The woman in question might include Adalind Schade (Claire Coffee), the Hexenbiest lawyer from BeeWare, who Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) sent to charm Hank. At the same time, IMDb only lists Coffee for four Grimm episodes (all of which already aired). Regarding the creature-as-perpetrator-of-the-week formula, that will probably stand 80% of the time. But, they’ll try to shake it up by involving a normal human or setting up a creature as the victim. Concerning possible Once Upon a Time storyline conflicts, they gave the standard answer of not having enough time to track other shows (yeah, right). But, they’re both right, the two shows are incredibly different. And, luckily, for fans of sci fi and fantasy, they’re both incredibly well done.  For the interview transcript, see page two.

Other things I learned from the conference call, included:

• Greenwalt and Kouf deliberately picked Portland (their first and only choice) for its looks. They also worked with Steve Oster (producer), Marc Buckland (pilot Director), Clark Mathis (pilot director of photography), Eades (construction design) and one of the show’s production designers to finalize its stylized “grim” aesthetic.
• Rick Marvin does the show’s music. Remember the classical and club component of the “Danse Macabre” pied piper episode? He did the music for both of the genre styles in the episode.
• The writers deliberately keep Hank in the dark to have a non-supernatural reason for the crimes.
• They went with Grimm’s fairytales for the public domain permissions. And, I liked that honesty.
• They are going to do more fairytale reversals where the passive creatures overtake the dominant ones as in “Of Mouse and Man.”
• They already planned the Nick and Monroe mentor-mentee relationship. However, their chemistry proved a pleasant surprise, so they can take it to deeper levels. (Hopefully, they’ll take it to bromantic levels).
• Monroe’s ass-kicking by his fellow creatures won’t affect his ability to help Nick.
• Creatures are actually called “Wesen” (pronounced Vesen).
• Despite the Thursday night trial, they’re going to stay on Friday night for now. David pointed out that Friday at 9 is the X-Files’ old slot.
• This season will feature 22 episodes.
• We’ll get more of Marie’s backstory in the future.

Whedonverse Guest Stars:

• Azura Skye will guest star in an episode involving Juliette, possibly in April.
• In the “Terentella” February episode Amy Acker will guest star as a Black Widow.

A new Grimm episode featuring Hansel and Gretel will hit this Friday, February 3^rd, at 9pm on NBC. For the trailer, go to: https://www.nbc.com/grimm/video/hansel-and-gretel/1380813.

For more information on Grimm, check them out on facebook or on twitter (@nbcgrimm).

For the transcript of my interview with David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf, click to the next page.

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Jan 29, 2012 @ 21:14 EST5EDT