All language subtitles for Dollhouse S02EX4 Looking Back_EN

Just like hanging out at my kitchen table.

(CAST CHATTERING)

The last time I did a round table with you,
all I did was laugh.

So this time, I'm gonna be very serious.

I'm gonna be super-serious
about my craft and my art.

So, you gonna start then?

WHEDON: No.
God, is that what we're doing?

- Yeah, we're doing it.
- You're on, baby.

Wait, no, it's not me.
It's not me. I'm really here to observe.

Really, this is like a second audition
for you people.

Come on, Enver. Go.

(SLURPING)

- Diet Coke.
- How many...

How many people did you play
and did you play?

Like how many different...
If you compiled it...

I never counted the number.

I forgot to count, too.
But I couldn't really count,

'cause there were so many
that we didn't play out, right?

Yeah. I think some of those numbers
changed occasionally.

(ALL LAUGHING)

WHEDON: Thirty-seven,
thirty-nine, forty-five.

Lubov was fun,
because Lubov was just stupid.

It's a myth, okay?

Young people
having their personalities replaced

so that they could be the perfect date?

I love playing stupid. Stupid characters
are just so much more fun.

(EX CLAIMS)

I mean, I don't know,
I think I have so much more fun

playing characters
who think they're cool and aren't.

- Can you do anything else?
- You're really good at that.

I know, it's typecast.

You're really good at that.

When you did Topher, that was sort of...

- That was a huge...
- That was huge.

- Now, what was it like for you?
- It was surreal. It was weird.

I get so many questions about,
"Did you dub it?"

Like people really had
a hard time believing.

- WHEDON: Really?
- Yeah, yeah.

Should have just done that.
Why didn't we just do that?

That would've saved me so much work.

Dude, Halverson's fine.

What? Wait. Who? What?

Bennett!

She's, what, like, distinguished?

Like, young and fine! I poo you not.

Oh, God. I wish I was there.

I, like, screw around, and I'm in
the other room, and I could hear myself.

It was so bizarre.

I heard you once go,
"I realize watching him that I overact."

KRANZ: Yeah.

(ALL LAUGHING)

That's what I was worried about,

that you'd become totally self-conscious
about how you were and change.

It's interesting watching it, yeah.

Well, I just figured I was out of a job
at a certain point, I was like... (GROANS)

I had a lot of people ask me
about your character,

and, like, why you suddenly
were good in the last episode.

- Did you guys get that?
- GJOKAJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Most people I knew were like,
"It's so cool that you don't know."

Yeah.

I'm gonna go with,
"It's so cool you don't know."

I'm glad he got to be nice at the end.

Yeah, I feel like he got to be
part of the whole message of the show,

which was, "I evolve.
I become more than the sum of my parts.

"I become more than what I was handed."
That was the whole point of Echo.

And we sort of had to
take some leaps and bounds there.

It's like, "I'm gonna become better
over the act break. "

How do you work
within the confines of this convention?

So you have to have an exciting moment

to take you through an ad break
every 14 minutes.

And then you have to have
this number of episodes,

which could be 13 or it could be 22.

And it could be one year
or it could be seven years.

And to have all that in your head, I mean...

Well, the thing is, you don't have it all
in your head. You can't, because...

Yes, no, I mean,
God knows, I had ideas for...

I mean, I pitched for the show.

When I sat down with Fox,
I pitched six years.

Missed it by that much.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Not enough Get Smart humor on the DVD,
so I thought I'd bring that.

But you have to have all those things,
but you lay them out as signposts.

It's a weird cycle,
because once we got into "Epitaph One,"

we loved the episode so much
that we couldn't really go back.

But that was one of the things
I was saying about this bizarre convention

is that out of these terrible constraints
and pressures you're put under,

moments of genius occur.

Most of the best stuff
is gonna come out of

either total freedom or the exact opposite.
That's just the rule of TV.

It's like if they give you your head,
you do your best.

If everything goes wrong,
you might do better.

And by the way,
Olivia doesn't have to pay for her meal,

'cause she used the word "genius."
She's the first.

Anybody else notice the lack of "genius"?

Also "renaissance sexual dynamo" hasn't
been tossed out as a phrase either, so...

WOMAN: Hi, guys!

- Hey!
- ALL: Hey!

TUD YK: Hey! How unexpected.

I heard some great stories
at the bar outside.

Yeah, yeah.

This is such an unexpected delight.
We're done. Thank you all for coming.

(EX CLAIMS IN DISMAY)

Always late.

So, favorite Miracle moment, obviously.

I know you're our star.

There are three flowers in the vase,
let's see if it works now.

So take out Fran, it'll be funny.

- Yeah. Right, right.
- I'll just dropkick him.

I love that we set up the whole
Tahmoh is obsessed with Caroline

and he's the big leading man,
you're the beautiful star,

and then I'm the next door neighbor.
And then you guys,

your relationship with him
became completely central to his life.

And I like that we just went,
"We'll just do that."

It won't be, "She's pining forever."

And get to turn him on his ear a little bit.

Too much? Too fast?

I have a message for you
from inside the Dollhouse.

And then, of course, clearly,
you were going to be killed.

- LAURIE: Clearly.
- Then you were doomed.

- Dich.
- Dich.

Hi! Hi!

LAURIE: Now,
I didn't get a kiss when I came over.

We don't sit, that's the rule.

- Hi.
- How you doing?

- After-lunch special.
- Yeah. Right.

And then there was Dichen.

We're talking of magic moments.

One of my favorite moments was Topher
and Sierra, the annual birthday cake.

WHEDON: Yes.
WILLIAMS: They get the Twinkies.

WHEDON: People had
an interesting reaction to that.

People were sitting through the episode,

like that was probably the most
suspenseful episode we ever made

for a lot of people who were just,
like, with their fingers in their couches

going, "Don't sleep with her,
don't sleep with her,"

because it's such a sweet story, and
they were just waiting for it to get ugly.

Yeah, right. I never even sort of
saw a sexual bone in Topher's body.

Even Summer sort of developed
more as sort of like...

- Bone?
- Yeah.

Not one?

'Cause one's all you need!

I... Yeah.

It was so much more innocent
than anything else,

'cause he was always such a kid
in my mind, you know.

Which was one of the things about
the show that I always really responded to,

is these moments of absolute innocence

in this place that was just
so messed up and corrupt.

And I was constantly like, "Oh, sweet."

I kind of found myself being,
"Oh, wow. Sweet."

WHEDON: There was a thing long ago

in episode 10

of Season Three of Buffy, "Amends,"

where just a little thing of snow falls...

There's this Christmas miracle,
because I'm an incredible hack.

And it falls on everybody,
and I had somebody say,

"That moment made me laugh
harder than anything this season."

And somebody else said,
"That moment made me burst into tears."

And I was like, "This is my favorite thing
that I've ever written because of that."

And this whole show,
that was happening constantly.

Everything that was sweet
was kind of creepy.

Everything that was dark
had this funk to it, the sweet thing.

And you know what? I just never
wanted one thing to be going on,

which I think doomed us from the start.

But it is one of the things about the show
that I'm really proud of.

I love that.

All right, so let's do the whole
"your favorite thing to be that you were."

Or "thing you wanted to be
that you weren't."

You wanna rock it?

- Do I wanna rock it?
- Yeah.

Yes, Jed and I were talking
and he brought up something

where there was an episode you wrote.
It was the original 203 or something,

and it was the romantic comedy episode,
which I still...

Right, the one that got us shut down.

Right, he called it
"the episode that broke the Dollhouse."

So he told me what November's
original storyline was going to be,

how it was gonna be introduced,
and I thought that was fascinating.

The story was that Miracle,
who had not been in the show yet,

is introduced as this
very harried woman at a convention,

and then there's this drop-dead gorgeous
doll of a man who sweeps her off her feet,

and they have this whirlwind romance,

and at the end of the episode,
what you discover is she's the doll

and he goes home to his wife and family,
and that was his fantasy.

And the part of the thing was,
"Everybody's fantasy is different."

And it was just supposed to be sweet.

That was one of the things
that's sold it to me,

was the original pilot plot

of the nerdy guy who went to the wedding
and danced beautifully and...

- And you danced beautifully.
- You did.

I love you being sophisticated,
and it's one of the reasons I did the show.

It's why I love Margaret very much.

Margaret. You just say,
"Nicky has loads of potential."

(RETCHING)

Are you gonna...

- I don't...
- Yeah?

I don't think so.

It was like,
"You've got that, you've got that,"

and you don't get to do it a lot.

And I was sorry that we couldn't do that
sort of the genre-hopping

in the same way that we did
character-hopping,

because that's what I really wanted to do.

It was not just put you in a different voice,
but put you in a different structure.

And to have this as a romantic comedy

this is a horror story,
this is the think piece...

Think piece is not something
to put in your pitch, by the way.

You know, that big dinner table scene
we shot with everybody

and then we only had one more scene,
just the two of us.

And when everyone walked out,
I just couldn't control myself, I was like...

(IMITATES WEEPING)

I came in to edit the last episode
and the song and the angels,

and you lying down,
and Paul's in your head,

and everyone's resolved and the thing,

and that song is in my head
and I go upstairs and realize that

there's a cardboard box in my office,
and I have to put my stuff into it now.

(ALL EX CLAIMING)

It was like, "Does it have to be now
when I have that song in my head?"

Wow.

Do you have a fave?

Well, we had a few ideas
that we had brainstormed

and talked about at the wrap party.

It was,
"We're gonna do burlesque this year."

WHEDON: You were fierce about that.

Because those were fierce
burlesque dancers at our wrap.

WHEDON: Yes, they were. Yes, they were.

How do I blow burlesque dancer?

Like that's not keeping your eyes
on the prize.

DUSHKU: Enver?

- You.
- Would you please leave?

- No. Or favorite character, scene, thing?
- TUD YK: You've been chosen.

How about how
Tim wrote an entire episode

just to get you dancing on camera?

That is true. That is true,
because at the wrap party,

you did your,
"I can do my pretty-girl dance."

We did so many takes of that.

And Solly was just like...
And you know what?

WHEDON: Solly was like,
"We got it on the first one."

He said that. He was like,
"Yeah, we actually got it at the first one.

"But I just couldn't stop laughing."
He just had me keep going and keep going.

- I have a question.
- Okay.

In the black, over there, behind Eliza.

There was that one episode that we did
at the end of the first season where...

- "Omega." Yeah.
- "Omega."

Where he couldn't keep... All the voices
were so present with him, they were...

Constantly, he's blurting out
and blurting out and blurting out.

- I'm not fooling.
- He's not kidding!

- We're not bluffing.
- I'm bluffing.

But the rest of us, we mean business.

And that was the only time
that ever happened.

KRANZ: Yeah. That was cool.

And I was thinking about
putting it in different places,

but it kind of didn't lend itself.

So since there was enough of a break

between that and the next time
that Alpha came, he'd figured that out.

He was already evolving.
That's where he was evolving.

That's exactly right, Alan.
Congratulations. Thank you.

You know, we didn't go
with that whole thing,

largely because "Omega" is kind of about
he can't control this.

And then when he comes back in the
second season, he's very much in control.

GJOKAJ: There's scenes
between the two of you

when he comes, and you're like,
"Who are you? No."

- Yeah, the carrots.
- KRANZ: That was so great, yeah.

Carrots.

Medicinal carrots.

Personal use medicinal carrots
that were here when I moved in,

and I'm holding it for a friend.

What was that character's name?

- TUD YK: Stephen Kepler.
- Stephen Kepler. Yeah. I loved that.

You know, I learned a valuable thing
in that episode.

Like when it was the comic scenes,
the comic scenes with Kepler,

I had lots of ideas.
"Maybe we should do this.

"Can we put the phone on the fridge?
Can we do this? Can we do that?"

And then when I was the evil guy,
I didn't have as many ideas.

Like they just weren't coming all the time.

And so I was like,
"I wanna do comedy now.

"I think I'm gonna do comedy."

I learned a lot about myself.

Yeah. I learned so much,

and you taught me so much
through the character.

But it was also really interesting
just playing the center,

and it was as rewarding

as I could have hoped and asked.

But it also was really challenging, too,
you know.

And I definitely felt a little bit isolated,

but then, at the same time,
it was complemented

by these beautiful connections
with each of you.

I mean, one of the things I really learned,
going into a television show,

is like how crazy this thing of television is

and how it's just like juggling 20 balls
and just doing all this craziness.

But you were so professional
and you were so great, Joss.

And learning how you do this under fire,

and we were always under fire,
it seems like.

I mean, I felt like
I had a really safe working environment.

And you did a nice little Papa Bear thing
with us.

And you were so professional
every single second I saw you working.

I couldn't have dreamed that
you would have surrounded me

with just incredible and interesting people.

Well, I remember
when we first met about it,

and the first thing I said was,
"You do an ensemble..."

- DUSHKU: That conversation.
- "...or you'll burn out." Yes.

Remember that gouda pizza that we ate
and caused all of this mess?

Well, we've moved up to crème brûlée.
So, clearly, we've become classy.

But that was the thing,
it's like everything...

And this is something that I've learned,
everything is ensemble.

Everything is...
I learned it playing Hamlet at The House.

The center cannot hold if you don't have
a group that you can rely on

for all those twisted
or beautiful relationships.

You're gonna get exhausted and bored.

Surround yourself with
smart, sane, talented people.

Have the fun. Take the credit.

If you learn nothing else from me,
learn that.

All right, let's leave.

TUD YK: All right.
See you all at the conventions.

- GJOKAJ: Oh, yeah!
- (ALL LAUGHING)

LACHMAN: Absolutely.

TUD YK: Dollhouse-Con 2013.

GJOKAJ: Cool.

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