TVSquad

Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton has had numerous chances to star in TV series during his successful career. It took the edgy blend of drama and humor in TNT's Leverage to lead him to sign on for the show's lead role.

Hutton stars as Nathan Ford, a former insurance investigator leading a team of thieves and con artists who balance the scales when ordinary people fall victim to corrupt politicians, authorities and corporations.

The show co-stars Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf and Aldis Hodge as Ford's less than reputable teammates.

As Leverage approaches its second season premiere July 15, Hutton connected with TV Squad to share his hopes for the show.

There are talented TV actors who never get their big break. There are talented TV actors who managed to land one key role that has to last them a lifetime. Then, there are talented TV actors like Tim Daly.

The Private Practice star has progressed from a long-running sitcom (Wings), to an all-time television classic (The Sopranos), to an iconic animated series (Superman) and a cutting-edge drama entering its third season (ABC's Private Practice).

The New York City native and child actor turned adult success story connected with TV Squad to look back at his career and ahead to the future of Private Practice.

Sigourney Weaver is earning strong Emmy buzz for her lead performance in Lifetime's Prayers for Bobby. In her first TV movie, the three-time Oscar nominee plays a religiously conservative mother who refuses to accept her gay son.

The film, based on a true story, examines Mary Griffith's (Weaver) transformation from intolerant mother to gay-rights crusader after her son Bobby commits suicide. Weaver says she was drawn to Prayers for Bobby because, like the book of the same name, it has the potential to start important conversations about tolerance and acceptance in homes everywhere.

Sigourney Weaver starring in a Lifetime movie? It happened. It's called Prayers for Bobby, and the three-time Oscar nominee is racking up the Emmy buzz for her lead performance as a mother whose life is changed by tragedy.

I spoke with Weaver recently about the film, the Emmy buzz, her next big TV project and more. Here's a preview of that interview:

Weaver on the benefits of working for Lifetime, and other cable networks:

"I think Lifetime, along with other cable networks, show very compelling stories about what it is to be human in a way that a lot of films don't now, except for small independent films. They're interested in a smaller canvas and I think those stories are very helpful for people and I think that they bring us together."

Futurama has gone through more frustrating cancellations than a United Airlines flight leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport. No one knows that better than voice actor Billy West and actress Katey Sagal who respectively provide the voice, heart and soul of the show's two main characters, Fry and Leela.

But what has kept the show going is the camaraderie of the cast and crew. Everyone from the show still keep in touch in between other jobs and even have the occasional reunion from their regular crowded visits at ComicCon to smaller get togethers like when Katey said the cast got together to watch her last concert at the MBar in Hollywood.

Most of all, they said they have the fans to thank for their next big reunion when Futurama goes back into production. They both took a short time out of their busy schedules to chat about Comedy Central's two season order.

In his breakout role on NewsRadio fifteen years ago, Joe Rogan played Joe Garrelli, a maintenance man with deceptively deep springs of knowledge. In a sense, Rogan has been playing that role for his whole career, hosting Fear Factor and The Man Show, commentating for the UFC, while writing increasingly smart stand-up comedy. Rogan's new special, Talking Monkeys in Space (Spike TV, June 20 midnight), is his best work to date.

Rogan takes on the legalization of marijuana, Dr. Phil, and technology with brutal logic. His last television day gig, Game Show In Your Head, is over but he says he doesn't mind. He's still doing what he loves most - stand-up comedy and commentating for the UFC, and he's got a new Web series on Crackle.com, a sort of Inside the Actors Studio for stand-up comedians, he says will start within the next couple of months.

I spoke with him about all of that, how having a one-year old daughter has changed his perspective, how his personal philosophies have evolved, and the treatment of his frequent rival Carlos Mencia on a recent episode of South Park, in which Mencia was beheaded by Kanye West for stealing a joke he couldn't explain.

On July 16th when the Primetime Emmy nominations are announced, one name that is likely to appear in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series is Aaron Paul. As Jesse Pinkman on AMC's Breaking Bad, Aaron has done amazing work, revealing a character as fascinating as he is flawed.

His performance this past season on Breaking Bad has generated lots of talk about an Emmy nomination, but not to be overlooked is the fact that Paul is also doing great work on HBO's Big Love. On that drama, his character, Scott, is the antithesis of Jesse. It's a testament to Aaron's skill as an actor that I didn't recognize him at first from Big Love when I watched Breaking Bad. A search of his IMDB listing was one of those 'ah-ha' moments. Recently, I had to chance to speak with Aaron, and we started with the jaw-dropping season finale of Breaking Bad.

There are some big names on the bill for Ellen DeGeneres's variety show, Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show, which airs June 27 on TBS. Kanye West will be a big part of it, and magician David Blaine and comedian Nick Cannon will also appear.

Even the Chicago Cubs will make an appearance, as DeGeneres tapes a segment at Wrigley Field, singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch June 16 (the rest of the show will be taped June 17 at the Chicago Theatre).

But the thing DeGeneres seems most excited about is comedian Joe Wong, whom we first wrote about in April when he made his network television debut on The Late Show with David Letterman. She'd love to see more comedians like Wong on television.

Denis Leary probably wouldn't like you - that is, assuming you're fat, addicted to "coffee flavored coffee," unable to take a joke ... oh, and American. I'm pretty sure he likes me, but that's only because I recently spent half an hour on the phone with him, and I think he kinda, sorta, got to know me ... a little. His hugely successful FX firefighter dramedy Rescue Me can be described as politically incorrect with a heart of gold, and his best-selling first book, Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid is ... well, the title says it all, doesn't it?

Denis Leary is a man with opinions - wait, let me rephrase that - Denis Leary is a man with lots of opinions and as he points out in his book, most of us seem perfectly content to just let Oprah shame us into doing whatever she wants. With that in mind, it was nice to talk to someone with a wealth of personal passions and as much hate for Heidi and Spencer as I have. See? He got to know me ... a little.

Vampires, shapeshifters, and a barmaid who can read peoples' minds ... HBO's True Blood returns on June 14, 9 PM.

I've been impatiently waiting for the white-hot series to come back since the toenail-painted black foot slumped out of Andy's car door at the end of season one. Is it Lafayette's foot? I asked Stephen Moyer, who plays vampire Bill Compton, but of course, he wouldn't tell me. No matter. I'll be glued to my TV next Sunday night.

Read on and find out what Moyer has to say about the new season, what it's like playing a 173-year-old vampire, and whether the love triangle between Sookie, Bill and Sam will continue. And I managed to keep my head, even as Moyer called me "Love" and "Darling" in his delightful British accent.

The last few years have been very good for Amy Ryan. She's had a recurring role in The Wire, nabbed an Oscar nomination for her role as a drug-addicted mother in Gone Baby Gone, co-starred in The Changeling and helped Matt Damon find WMDs in the upcoming Iraq-themed action pic Green Zone.

But if you show most people a picture of the veteran actor, who's also been nominated for Tonys for her stage work, they'll just go, "Oh, that's Holly." Ryan's role Holly Flax on The Office not only represented a soul mate for Steve Carell's Michael Scott, but she was surprisingly adept at channeling her inner dork for the role. She has no idea if she'll be back next year, but she I can't imagine Greg Daniels and his minions won't think of some way to work her in again.

Ryan recently wrapped up production of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's first directorial effort, Jack Goes Boating, and was taking a welcome break when I spoke to her in late May. But at least she did something nice for our mid-morning interview, as you'll see after the jump.

I am the worst person anyone could ever choose to conduct an interview with MC Hammer. A Transylvanian hermit who only knows how to operate an 8-track player would be a step up from me.

I didn't listen to his music growing up as a child of the 80s, except for the occasional sound waves that wafted passed my ears as my cooler classmates blared it from the stereos in their rooms. I've never even interviewed anyone in the hip-hop community.

I've done the research. I studied the first two episodes of his new A&E reality series Hammertime, premiering next Sunday at 10 PM Eastern. I've read up on his days as a batboy with the Oakland A's where Reggie Jackson first gave him the nickname "Hammer' after "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron. I found out from my old man who hates it when I call him my old man that Hammer was even in the Navy. Holy crap. My Dad, the whitest man I know, knows more about MC Hammer than I do.

It seems no movie is safe from Kevin Murphy and his former Mystery Science Theater 3000 comrades as they mock flicks full-time for Rifftrax.

Murphy, RiffTrax writer/commentator and forever Tom Servo on the Satellite of Love of the original movie-mocking show famous for tackling B-movies, regularly joins fellow MST3K alums Bill Corbett and Michael J. Nelson to record a series of commentaries on classic and significantly less than classic flicks. Their targets range from The Happening and Twilight to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars - all available for $4.

The site just released perhaps the most challenging riff, deliberately taking on what many people consider the greatest film of all time, Casablanca.

Many movie fans -- even those who enjoy Rifftrax -- object to mockery of such iconic work, but Murphy points to the sites' motto: "We don't make movies. We make them funny."

This morning, I had a really fun interview with Amy Ryan, who's taking a little time off after a busy couple of years. During the conversation, which mostly revolved around her fantastic guest turn on The Office as Michael Scott's soulmate Holly Flax, I had to ask her the question most Office fans have been wondering about since the season finale: Is she coming back?

Your guess is as good as hers. "They keep that (the plans for Holly) under wraps, if they are indeed thinking of it. There's no plan there." When I asked her if she was under contract for any episodes next season, she said she wasn't.

What is she hoping Greg Daniels and company do with Holly in the coming years? "The viewer in me, the fan of the show, hopes that they (Michael and Holly) get together. The actor in me would love to see that there's still conflict along the way. That's where it's fun."

I'll have the complete interview with Ryan next week.

The world's armchair TV executives proudly proclaimed that the only way Conan O'Brien's cavalcade of foul-mouthed puppets and surreal pop culture mechanes could work every night at 11:30 p.m. is with a potent injection of Ritalin (present executive included).

O'Brien noted, however, that television has broken the time barrier.

"I think especially now, people don't watch an episode of Lost when they are supposed to watch it," he said during a recent conference call. "DVRs changed everything. The Internet has changed everything. People are getting it off Hulu and watching shows on their iPhone. What's most important to me with The Tonight Show is it needs to be funny so people can experience it at 11:30 or watch it the next morning while they're eating their oatmeal."