White Collar is kicking off its second season just as strongly as the first, building nicely on the long-arc spins it threw at us at the end of the first season. I have some special treats for you today. A Q & A with Tiffani Thiessen, who was sadly uninvolved in the first couple of episodes, and a Complete First Season DVD giveaway.
Let's jump right to the interview. Check below for the giveaway and clips for tomorrow's episode.
Obviously you are currently in the filming process, but heading into the season what were some of the things that you were looking forward to, that you were excited about for Elizabeth?
T. Thiessen It’s a very different season for me than it was last year. I just gave birth five weeks ago, almost five weeks ago, so I actually have been away.
What we did was because I couldn’t travel or fly because I was really, really pregnant when the season started, we actually ended up shooting, which I’m sure you might have seen on the premiere episode this season, my one scene, a lot of those episodes in the first six episodes I shot here in Los Angeles on a studio with a green screen behind me.
The two scenes I did with Tim and then the rest of them I did where I was pretending to be in San Francisco, that’s where you’ll start to see my character on an event, because I couldn’t be right in New York City to shoot with the rest of the cast.
I’m a bit away, I’m not in the first six episodes that much, but it was really interesting to see how they can maneuver me in the sense of making me look like I’m not as pregnant and shooting me from the waist up and not really showing. I actually haven’t seen the cast and I actually leave next week to go back to New York and finish off the season with them, so I’m excited.
Would you ever be interested in writing or directing for the show?
T. Thiessen I would. I’m not a writer at all, and I’ll be totally honest with you it’s nothing that I want to pursue because I’m just not a great writer. But directing is something that I actually started quite a few years ago actually.
I did a short film that actually got into the Tribeca Film Festival and quite a lot of the prestigious film festivals, and so being that it’s been a little busy working, and now with a child it’s been kind of hard to pursue that. But I would love to, and White Collar would definitely be on my list that I would love to do. There are more and more women directors out there, which I love working with, and I think we always can use more women directors out there and in every position as well. So I think it would be really nice.
My favorite scene from last season is when you met Mozzie for the first time. What has been your favorite scene or episode and why?
T. Thiessen Wow, that’s hard because I have quite a few that I really like. But I will say towards the end of the season the episodes, like the last three episodes where I did get to work with Willie and I got to work with Matt a lot more and just all the conflict that was happening and the suspense that was happening with the Fowler character, that was actually probably the most fun.
There was so much going on because I was pregnant at that time and I don’t think anybody knew at that time, or maybe my cast just found out and the producers and stuff. But it was a lot of fun because I was working with Willie finally, which I had never gotten to work with in the beginning of the season, and I’ve known Willie for a while. So it was really fun to finally actually get to work on screen with him. I definitely would say those are probably my favorite episodes for sure. I’m in complete agreement with you.
WHITE COLLAR -- Pictured: (l-r) Tim DeKay as Peter Burke, Tiffani Thiessen as Elizabeth Burke -- USA Network Photo: Nigel Parry
What do you like most about White Collar and your character, Elizabeth?
T. Thiessen I think probably the biggest thing that I was drawn to her character, even from the beginning when I read the script and even more so now that we’ve gotten to know her a lot more on the show is that she plays a woman that I strive to be every day.
She really is a woman who takes her marriage, it’s very important to her and her relationship with her husband and her home life, but as well really balances her career. And I strive to do that every single day of my life, and now that I add the title “Mother” to it it’s even more so.
She’s very diplomatic, which I really like. She’s very reasonable. She seems to be a person that has a sense of knowing where to go down the middle when she’s helping the relationship between Peter and Neal, and I like that about her a lot. She’s almost like a little therapist or something.
She always takes the middle road of really trying to get the boys to see both sides and I like that about her a lot. She’s very diplomatic. I like that she’s passionate. She’s extremely passionate about everything that she does, and her marriage, her career and her relationships and all that. I don’t know, I really admire her a lot.
It seems sometimes like Elizabeth trusts or believes in Neal even more than Peter does. Why do you think that is?
T. Thiessen I think it’s the case of when someone’s out of the tight loop when a situation’s happening they can actually see it a little clearer. I think that’s the case with Elizabeth. I think, like I had mentioned before, I think she’s a very diplomatic, very honest woman who can see both sides.
Last year I think you saw a lot of scenes where she was definitely trying to get her husband to see Neal’s side, and I think you’ll start to hopefully see a little more where I’m going to be doing the same thing for Neal, where I’m going to get him to really see my husband’s side on a lot of things. I think she’s that kind of woman. I do think there’s a side of her that’s almost like a little therapist, that she’s the voice of reason, where she sees everything a little clearer because she’s not quite in the loop that tight.
What would be your ultimate dream role to have in the future? Or maybe there’s somebody specific you’d like to work with that you haven’t yet.
T. Thiessen It’s so hard. Back in my late teens, early 20s I always wanted to be a James Bond girl. That’s totally different now. My life has changed so much, my priorities have changed. I don’t know if I really have a dream role. I think it’s more about really – and I have to say White Collar is definitely something that I can say really kind of fills that – is that I want to go to work every day with people that I like. I want to go to work every day where there’s a role that I really enjoy and I believe in.
I don’t think it’s really specific to one particular actor that I want to work with or a particular role any more like it used to be. Like back in the day, like I said, I wanted to be a James Bond girl and I got really close to it too, but I didn’t. But now it’s just really about enjoying who I work with, the kind of atmosphere that I’m working in, and the character. That’s why I think nowadays I tend to really try to be somewhat picky any more to what I do, not just going out to get a job. And sometimes you have to do that, you have to work just to work. But I’m very fortunate to say that I’m actually working at a job that I absolutely love and enjoy and everybody there I enjoy so much and I feel very blessed.
What do you think Elizabeth really thinks of Mozzie and Neal?
T. Thiessen Oh, wow. I think she thinks a lot of things. I think there’s a part of Elizabeth that really feels a sense of, I don’t want to say the word sorry, but she’s really trying to understand Neal’s— I think she does understand it, but I think there’s a sense of her that feels that there’s a part of him that really wants a little bit of what Peter and Elizabeth have. I think he has such a hard time trying to gather that, or even process that, that I think there’s a part of her that feels bad for him because in her mind everybody deserves that, everybody deserves to have a great relationship in their life.
And then Willie I think is just pure entertainment. I think she finds him quite enjoyable to hang out with. I think they love the banter between the two. I think they love to test each other. I think it’s another form of the relationship between Neal and Peter and I think you can see that a little bit with Elizabeth and Mozzie, which is kind of fun.
I was wondering what you thought about Elizabeth’s career, her chosen profession? Were you involved in deciding what she was going to do as a career?
T. Thiessen I was completely. It was my idea, absolutely. I brought that idea to the writers and our executive producer, Jeff Eastin. In the original pilot she was actually put as an accountant and they didn’t like it, USA didn’t care for it, so they took that out and didn’t mention what she did for a living in the pilot.
If you go back you don’t even know what she does. So once it got picked up we really tried to explore what exactly would be the best fit for her and for the show, and they went into different arenas like being an actual probably a psychotherapist or all different types of things. I came up with the event coordinator only because – many reasons. One was I always wanted to do that and personally if I never acted again that was what I wanted to do for a living.
But secondly, I thought it fit really well with the city in the sense and also just the stylish aspect of our show and also to kind of use her at times, to bring her in, which they have used her before, with events and things like that. Because they’re constantly having to – Neal goes in and does a whole fake thing half the time. He’s going in there playing and portraying someone else with these big parties and these beautiful events and things like that, and so she’s very aware of that kind of social high life kind of thing in New York City, so I thought it would fit really well and so far it fits great.
Was there ever anything that maybe got cut from the show that you wish they’d kept in? Or maybe something that you wish they’d cut out?
T. Thiessen I don’t think there was anything that I wished they’d cut out. I think most actors always feel that if there are scenes that are cut, they always tend to be a little sad about that because you usually shoot more than you need time-wise on a show, so usually it’s always cut down more and not added, even though there have been one or two episodes I think where we did have to add stuff to the show because it was definitely too short. But most of the time the shows were longer and so they had to be cut.
I do remember that there was one scene, it wasn’t so much that it was cut, it was changed. It was a scene between Peter and I where, and I’m trying to remember the episode again and with the baby brain I’m not going to remember the title of the episode, but it was a scene where it was, it correlated with the episode with Diahann Carroll’s granddaughter and it was a scene where after the park, at the very end of the episode where Peter finishes his …, he’s supposed to run up and meet me in a café and we’re supposed to play this banter where we don’t know each other.
We ended up having to change it and put it in our home, and to me it worked beautifully and no one would notice the difference between the original way it was written and how it was supposed to be at a café, and it was so beautiful. I think we both were a little sad that we couldn’t pull it off. But again I prefaced that no one would know the difference and the scene turned out just as great in our minds because we knew where it was supposed to take place and how it ended up was very different. Stuff like that happens all the time, though.
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Take a look at a preview and clip from the next episode.
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About Marc Eastman
Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. His reviews have brought him personal praise from the director of a major motion picture, and have been used as required reading in a course at a major University. These priceless rewards, along with just bags of cash, keep him from straying from freelance writing. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.
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