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jae-writes-fanfiction · 4 years

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Caviar and Cigarettes

Ashton x Reader - Collab Masterlist - 3763 Words - Part 1 of 1

Notes: this was written as part of a collab event as a gift for @mermaidcashton using a mix of their different suggested tropes but specifically ‘waking up in vegas.’ I hope you enjoy it ❤️ also I’ve never been to a casino I’m sorry this is 100% based off of what I know from TV

Warnings: mentions of alcohol/alcohol consumption, people are on a plane which could be scary, light nsfw content, some swearing.

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The overhead compartments creaked as the plane rushed down the runway headed for liftoff. The sensation always sent a shiver down your spine and caused knots to grow in your stomach.

You hated flying and had everyone been back in LA instead of visiting the UK on a press tour, you would’ve opted to drive to Las Vegas from home and meet the boys there. Unfortunately for you, being their one-person PR/Social Media Management team placed you behind the scenes for the entire junket. And now, it placed you in the window seat of a plane preparing to hurtle dangerously through the sky- although your friendship with the bride-to-be was partly at fault.

Next to you, Ashton rolled his eyes as you gripped the armrest tightly. Across the aisle he watched Michael and Crystal giggle at something, and just ahead of them he could see Callum and Luke watching a movie on one of their phones.

He loved his friends and was beyond happy for Michael and Crystal but each of their small smiles and soft looks felt stifling and Ashton found himself wishing things could just be like when they were younger. Everything felt easier then, it was much more fun going on trips, there was less pressure to do or say the right thing or post the right statuses. They were just four friends making music. Now, everything was different including you.

You silenced your phone and offered Ashton a consolatory smile. “I know you’d rather be across the aisle,” you said glancing over at the others, “but let’s try to be friendly it’s a long flight.” There was a slight edge to your tone and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“You’re right dollface,” Ashton bit back, “I’d much rather be seated with my friends. Not our social media manager.”

You felt a warmth spread across your face as you tried to think of a smart response. Ashton has always been the most aloof of the four when you joined the behind the scenes team yet every conversation with him turned sour.

When you didn’t respond Ashton decided to keep going. “I mean I offense but how the hell are any of us supposed to relax when you’re here hovering around? This is supposed to be a party! A vacation! But you make it look like work.”

“That’s right Ash,” you said icily, “because I am working. I have to make sure none of you do anything stupid while you’re ‘having fun and letting loose’.”

And there you go, Ashton thought, like always making everything else difficult. Why couldn’t you just be agreeable?

“Besides,” you said interrupting his thoughts, “the last thing the group needs is more dating drama. Your last stint did enough damage.”

There. You said it, after weeks of thinking it you actually said it. You didn’t blame him for how the breakup went and for a while you were proud at how little attention Ashton gave to the fan speculation. But then he deleted all their pictures together and made a few (now long deleted) vague tweets that sent the fan base into a deadly spiral that spewed death threats at his ex and caused you more than enough sleepless nights.

You felt a little guilty when he didn’t respond with another jape- but who did he think he was anyway? Sure he was attractive but he couldn’t get away with everything. Not this time. Not after you had to stage and arrange posts for him every time he swapped partners.

You huffed and slipped your headphones in. There was no hope for pleasant conversation, and you had no desire to fill the time with mobile games. The audiobook claimed to calm and soothe the overworked professional with meditation and organization tips. Compared to the $350 plane fare the $25 download seemed like a reasonable and informative way to fill the ten-hour flight.

By the halfway mark you’d been proven wrong on both accounts. The narrator’s lilting accent was distracting in all the wrong ways, and the information sounded like every motivational speaker ever; all hype and no substance. Twice you felt your eyes drifting closed and twice you managed to snap yourself out of it. The third time however you didn’t snap back awake as your head lolled to the side.

The brush of your hair against his shoulder alerted Ashton to the situation. He chuckled lightly under his breath, for a moment you were at peace. For a moment you were someone he didn’t know, someone he might’ve liked to know better.

But moments don’t last forever, Ashton knew this to be true and before long the light jostling of the plane woke you up. You blinked slowly trying to adjust to the lights and grimaced as Ashton came into focus. The intensity of his gaze puzzled you. Was there something on your face? The expression was unconscious, but Ashton saw it flicker across your face and that stung. Not even away more than a minute and you were already getting to him.

Uninterested in having another quiet row like a soon-to-be-divorced couple, he quickly looked away leaving you once again to choose between silence and the droning audiobook as the plane crossed the Atlantic and then the entirety of the North American continent.

The sun had already set when the descent started. Outside you could see the world swathed in swatches of brilliant color and dazzling shapes against the horizon. It felt like your heart skipped a beat. The Vegas strip was everything you’d expected. The hotel itself looked like a work of abstract art, it’s glass elevators sparkling under the desert sunset.

Late dinner reservations had been made for the five of them, and you took the opportunity to settle into your room, eat an entire room service pizza, and take a nap. They would be out on the hotel’s casino floor for the rest of the night and you were more than happy to join them.

By the time you put yourself together and got there, the house was in full swing. The music was loud, the people louder. You noticed Ashton first at a roulette table surrounded by other beautiful people. You turned to walk away and look for Crystal when he noticed you.

You smiled thinly and made your way over to him, you had to. Anything else would’ve been seen as rude and that was a problem you didn’t want to deal with.

You lightly touched his shoulder to let him know you were there and glanced over the table. He hasn’t lost anything but wasn’t winning either. Ashton froze at your touch, the innocuous gesture sent a shock through his body, and at that moment something changed.

The dealer called for bets to be placed for the new round as you settled in next to Ashton. The dark jacket paired well with the retro red shirt he wore and you had trouble looking away.

“You look-“ Ashton started but couldn’t finish the sentence, his wide eyes glanced over your body for one of the first times seeing it outside of business wear. The metallic accents caught in the low light and cast an ethereal glow over you that kept drawing his focus.

You flushed, “thanks...you do too.” The sentiment felt heavy despite the normalcy of the exchange and you quickly accepted a glass of something from a roaming waiter to loosen your tongue.

You glanced back over the table and turned to Ashton with a conspiratorial grin. You leaned in to whisper and Ashton felt your hot breath on his neck.

“Always bet on black,” you offered while biting your lip as he laughed lightly. Everyone said that everyone knew that was a rookie move. But for the moment it seemed like the best advice and you were shocked when he did it.

Not as shocked as you were when he won.

Ashton turned and looked at you, amazed.

“Ash that was so lucky!” You gushed openly and your genuine smile pulled at his heart.

“Maybe it’s just you,” he said softly, the honest edge to his voice surprising you. You laughed awkwardly trying to play off the sentimentality of the words but they kept playing over in your mind.

“I think the happy couple ran away for a little bit,” he offered quickly moving on, “but I think we ought to go celebrate.”

You nodded, “well since I did help you win, I suppose you could buy me a drink.”

Ashton grinned back and quickly gathered his winnings before wrapping an arm around your waist and leading you towards the lounge. You could smell his cologne as you walked and you weren’t sure if it was that or his hand on your hip that kept distracting you from whatever he was saying.

The hazy lounge atmosphere was almost as intoxicating as the cocktails that Ashton kept ordering for the two of you. The liquor burned in all the best ways and a soft sweet taste lingered on your lips. You felt warm and giddy, and surprisingly happy to have been spending this time with Ashton.

At some point, his arm wrapped around your shoulders and you laughed at one of his jokes. Had he been sober the sound might’ve broken his heart, like most secret things do if they’ve been dreamed about before.

You turned to say something but stopped with the words dead on arrival. Ashton was closer than you had realized while talking, your faces just inches apart. The red hue of the lights flashed across his features and seemed to show how truly beautiful he was.

For a moment the closeness lingered, and you could feel a tense stiffness in the arm around you, and electricity where his hand curled around your bare shoulder. Unconsciously you felt your face tilt up towards his, and Ashton felt the same desire to close the gap.

What am I doing, you thought trying to blink out of it, I technically work for him I can’t kiss him! Besides he doesn’t even tolerate me normally.

Ashton froze, unable to tear himself away from you, the soft tint of the lights exaggerated the shadows on your face and kept drawing his eyes back to your lips. His hand on your shoulder itched to run up to tangle in the hair at the back of your neck and pull you against him.

She doesn’t even want to be here, he thought suddenly, why the hell would she want to kiss me on top of that?

But somewhere in the back of his mind Ashton knew you were struggling over something similar. He knew you were at least tempted, otherwise you would’ve moved.

A scantily clad cocktail waitress interrupted the moment and sent you both back to looking away. Your stomach felt uneasy from the tension and you drank quietly for a while contemplating your next move. You needed to say something funny, something light to keep this good energy going.

“Look at the bartender,” you said, “can you imagine him working anywhere else?” Your joke was directed at a thin sort of person who without a doubt had the Vegas aesthetic down to a T.

Ashton felt his heart drop, couldn’t you say something nice? Did you always have to be so critical of everyone?

“That’s typical,” he mumbled into his drunk.

“What do you mean it’s typical?”

“You, princess. Always having some shallow thing to say,” he took a long drink draining the glass before turning back to your shocked face.

This had been a bad idea, you knew he had some problem with you but it had been enough.

Refusing to cause a scene on the crowded floor you swiftly stood. “It was just a joke,” you hissed through a clenched jaw before walking towards the lobby and elevators that would whisk you back to the safety of your room.

“Hey come back!” Ashton tossed money into the table and quickly darted after you, slipping into the elevator at the last second.

“We were having a good time,” he said defensively, “stop being such a spoilsport.”

“A good time? Sure, it’s all fun and games for you. Didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe something is majorly wrong when you can’t go twenty minutes without insulting me?”

“It wasn’t an insult it was a comment.”

You laughed openly, “oh that’s rich Ash. A comment.”

The doors slid open on your floor and you quickly turned heel and left. You heard his footfalls behind you and it took everything in you to resist slamming your door before he could enter the room. You angrily kicked your shoes off sending them in varying directions that you didn’t care to fix.

Ashton felt his palms get sweaty and his mouth dry. He didn’t want to keep watching you walk away anymore. “Can’t we just talk about this like friends?”

“Friends?” You felt your heart get all twisty at the words, “we’ve never been friends Ashton.”

When he didn’t respond you continued, crossing your arms in front of your chest as if the pressure would keep you still and safe.

“I used to think we could’ve been. When we first met I thought: now there’s the one- attractive and smart and mature. But all you’ve ever done is play games, spew pretensions, and hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said lamely taking a step closer to you.

“You don’t hate me? Oh that’s right you just hate the way I dress, and joke, and talk...” You met his gaze with a challenge and in another first of the night, he accepted.

Ashton looked at you with a fondness he had never expressed out loud and a gentleness that’s translated in how he took your hand in his and pulled you against him.

“I don’t hate you at all,” he said softly cupping your cheek with his other hand, “I hate that when you’re here you’re always working, I hate that you can’t ever just be with us, I hate that I miss you when you don’t answer a text, and I absolutely loathe that when you do it’s because you have to talk to me.” Because I want to talk to you, he thought unable to form the words in the mouth.

You suddenly felt very small pressed against him and you knew he could see the heat rising in your face.

“Professional was just easier,” you whispered unable to look him in the eyes, “because I don’t hate you either. For a long time I hated having to orchestrate and present people with you-“ because they weren’t me, you thought unable to say the words out loud.

His thumb softly traced the slant of your cheekbones as you hesitantly looked back into his eyes, and unlike in the lounge you did resist the urge to close the space between you, and neither did he.

The kiss was soft and filled with the emotion of everything not said, like all first kisses should be.

“I don’t hate you at all,” he whispered whilst placing kisses to the sides of your face, “not even a little bit, not even at all.” As your lips let a second time you both felt how surely the sentiment was quite the opposite and had been for quite some time.

Ashton was the only thought in your mind, and the only word on your lips as the kisses grew sloppier and needy. He tasted like cherry syrup from the cocktails and you wanted more.

A little disoriented from the alcohol you haphazardly walked backward pulling Ashton with you until you felt the edge of the mattress press against your calves. In a fit of giggles, you both tumbled back onto the bed.

You had never seen him smile like this before, his whole face seemed brighter and you knew instantly he was thinking the same things too. You moved in a flurry of hands and touches that struggled through the haze to remove clothes.

You straddled him to slide the jacket from his shoulders and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt until that too was discarded. Your hands trembled as they skated across his chest, and you felt him shiver as they were replaced with your lips. You slid down his body leading trails of kisses that stopped just above his belt buckle. The way it caught the light sent a delicious shiver down your spine and you tucked that thought away for another time.

Deftly you slipped the belt off before working on the slacks. You slowed and groaned softly upon revealing a dark red pair of lace pants under his trousers.

“Sweetheart,” you cooed teasingly as you repositioned yourself between his legs, “you should’ve led with this.” His hoarse laugh stifled into moans as you traced the lace with your tongue. Your eye wandered to the glittering bottle of champagne on the nightstand and between it and the heady look on Ashton’s face, you knew it was going to be a good night.

The next morning which really ended up being the next afternoon- you were pleased to wake up curled and tangled around a very naked Ashton. The pounding headache and dry mouth were a direct contrast.

You were thankful the curtains were still closed as the moderate darkness seemed to help the monster out hangover you were now feeling. You shifted slightly and were surprised to notice you weren’t entirely naked. You were wearing a t-shirt you didn’t remember owning. The words looked like gibberish but you gathered it was from the hotel’s gift shop.

The discovery prompted you to look around the room and you noticed something. Ashton’s fancy clothes and delightful red panties were joined by a pair of his jeans, another shirt, and an extra pair of your bottoms as well.

There were papers strewn on the nightstand and a shopping bag near the door that you didn’t remember buying. The cool air stung your bare legs and prompted you to curl back into Ashton who lazily smiled and kissed your temple as you rejoined him.

“G’morning darlin’,” he said through a yawn making you giggle.

“Do you remember going back out last night?”

Ashton shook his head but before he could say anything his ringtone cut through the silence and roused a chorus of pained groans from both of you.

He scrambled to answer it and you noticed the empty bottle of champagne on the other side of the bed, and what looked like a sacked minibar’s worth of trash with it.

I am never drinking again, you thought as the ringing subsided and your head began to throb.

“Michael wants us for brunch,” Ashton said tossing his phone back to the cluttered nightstand. You groaned at the thought of food and hoped it would be greasy enough to cut through the drunk brain fog.

You had to swing by Ashton’s room for him to get dressed making it a little later than anticipated when you finally got to the lobby. Crystal and Michael were sharing a love seat and as you both exited the elevator they erupted into raucous laughter and cheers that reverberated pain through your head.

“Aw fuck,” you hissed rubbing a hand on your temple. Ashton had an arm around your waist which kept yours from stumbling.

“Oh come on I expected a little more life after last night,” Michael called with a grin.

“I didn’t think Mikey was serious,” Crystal said, “do you have the papers on you?”

On top of them, Luke chimed in, “I got the whole crying jag on video it’ll make a hell of an update when we get back.”

You and Ashton shared a confused look and silently looked to Callum for help. He was drinking a delightful looking mimosa and sighed putting it down.

“I don’t think they remember,” he started before getting cut off.

“Awe no way! Look at them, they’re the picture of romantic bliss,” Michael taunted with a laugh.

You sighed, “come on now guys I know it’s a little odd for us to hook up but enough with the jokes.”

“Hook up?” Luke laughed, “that’s not what Elvis would have to say about it.”

You were trying not to get frustrated but it was hard. “Luke, what in the hell does Elvis have to do with anything?”

Callum cut in before the others could keep hounding you.

“Promise me you won’t freak out?”

You nodded and felt Ashton do the same.

“Alright,” Callum started slowly leaving time to gauge reactions as he spoke, “Luke and I got a call last night around 4:30, one of you were crying about how you ruined mike’s moment when you were too out of it to explain we came down here to meet you...”

As he spoke flashes of memories seemed to play in your mind. You almost remembered dialing the phone inside who to talk to, but certain you didn’t want to upset anyone.

“Apparently you’d just come in from one of those 24-hour chapels and we’re worried Mike and Crystal would be upset you stole the show.”

“Why would we go to a church?” Ashton asked slowly. Neither you nor Ashton were specifically interested in that sort of thing. Yet as he asked it you remembered stumbling through the lobby looking for something new to wear.

Your mind reeled trying to fit together pieces that you weren’t sure went to the same puzzle. You ran a hand through your hair a small ring on your hand catching in the light. You recognized it immediately as Ashton’s. Something borrowed, you thought unsure of why that mattered.

Callum shook his head as Michael dissolved into a fit of laughter.

“You dumbasses, you got married!”

You and Ashton quickly looked at each other and then back at the others and then back at each other trying to process this whirlwind of information.

The moment lingered longer than Michael found funny and without much else said you were whisked by the other happy couple off for brunch and out into a world where nothing would ever be the same.

#rpf #5sos writers collab #ashton x reader #5sos #oneshot #mermaidcashton #tw: alcohol

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dopescotlandwarrior · 4 years

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The Dancer-Chapter Four

A special thanks to @statell for all your help

Previous chapters on AO3

Chapter Four

Claire sat on a high-pile, soft rug with children circled around her. Jamie noticed they all leaned forward from their Indian-style positions, eyes wide and staring at Claire. They were all on their trusted ponies flying across the Arizona desert, running after the bad guys who robbed the train. Claire did her best to narrate the story with inflections of fear and desperation while the story became real to those around her.

Jamie made a trip to his office and was waiting for Claire when the wee ones ran to their mothers, laden with purchases from the store. The room emptied out in ten minutes and Jamie flopped down on an overstuffed chair. He handed a baggie full of orange slices to Claire.

He noticed that her hair was still down and today she wore a soft dress with a bright colored flower pattern. The skirt was almost to her ankles so sitting on the floor, being eye to eye with the kids was easy. He looked at her approvingly, happy she had embraced her new look.

Claire noticed Jamie hanging around during her Storytime and book club meetings and he always kept her after for conversation and shared food. She wasn’t sure she understood what he needed but if she could answer his questions and understand his conversation she just went with the flow.

“I’m leavin Claire. It’s time for a new manager to take over this store so I can get to Glasgow.”

“I’m sure you will be missed, Jamie.”

“I’ve been doin this for the past nine years. This is the last store I will build. Once it’s up and running I start a new job, new level, and maybe dinna move around so much. Even if I’m offered a corporate position it willna be here in Scotland. More likely Germany or London.”

Claire did not understand where the conversation was going so she just kept up for his sake. Jamie was always so confident about the book business, but she thought it sounded like a lonely existence and wondered if he felt the same. She had never known a man more beautiful than Jamie Fraser and thought it unlikely that he spent time alone if he didn’t want to. So why did he come to see her dance? Week after week leaving hundreds of pounds for her.

“Claire, I want ye to consider taking over for me, as manager of the store. Ye’ve owned a bookstore, this is just bigger. I trust ye lass and that is more important than any experience or degree. Please think about it and we can talk again in a few days.”

“How about tonight? There is so much I don’t know.” She watched him intently.

“Sorry lass. I have plans tonight and canna break em.”

Claire sped across town and found a grumpy Madu in her studio, pacing like an irritated bull. He could look quite intimidating Claire thought. He was over six foot with a muscular frame and a mop of black curls fell against his cheeks and forehead. A beautiful man, she thought, watching him in the seconds before he noticed her.

She could feel his interest in her, barely contained, ready to sweep her off her feet. They would make a good match she assumed. His family would embrace the orphan in her and Madu would show her the heights of passion she had only dreamed of. The union made perfect sense, but she had not fallen in love with him the way she always dreamed it would be.

Claire had only one reference for passion and love, the face of Jamie Fraser when she danced for him. She noticed the change in his look, his posture, his gaze that touched her in a place she had not known before. What started out as punishment for someone she hated had become a quest that she was ashamed of, but she continued, desperate to know what smoldered behind his eyes.

Claire jerked out of her reverie when Madu called to her. Her head flew up and she rattled off excuses for being late, running to dress for her dance. Madu gave her a knowing look and waited for the student to stand before him.

Claire considered Jamie’s offer to manage the bookstore. Her popularity for exhibition dancing and private parties had grown, as did her fees for such things. While the good people of Edinburgh were going to bed each night, she was draped in veils doing what she loved. She would help the new manager as much as she could but decided to decline Jamie’s offer.

As Jamie’s final days in Edinburgh grew near, he spent more time at the restaurant watching her dance. Claire tried to imagine his absence in her life, in the audience, and at the bookstore, as he went on with his life without her. The promise and desire behind his eyes would remain unknown to her and the blame was hers alone. If she had told him from the beginning that she was the dancer things would have gone differently. But she was hell-bent on revenge at that time and then it was too late. She tried to think of a dozen ways to tell him the truth but nothing would hide her betrayal, so she accepted her fate.

Jamie accepted Claire’s decision not to manage the bookstore like a gentleman and told her he was a phone call away if she needed anything. He promised to visit often as the new store was just a town away.

When he brought the new manager around for everyone to meet, Claire decided she was looking into the eyes of a human Bambi. John Grey was handsome on Jamie’s level but in a softer, more refined way. His smile was something to behold and she almost lost herself in it until she looked at Jamie and felt his power burn her on the inside.

Jamie was shaking hands and laughing with the staff, but he caught Claire in a moment of weakness and the look on her face made the hair on his neck stand up. She pulled away from the group and disappeared. He looked for her later wanting to spend some time with her before he left but she was nowhere to be found.

Claire drove home to get ready for her dance tonight. It felt like she was full of adrenalin with that awful feeling of impending doom. She knew this was about Jamie and his last night in Edinburgh. What ever did she want from the poor man who never received as much as a nod from her?

“Geillis! I have a problem. There is a man I have danced for numerous times. The way he looks at me makes my knees weak and I can barely keep it together. He is leaving town tomorrow and I may not see him again.”

“Okay Claire, you have my attention and I’m waiting for the problem. He’s married, he’s gay, he’s homeless, what?”

“No. None of those things. He’s perfect, and single, and moving to another town after tonight. I want to know him, that way, before I lose the opportunity.”

“That way?” Geillis was quiet for a minute. “Do ye mean ye want to fuck him, Claire?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then do it.”

Geillis caught on quickly that Claire needed help so she pledged to be there right after work, and they would make a plan.

Claire spent a quiet afternoon thinking about what she was doing and realized she could not stop herself if she wanted to. She spent an hour in a hot tub removing all her body hair, even her most intimate places. She was painstaking about her makeup, eyelashes, and bright red lipstick. The oil she smoothed over her skin was from Cairo, a gift from Madu. It heightened her senses when she dabbed it between her legs until she almost fell completely apart.

Pulling her most prized costume from her closet she zipped it into a garment bag for her second show, when she would touch Jamie and he would touch her.

Geillis whistled at the costume Claire chose and said she was getting hot just looking at it.

“Claire, relax. If ye want to fuck this guy and ye look like that, and he’s interested, then just let it happen.”

Geillis was winding the string of chains around Claire’s hips and looked at her friend.

“Ye know sex doesna bring love, right Claire?”

Claire nodded her head and raised her arms for the chain bra top Geillis was pulling onto her chest. It was time for her second dance and the invitation for Jamie to come to her dressing room. Claire felt the throbbing between her legs and could not wait for whatever was on the other side of that desire in his eyes.

When the spotlight hit the rows of chains, Claire sparkled like a thousand diamonds. Her body undulated up out of the fog layer Omar cranked out. Her performance was raw, and sexual, the best of her career because she would never have a greater prize than Jamie Fraser to dance for.

Jamie sat transfixed, unable to move as he watched the undulating hips and popping breasts promise forbidden love, the kind he would trade his soul for. As she spun in his direction the chains flew out at waist level looking punishing for any man who ventured to close to her. He watched her spin away from him and in a magical moment, he saw a card left on the table.

I await you, is all it said, and Jamie shook his head wondering if he imagined it was an invitation. He walked to the stage door and knocked softly. Diners were still eating but didn’t seem to notice him waiting for the door to open.

A warm hand pulled him into the dressing room which glowed with dozens of candles that smelled amazing and exotic. He bent to Claire and kissed her softly, noticing her chest rise and fall with her deep breathing. Whether from arousal or nerves he would take his time and see her relaxed and needy before he feasted on her body.

“What is your name lass?”

In that instant, Claire’s plan popped like a bubble. Holy crap, she thought, I have to talk to him? Why the hell didn’t I think this through? Her panic was rising, gripping her throat to choke her for being so selfish and concupiscent. In her panic, she could not think of a way to control the situation. She was bested and she knew it, so she just stopped moving and hung her head. She had heard enough Arabic to string some words together and show Jamie the door.

He looked confused but he left, and she locked the door behind him. Claire was too exhausted to cry or do anything else. She laid on the sofa waiting to hear Jamie’s truck drive away, praying he would not come back with more talking. She closed her eyes and imagined his touch, above her, beside her, behind her. Her body craved him and the sublime physical joining that would free her from the mundane world she lived in. Why had she convinced herself this was even possible? Because at the moment it felt like her life depended on it.

Claire heard Omar knock softly on the dressing room door, probably waiting to walk her out. When the door swung open Jamie lifted her up and kissed her quiet as he pulled the breath out of her lungs and every thought from her mind.

“No talking lass, just let me kiss you and touch you a bit then I go, without a word. There’s a reason you invited me here and a reason I came, that’s enough for me.” His kiss seared her lips with his heat and his hands ran over her body like he was touching the holy grail.

Claire twisted the buttons open and pushed his shirt off. She gazed at his muscled chest and arms feeling herself blush when he chuckled at her reaction. The kissing continued until Claire’s mind and body belonged to James Fraser. When she pulled her bra top off he held her away to look at her, then he embraced her, skin on skin, tilting her head up to kiss him again.

Claire knew the chains and veils would not easily come off without instruction and she did not want him to stop kissing so she pulled them off and stepped out of the tiny pants.

Jamie feasted on her perfect skin and lithe form watching the candlelight bounce off the flat planes of her body. He was speed stripping to catch up with her nakedness, wanting to feel her inside and out for as long as she let him.

Claire laid on the sofa, arms raised to him, mouth open, chest heaving. Jamie burned the sight of her into his brain to keep forever. His large warm hands caressed every inch of her from neck to feet as he laid soft kisses in their path. She felt his hot breath on her nipples before he filled his mouth and sucked to make her remember. When she was powerless to move, he pushed her arms over her head and wrapped several chains around her wrists before he stole the remaining part of her brain. His kiss started softly as his knuckles ran down her body, over her nipples, brushing against her core.

Each minute was more exciting and pleasurable than the last as Jamie swept her into an erotic fog that shot firecrackers to her brain. When Jamie’s knuckles started their return trip, he nudged her legs apart and dragged a finger up her fold. Claire bucked in his arms and she struggled to loosen the chains on her wrists. His long arm pulled the chains tight just before she felt his beard on the soft skin of her inner thigh. Pulling her legs apart he placed what felt like dozens of soft kisses between her legs, and inner thighs. Every few minutes the tip of his tongue would touch her bud nearly rocking her off the couch.

Claire didn’t think she could take much more without self-combusting. She felt Jamie shift his position and his hot, wet tongue slid into her, torturously slow as she gasped and arched her back seeking friction.

He would not be hurried with the beautiful dancer and intended to make this last, for both their sake. Claire was immobilized, without hands to distract him, so he set a slow pace and was thrilled the way her body reacted to him. He pressed his tongue deeper into her and his gigantic erection grazed the side of the sofa, hot and angry for being ignored.

Two long fingers replaced his tongue and he felt the walls of her pussy clamp down as he moved them in and out. She moaned and rocked his fingers feeling like she would explode. Jamie felt joy and satisfaction watching her fall apart. He lowered his head and flicked her bud viciously knowing the instant she left the earth. No longer on the plane of mortal man, she kissed angels and fell through layers of sparkling, raw sensation.

She felt the chains loosen around her wrist as Jamie kissed her deeply, preventing her full return to sanity. He wanted more, and she wanted to give it. He carefully negotiated the small sofa, pulling her knees up, creating a space to lay his long body as his tip pressed lightly against her opening. The intensity of his kissing made Claire’s hips rise to find him. Jamie smiled at her heroic effort to squirm under him until her wet pussy was pressing his tip into her.

He held her hips still and slowly pushed into her, watching her expression, feeling her energy shift to acquiescence. She surrendered to his strength, his need, his promise. As Jamie pushed into her he laid claim to her mind, soul, and body. His hard thrusting was banging into her clit making her lose her mind. Jamie kissed her deeply and felt her body grab him as her back arched tightly against his chest.

Jamie watched Claire’s orgasm second by second. She was wild, uninhibited, and completely under his spell. He released the iron grip on himself, slamming into her at least a dozen times, fearing he would lose his mind from the stinging in his balls.

The banging cymbals leading up to his release suddenly stopped as he was rocked to the core with pulsing pleasure. He floated back to her and nuzzled her neck. They were slippery with sweat and Jamie gathered her under him to keep her warm while she dozed. When she would startle awake her arms clutched him around his neck like she didn’t want to be without him, making his heart ache for her.

Jamie laid very still, watching Claire succumb to her exhaustion and kissing her quiet when she startled. He did not want this to end and letting her sleep added precious moments with her. He pulled her into a massive cuddle that overwhelmed her sluggish senses and she slept deeply for several hours while Jamie watched.

He was not used to the intensity of their lovemaking that now filled his head. Remembering her body quaking under him, mouth and eyes open, chest heaving while he pushed his full length into her. He could feel his erection growing until it throbbed for her again. She startled and grabbed him wrapping her arms around him to hold him to her.

Jamie pulled her to his chest and wiggled under her as his large hands held her gorgeous butt against him. She kissed him like her life depended on it and when he broke the kiss, she chased his mouth until he was putty in her hands. When she felt his tip against her, she pushed back until he slipped into her with a gasp.

Control temporarily lost, he wrapped his hands around her shoulders pulling down and pushing his cock deeper inside her. Jamie almost came when he looked into the eyes of a woman who would shred this couch to get to him. She needed to come, like a powder cake ready to explode and only he could make it happen.

Jamie grabbed her shoulders and lifted her upper body, so she straddled him. He groaned when her body opened to him, letting him sink into her warm wetness. Claire glared at him, panting, hands splayed on his chest. The feeling was so intense she couldn’t help but move her hips until she felt Jamie’s strong hands on top of her shoulders, holding her down. He sat up so they were face to face and pressed her shoulders down again feeling his dick go deeper into her body. He watched her eyes, only inches from his own. She didn’t know what was happening and no longer cared. She trusted Jamie to see her safely through the explosions she knew were coming.

We are almost there love, he thought, as he pushed her shoulders down and pressed his erection even deeper. Claire was wide-eyed and wanton when he impaled her, and he knew she had not been touched like this before.

Claire knew something was about to happen, good or bad she was powerless to stop it. He touched her cheek and smiled, then he touched her throbbing core and watched Claire’s world spin out of control. She threw her head back and rocked him with her hips until she slowly came back to earth. Her eyes opened and she smiled her gratitude, breathing deeply. He touched it again and she flew even higher in a long continuous moan as her hips rocked his cock again.

Jamie could not hold out any longer and flipped them pushing her legs over his shoulders for a dozen thrusts and stopped. Claire watched him get to his knees and push her legs open. He stared at her core for a long minute before he pulled her pelvis up and entered her again, watching the erotic show as his cock slid into her, over and over again until he shuttered and exploded deep inside her.

Jamie collapsed next to her panting for his life and refusing to let her go. He felt her hands on his cheeks as she kissed his face a dozen times, and then he felt nothing.

Some hours later Jamie woke up and smiled at the curled angel he held. He was leaving for his next job in Glasgow and wondered if he would ever see her again. He felt his heart swell at her trust and mutual interest. When he pushed the hair out of her face she smiled and pulled a lungful of air and opened her eyes.

Claire woke up to panic as the room was filling with light from the sunrise. Jamie could see the panic on her face and jumped up to dress quickly. He promised no words, so he kissed her softly and left.

She laid still with her heart ramming until she heard Jamie’s truck roar onto the road. Ten minutes later she was brave enough to get up and pull her sweatsuit on before disposing of the evidence of their magical night. She wondered if she would ever again feel a man touch her like Jamie did.

Claire looked at her watch and counted the hours until Geillis would come to get this wig off her head. Geillis added dots of the glue around the entire wig, so she didn’t worry about it slipping. Now she couldn’t get even a finger under it. She dropped her keys on the kitchen table heading for the shower. Raising her leg over the tub she saw warm liquid from Jamie run down her inner thigh. She watched it until her tears rolled down her cheeks and she pressed her face into a towel and sobbed.

Jamie pulled into Lallybroch and noticed Ian’s car in the driveway again. He looked up at Jenny’s window forming a possible reason before shaking his head and laughing. “It’ll never happen,” he said out loud. Ian was like a family member. Since they were lads Lallybroch was his second home and he often met up with friends and left his car overnight.

An hour later, Jamie tossed his suitcase, and briefcase in the back of his truck, the garment bag with his suits was hung inside the cab. With Glasgow just an hour away it hardly felt like he was going anywhere. How odd, he thought, that his last project would be in Scotland and so close to his home.

Once his big black truck was pointed at Glasgow, he sat back and let his mind drift back to the trauma he felt leaving home the first year. He hugged Jenny for a full minute and looked at her crying eyes trying to be brave. His Da shook his hand beaming with pride and fighting his own tears. Jamie walked away to board a very large plane that would fly him to Ann Arbor Michigan where he would build his first store.

The odds were stacked in his favor thanks to eight gentlemen that knew what factors influenced success and correctly matched the project to the manager. Putting Jamie on the other side of the world, where English was spoken, the winters were long and cold, in a college town with a superior football team, and thousands of coeds was no accident.

The next year was Italy, after that France, then back to America, England, Australia, Italy again, Germany, Edinburgh, and now Glasgow. He always came home to Lallybroch to rest. Sometimes it was three months, many years it was less.

Jamie’s natural charisma pulled people to him like moths to flame so he never felt lonely, or afraid. He saw his life as a never-ending string of new experiences, new challenges, and new people to meet, which became his Achilles heel.

Jamie remembered her still, the girl he cared for in Ann Arbor, the girl he left behind and then missed for the entire next year. It was a lesson to his heart to stay away from those most interesting, the most lovable, the most anything. He would find a lass or two in each town and move on quickly when they wanted more from him. It was a hard thing to do because he craved intimacy and feeling connected to someone. As his Scotland friends paired up and became a husband, Jamie realized he was going against the natural order, denying himself a heart to love. It got harder each year, but he never faltered from his plan. He would not leave a string of broken hearts in his wake.

The dancer crept into his thoughts and in his mind he reached for her, lovingly, protectively. Well, looks like yer comin to Glasgow with me. I thought maybe last night would cure me but here ye are. I’m no sorry. Ye are a rare gift to the world and I dinna want to let ye go. Not yet.

Geillis was losing patience, “hold still or I’ll spill this acetone in yer eye!”

She wasn’t feeling charitable this morning after being roused from her newest squeeze by a begging Claire. She dabbed the Q-tip into the glue as she pulled the hair from Claire’s skin.

“I hope the sex was worth all this.” She paused for a minute. “This is when ye tell me all about it lass.”

Claire stared out her kitchen window with a blank face seeming not to hear her friend's inquiry. She felt him touch her skin with warm hands that made magic happen the whole night. She tasted salty sweat from kissing his face when he was still far away spinning in pleasure.

“Claire!”

“What!”

“I’m talkin to ye lass. I’m gonna pull it off, ye ready?”

The wig pulled away and Claire instantly felt ten degrees cooler to her relief.

“Meet me at the wig store after work. Ye canna wear that one until yer skin heals. We can find somethin else to use. I have to break land-speed records to make it to work on time. Sorry to leave ye with the mess.”

Claire crawled into her bed where she would dream of copper-colored curls that tickled her nose, and thighs, and back.

For the next month, she spent a lot of time at the bookstore helping the new manager get settled. When she heard little voices yell her name she brightened considerably and watched tiny bodies run to the glass room with grateful mothers behind them.

The second month came and went but the bookstore still felt cold and sterile to her. John was becoming a dear friend who craved her company because he was alone in a strange city. Compared to Jamie, it was child’s play to avoid John’s constant questions about her other job. Claire was rarely bothered with anxiety anymore, so life went on with no great highs and no great lows.

When Claire was reading to her pint-sized fans she reached across the circle and pretended to grab someone's nose as little people erupted in laughter. Claire giggled back to her sitting position and froze when she heard his voice. Her heart was ramming and her ears almost hurt as they were seeking another sound wave, his wave, his cadence, and burr.

The story was over and the kids piled out to their waving mothers. Claire’s legs were hugged tight and tiny sets of eyes looked up to her smiling and waving. She waved back as the last few mothers led their children toward the exit. And there he was.

Claire felt the air evacuate from the room as she watched his genuine smile and outstretched arms. She leaned into him, smelling something lovely and familiar, wanting so badly to touch his curls and face. She felt his vibrating laugh when she hugged him and then quickly righted herself back to the friend zone tucking away her wants and desires for someone forbidden.

She smiled when John or Jamie made a joke but otherwise busied herself with cleaning up her room and flicking the lights off. She walked quickly to the exit and felt strong hands grab her arm pulling her to a halt. She knew that touch, those big hands, and felt herself shake inside.

“How is the new project going, Jamie?”

“It’s been a bitch, still is, but I’m done-in from all that anxiety and deadline insomnia.” He smiled at her, so relaxed and looking genuinely happy to see her. “I’m goin back tomorrow once I conclude some business here in Edinburgh, part of which is you.”

Claire looked up at him trying to look coy and relaxed. “What pray tell would that be?”

“Next weekend is Easter, Claire. I want ye to come to Lallybroch and spend the day with Jenny and me. Will ye come?”

“Yes, that would be lovely, thank you. And John? Will he be joining us too?”

“Who?”

Claire tilted her head to the upstairs office where John would be sweating bullets waiting for Jamie to announce the real reason he was here and hoping to have his job when he was through.

“Ah, yes of course lass, John too.”

Claire offered her hand and saw the change in Jamie’s face. “Until next weekend then.”

Jaime climbed the steps to the manager’s office feeling off balance at Claire’s stiff goodbye. His mind was in constant flux between two women since he left. The dancer reigned supreme in his thoughts and dreams, but he missed Claire in his life.

He felt his body calling to her, the dancer, and he knew it would take wild horses to keep him away from her tonight.

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wonwoosthetic · 5 years

Text

Jake Gyllenhaal on Getting Set Up

MASTERLIST is on my blog :)

So, after quite some time it’s time for a new imagine! I’m now writing regularly again and taking requests for Spiderman FFH! :) Watched it and LOVED it!!! I’m also taking requests for Preacher and Sons Of Anarchy from now on as I have come to realise that there are just not enough on here and I would love to write some myself :)

Request: hi are your requests open? if so i was wondering if you would do a jake gyllenhaal fic based on an interview he had with ellen called “jake gyllenhaal on being single” and they talk about his mom setting him up with someone and that’s what happens

Characters: Jake Gyllenhaal x Reader, Ellen DeGeneres, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (mentioned)

Warnings: none

The Interview: Jake Gyllenhaal on Being Single (sorry, still can’t link anything)

Jake Gyllenhaal on Getting Set Up

The white sofa in the green room backstage was comfortable enough for you to chill and watch your boyfriend give an interview on TV. He was sitting across from Ellen laughing and making jokes while you looked at the recording with admiration. You had just heard someone yell "Back in 3, 2, 1", signalizing that they were back from the break and continuing the interview.

Ellen started, "We were just talking about first dates and bad first dates. Have you had bad first dates?" Jake shifted in his seat, "Uhm", he stuttered, "Well, one thing I always do, is.. I always bring my dates to my mother's house for the first date." His answer made everyone in the audience laugh, as well as you too. Ellen looked into the room playfully uncomfortable as she "didn't know" how to answer. Your boyfriend just had an expression of "what?" on his face, as if asking the people watching, what was wrong about his statement. "Well, that's like...", he mumbled but didn't continue his sentence. "See!", the blonde woman stated. Jake immediately defended himself, "I think that's a good move", and Ellen agreed, "It is a good move. Yeah, she thought so too, she thought it was a great idea", referring to a woman in the audience, making everyone laugh again. "My-my mother believes that, like, she thinks arranged marriages actually might be able to work, you know what I mean? Like, in a good way", the actor narrated. "Really?", Ellen asked, almost not believing, what he had just said. He nodded his head, "Yeah, she does, she thinks if she picks for me that I'd do a lot better." The audience laughed once more. Ellen wanted to know more, "And has she ever picked for you? Has she said 'Hey, I met somebody that maybe you should meet.'?"

--- Flashback ---

"Mom, I'm really not into blind dates, you should know that", Jake was leaning on the counter of his parents' house kitchen, discussing with his mother her newest idea involving his love life. "Trust me, Jakey, please", she begged him while stirring the spaghetti sauce for Sunday's family dinner, "I've only known her for a few months but she is A-MAZING. She's sweet, and lovely, and caring, and a good writer, god, such a good writer. That girl is gonna get far in her career." "Mom, your point?" She turned towards him, right arm on her hip, "My point young man, is, that for once you should listen to me and trust me with my taste in women for you. I've seen your relationships... maybe if I choose somebody for you, they will turn out differently", she explained with raised eyebrows. Jake didn't want to admit it right away, but that woman knew what she was talking about.

After thinking for a bit, he gave in, "Alright, what's her name?" Naomi smiled in triumph.

--- End of Flashback ---

Jake started laughing cheekily, "Ehm... yeah", he swiped his hands over his thighs, "yeah, she has", and cleared his throat - that was another reason for the people watching to laugh, as well as Ellen. "Aaand?", she was on to the details. Your boyfriend just looked at her with wide eyes, "Aaaand?", he imitated her. "How did it go?!", the woman asked excitedly. Jake hesitated at first, not knowing how much you wanted America to know, "Yeah... pretty smoothly?", his answer sounding more like a question. Ellen definitely didn't believe him and started chuckling.

You laughed backstage, not remembering it actually starting quite as smooth since both of you were actually quite nervous.

--- Flashback ---

Your heart was extremely close to pounding out of your chest as you were sitting in your car that was parked on the side of the road directly across from Naomi's house, more nervous than you have ever been. You closed your eyes, trying to collect yourself before you wanted to make your way to the front door.

"You can come in, you know?", a voice spoke up next to you. You jumped up and screamed, "OH GOD!", with your hand on your heart, you tried to calm yourself down, "Jesus", and breathed out. The woman at your open car window started laughing, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that, I just saw your car here. I was taking out the trash." You looked to your left and saw a brown-haired woman that looked exactly like a younger version of Naomi - it was Maggie, her daughter and Jake's sister. "Right, sorry, yeah", you were still a bit shaken up but grabbed your bag, and the flowers you bought and got out of the car. "I'm Maggie, by the way", she stuck her hand out with a smile, which you gladly took and shook, "(Y/N), very nice to meet you." "Can only say the same", she answered kindly, "my mom told me so much about you but I think she told Jake WAY more", making both of you laugh. "Oh, god", you shook your head with a smile.

You reached the door and Maggie opened it, letting you go in first, "Mom! Jake! Look who I found!", she shouted into the house. The faces of Naomi and her son appeared from around the corner, "(Y/N)!", the older woman came jogging to you, embracing you in a big and tight hug, clearly happy to see you, which she also said. She then stepped back and let Jake come closer, "Jake, this is (Y/N), (Y/N) Jake", she introduced the two of you with hand-gestures. You shook hands and he leaned in to give you a kiss on the cheek, the gentleman that he was - Naomi raised him right. "Very nice to meet you (Y/N), my mom can't shut up about you", he joked as you separated. You let out a chuckle, let your head fall a little bit, and looked at Naomi, who just smiled sheepishly at you.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room until the older woman spoke up, "Maggie, would you help me in the kitchen?" She looked up quickly and nodded her head, "Yeah, sure." You wanted to offer your help but got cut off, " We're gonna let you two get to know each other a bit more", and with a wide grin, Maggie left the room as well.

The silence continued while awkward glances were shared by the two of you. Jake thoughts were racing through his brain, trying to find a subject to talk about - you were hoping he would come up with one. "Should I show you around the house?", he suddenly asked. Your head shot up and you nodded, "Yeah, that'd be great." Slowly but surely the actor came up with more questions to ask you, falling into a pleasant conversation between you. "So, you work with my mum? What do you do? She didn't want to tell me too much", he joked, making you chuckle. "I-I'm a writer, and hopefully one day a director. She's helping me rewrite a script", you explained. His eyebrows scrunched as you exited the house, walking into the garden, "Why rewriting? What happened?" You sighed, "It-It's kinda a long story." He just looked at you with a kind smile, "We've got time."

--- End of Flashback ---

But at least it ended well.

Lost in your thoughts, you didn't hear your boyfriend's explanation of your first meeting but quickly turned your attention back to the interview. "It sounds though, like - that she was just as nervous", Ellen said. Jake shifted in the seat, "Yeah, well, I mean a blind date is always something to be a bit nervous about right?", making a few people chuckle in response. "And, do you know what your mom told (Y/N) when she tried to set you two up?", she wanted to know. Jake thought for a bit and started telling your side of the story, bringing back old memories.

--- Flashback ---

You were sitting in the writer's room, collecting your thoughts, trying to write them down but scrapping every idea right after - slowly but surely you were getting frustrated. You had finally found a production company that would help you finance your movie. The script was pretty much done but all of a sudden they told you that you needed to rewrite pretty much half of it because all of a sudden they didn't agree with it anymore. Being too deep in thought, you didn't notice the door opening and the older woman entering, "(Y/N)?" You didn't hear her. She repeated your name three more times before starting to wave her hand in front of your face. You flinched and looked up," Hm?", you shook your head, "Sorry...", looking up, you saw the concerned face of Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, the woman you trust with your life and who has been your writing partner for four months, "What's going on?"

You tried to collect yourself again, sat straight up and kept a straight face, trying not to let her show just how tired you were. She sat down on the other corner of the table and grabbed your hand, "Honey, what is going on? You've been sitting in this room every day for weeks now?" "I-", you tried to start to defend yourself but she cut you off, "And don't you dare try to talk yourself out of this! I've seen you sleep on this exact chair", pointing at your current sitting place. You stared at her. That was all you could do at that point. You haven't known each other for a very long time but the way she talked to you made your eyes water. She has been caring for you like a mother would for her daughter and you felt comforted just by her presence - and mainly also because she was the only one who liked your ideas and supported you through that hard time with the production company.

You were scared you wouldn't be able to get actual words out... and you were right, "It's all just too much right now,", you whispered, right followed by a big sob and the tears started falling, "I don't know what to do." Your head fell down on your arms that were rested on the table. Naomi jumped up, ran behind you and started running her hand up and down your back, "Oh, sweetie..." Her hand was then on your head, caressing your hair. She rested her head on your shoulder, holding you by your upper arms, "For how long have you been single now?"

You stopped crying and turned around, confusion written all over your face, "What?", you sobbed once more, "Don't you think that question is kind of, well... a little inappropriate?" But she only smiled.

--- End of Flashback ---

The entire audience laughed at the story, Ellen was almost not able to hold it together, "Wow... your mom really knows how to be smooth." Jake laughed, tilting his head slightly back, "Yeah, well", and shrugged his shoulders as he also raised his hands, "But she... she definitely does have great taste." The interviewer nodded, "I can tell, for how long have you been together now?" "Threeee? Years?", he looked at the woman in front of him, unsure of his answer - she nodded, letting him know his "question" was actually right, so he nodded confidently, "Yeah, right, three years. Well, a little bit over three, but yeah." "And I hope you thank your mom for that", she raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh yes, yeah definitely", Jake smiled at the camera, knowing you and his mom were watching.

After keeping up a bit of small talk, Ellen out of a sudden shot out a question Jake for sure didn't expect, "So, when are you going to drop the big question?" The entire audience started cheering and your boyfriend's cheeks heated up. "Of course you were gonna ask that question", he smiled smugly at the woman.

-------------------------------------------

A big thank you to all of you for your patience and support! Over the last month I’ve gained so many more followers and you guys wrote me so many wonderful comments, I’m incredibly thankful!!!

Thank you for the request, I hope you and everyone else enjoyed it!

Hope you all have a great day/night! :)

#jake gyllenhaal imagine #jake gyllenhaal masterlist #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal x fem!reader #jake gyllenhaal x female!reader

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sandersimagination · 6 years

Text

Wassup, ST here! You remember that information Sleep said we were gathering? Well I’m here to present it to you. Well, at least some of it. So here’s some general facts about those of us available for asks!

Sleep:

Lives off coffee

Poor child has horrible nightmares and refuses to sleep until he just crashes

The only way in which you could bribe him to sleep is with cuddles (They chase away the nightmares)

He is the epitome of clingy when sleeping

Ironically, or unironically depending how you look at it, he has the ability to knock someone out cold (putting them to sleep not punching them Anxiety, chill)

Hates Anxiety with a passion like nobody's business (None of us can figure out why though, asides from Emile but he refuses to share claiming “doctor, patient confidentiality”

Whenever there’s a concert you can bet your money that Sleep will be there, dragging Virgil along with him

You know that bag he has with him? Ya he never leaves it unattended and no one knows what’s in it.

Has photophobia (That’s why he has those glasses he never takes off) The cause has not been determined, although Emile thinks it might have something to do with Sleep’s glowing eyes.

Has no sense of direction

Says he’s going to the store, next thing you know he calling asking you to pick him up cause he’s somehow found his way to The Witches Tower (Which is all the way across Ro’s kingdom from the city)

He moves quietly, you could be sitting in the living room with nothing on (it’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop) and he’ll come through into the kitchen then back out the front door without you even knowing he was there.

If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.

Emile Picani:

Is a psychologist

Meaning he’ll do more than just relationship therapy

He’s not a medical doctor, there the Surgeon for medical emergencies

He’s taken to studying somethings in terms of magic for anyone of Ro’s kingdom (and Sleep) who might need assistance

Loves childrens shows.

He finds small messages or characters to relate back to his patients

Tends to be the one to aid Sleep in his adventures

This is because he doesn’t really have any other patients at the moment aside from the steven universe team

And won’t until there’s another episode of Cartoon therapy being produced

This also doesn’t mean they all have continual issues, asides from poor Elliot, it more means that they go there to talk with PIcani about things not necessarily relationship wise

When exploring the town with Sleep you better bet that he carries around the cheeseburger backpack

He also makes sure to get them both donuts at some point while exploring

Has a sweet tooth

Can’t consume coffee cause it makes him jittery and he can’t focus well

Missy (Misleading Compliments):

He’s the Thomas from the misleading compliments vines

Sweetest bean

Look like as cinnamon roll and is one but he can still kill you

Mess with his friends and they’ll never find your body

… this time it’s not a compliment

Really flirtatious, but knows when to stop or tone it down

Sometimes he’s a flirt without meaning to, but it’s just in his nature

Might accidentally say an innuendo without meaning to most of the time

Is also a gentleman

Will open a door for you and refuse to let you pay for dinner, even if he just met you

Anytimes Deceit comes around he can be easily influenced by the false compliments

When Virge reveals however who Deceit actually is (He lied about his identity the first meeting) Missy is the first one to deck him in the face next time he shows up

Will fite you behind Dennys if you try to talk bad about yourself

Pranks (Pranks with Friends):

He’s the Thomas from the Pranks with friends series

Avid lover of Pokemon and his love of Disney can rival Roman’s

April fools is his favorite holiday

He makes sure that any pranks he pulls are harmless

Of course this doesn’t mean that there haven’t been a few that have caused some issues

One of his pranks went horribly wrong and he’s avoided the mention of it since

The largest goofball/dork you will ever meet

Of the trio he’s the most innocent

Deceit gets the brunt of any/all of his pranks

Wears hoodies 24/7/365

As soon as Pokemon Go came out he’s been all over it

He made ST and Missy play as well. Of course they had to all choose different teams

Pranks:Instinct. Missy:Mystic. ST: Valor

Hurt his friends and he’ll pull the most harmless, yet annoying pranks to get back at you.

As a warning. After that it’ll get physical

ST (Narrating your lives):

ST (Short for Story Time) is the Thomas from the Narrating Your Lives vines

Will also respond to Narrator

He’s an Extra™ boi

If you can’t find him with the other two then head to Ro’s village,he’ll be there directing and writing plays with Roman.

If this was a human AU or they had actual history as kids in school then he definitely would have been the one to be bullied.

When narrating people’s lives he has been punched before

If we’re playing the who’s most innocent with the trio, then he’d be the least

Aims to add puns in where ever he sees fit

Or if he comes up with one

Missy normally winds up beating him to it though

Kind of impulsive

Brain:

Impulse control? Who’s she? Never heard of her.

Intrusive thoughts are powerful in this one yes.

If your friend jumped off the bridge would you?

The answer yes, by the way

Also the little shite actually ate a tide pod

The only reason he’s not dead is cause he’s a figment of Thomas’s imagination

He did become terribly ill though

Now they have to be locked up on a high shelf

That has not stopped him from summoning more unfortunately

Within the short amount of time Anxiety has been around he’s become Brain’s babysitter

He can be mature and reasonable when he wants to

For some reason that goes just as horribly

Duet (Drive-by-Duets):

The Thomas from the Drive-by-Duet vines

He randomly breaks into song

He's a precious bean

Encourages everyone planning on trying out acting or some music based career

He's also can be found with Roman and ST in the village

He is an less Extra™ boi but he is still extra

Can play literally any instrument

Dorky gentleman

Where Missy is smooth Duet trips over his own feet trying to pull out your seat for you

He is also clumsy when not trying to be smooth

He is not allowed into the kitchen unsupervised

Can sing like an angel but can't dance to save his life

Elliot:

Smol bean

Must be protected (Sleep’s words not mine)

Listens to “emo” music (Like MCR, Evanessense, Set it Off, to name a few)

He loves his boyfriend, he really does and he swears Michael loves him too (Sleep would beg to differ, but doesn’t try arguing)

When Sleep and Virgil go off to concerts they always makes sure lend the invitation to Elliot

While he doesn’t always accept the offer, he does appreciate the thought.

They haven’t really felt like sharing much so this all there is currently

Corne:

Sloane and Corbin, precious beans

Sleep claims that Sloane is more dangerous than he seems

Sleep also claims that Corbin has not much of and idea what he got himself into by dating Sloane

He refuses to say why he thinks this way

Sloane takes life as it comes and doesn’t let bad things deter him.

Corbin’s a bit more of a prepare for the worst and hope for the best

Aaannnd Corbin refused to let us ask anymore questions after that so that’s all for now.

Dorry:

Larry and Dot are rebellious teen adults.

Dot doesn’t know her own strength sometimes

They pick on each other occasionally, but it’s all in good fun.

Larry tries too hard occasionally to be… hip? Would that be the word to use??

Dot’s one of those teachers that’s awesome as a person, but aggravating as a teacher

Anything else was found by Emile, who keeps claiming doctor patient confidentiality

Vitani (The Dragonwitch):

Despite what was mentioned before about Roman’s characters being the least aware, she’s actually as aware as Sleep and us.

She’s dubbed herself Vitani because it’s easier than always calling her dragonwitch.

Don’t tell Roman though

The head witch and alpha dragon

She’s got her work cut out for her.

Can shapeshift like the sides, through the use of her magic.

Her magic color is green cause Every Villain Is Lime

She’d much prefer a shade of Red-violet but it can’t be helped now

Is very Sassy™

Can and will shapeshift into a dragon at will

Can be found hanging out with Virgil is some of her spare time

This you also don’t tell Roman

Not just for her sake but for Virgil’s as well

On that note don’t mention it to the others that Virgil comes here period

Steer clear when she and Roman are in the midst of battle

Virgil:

Anxious boyo

He’s not kidding don’t tell the others he’s here doing this

Favorite band is Evanescence

Is normally here either to talk with Vitani or go to a concert with Sleep

Virgil is normally the one Sleep ends up cuddling in his sleep

Virgil allows it because it has mutual benefits

Sleep will, well, sleep and Virgil can rest easier

No one is too sure what he and Vitani do when they’re hanging out

Any questions about the others? Just ask us and we’ll see if we can answer.

#Fun fact #When typing out Elliot I wound up having to go do something else #and when I came back the latest point said #“When they”#And that was it #So I sat for a while questioning #“when they what?”#before I had to just move on #or I’d never get these done #Sleep sanders #Roman Sanders #Virgil sanders #Emile picani #Sanders shorts #Sanders sides #cartoon therapy

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un-enfant-immature · 5 years

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Gift Guide: TechCrunch writers recommend their favorite reads from 2019

2019 offered a blistering catalog of books to peruse, on top of the prodigious publishing schedules of the past few years (if you think we are at Peak TV, you might want to check out your local bookstore for a counterpoint).

We already checked in with Extra Crunch readers and did a sort of reader’s choice selection of their twelve favorites, but I also asked our TechCrunch editorial staff about what they read this year and would recommend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they came back with a mix of books (and audiobooks!) on tech, startups, biographies, graphic novels, and true crime fiction like the proper nerds we all are over here.

The criteria was that the book had to be read in 2019, but didn’t necessarily have to be published this calendar year. In part, that’s because books that may not have been all that interesting in the past suddenly got their turn in the spotlight for whatever reasons (headlines, viral influencer recommendations on Goop, or what have you).

In short, here are eleven writers at TechCrunch and the thirteen books that made the largest impact on them, any one of which would make a great gift for that techno-geek friend of yours.

Zack Whittaker

Sandworm: A New Era Of Cyberwar And The Hunt For The Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers by Andy Greenberg

Doubleday / 368 pages / November 2019

Publisher’s Link

Zack has long covered the daily breaches, cybersecurity hacks, and other data leaks that plague our world today (just last month: hacks at Macy’s and Magic: the Gathering). So perhaps unsurprisingly, his favorite book of the year was about none other than Russian hackers:

Andy Greenberg’s latest book on Sandworm, the group of Russian hackers blamed for the most disruptive cyberattack in history, is a real page-turner. Greenberg’s Sandworm is a gripping tale of the group’s discovery and their attacks, from shutting off the electric grids in Eastern Europe to the spread of the NotPetya ransomware attack, which froze hospitals, railways, and ATMs. Although written for the layperson, it’s detailed enough to satisfy any expert, and the use of first person draws in the reader to the story’s narrative. This incredibly detailed detective-style book — leaving no stone unturned — and the refreshing addition of footnotes — is a must-read for anyone interested cybersecurity.

Andy Greenberg himself has long covered security and hacking, and is currently a senior writer at Wired. This is his second book, following publication of This Machine Kills Secrets in 2012 about Julian Assange.

Sarah Perez

The Baddest Bitch in the Room by Sophia Chang

Audible Original by Hello Sunshine / 8 hours / September 2019

Publisher’s Link

Sarah has long taken a deep view into the world of mobile and apps (among a huge host of other topics), but her favorite audiobook this year comes from a behind-the-scenes player in the music industry who carefully puts herself out into the spotlight:

You don’t have to be a huge hip-hop fan to love Sophia Chang’s new memoir, but her Audible Original does include some impressive name-dropping. A music industry veteran, Chang managed rap and R&B stars like the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, GZA, and ODB, as well as A Tribe Called Quest, Raphael Saadiq and D’Angelo.

But her story is more than a music industry retrospective. Chang is also the fiercely independent child of Korean immigrants who left Vancouver for New York, as well as a woman who fell in love with a Shaolin monk, learned kung fu, shaved her head to shred stereotypes of Asian women, and became a mother, all while working her way up in her career.

In her self-narrated memoir (which includes some 24 guest appearances!), she steps into the limelight after a life spent behind the scenes helping talented artists tell their stories. She’s smart, funny, and inspirational — and someone, as her story shows, who has really earned the title “baddest bitch.”

Walter Thompson

Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography by Rebecca M. Jordan-Young and Katrina Karkazis

Harvard University Press / 288 pages / October 2019

Publisher’s Link

Heading in the other direction a bit, our new senior editor at Extra Crunch Walter Thompson recommends a “biography” of a well-known but surprisingly misunderstood steroid that is getting its own time in the limelight:

Written by a sociomedical scientist and a cultural anthropologist, the book explodes many of the common myths surrounding the hormone erroneously associated with male virility and masculinity. Jordan-Young and Karkazis delve into science and history to explain how testosterone has been generally misrepresented by popular culture and the medical industry by exploring how ’T’ impacts aggression, reproduction, power, parenting, sports and risk-taking.

Given the increasing attention to these issues, the book’s auspicious timing and deeply researched foundations are already having a huge effect on an important cultural conversation today.

Josh Constine

SAGA: Compendium One by writer Brian K Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples

Image Comics / 1,328 pages / August 2019

Publisher’s Link

One of Josh’s book recommendations for 2019 is a graphic novel that is expansive in scope (as one would hope for a paperback that runs for more than a 1,000 pages):

Possibly the greatest non-superhero action graphic novel, this is a tale of star-crossed lovers from different planets trying to raise their child amidst an intergalactic war. The imaginative inventions, gorgeously colorful artwork, and mix of laser fights and suspenseful drama will transport you. The paperback is a great way to entertain yourself without staring at a screen (though it’s available on Comixology’s app too).

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / 272 pages / September 2018

Publisher’s Link

Josh has been a prolific reporter and critic of social network and media companies like Facebook and Twitter. These days, though, there is a new social network that is garnering outsized attention: Tik Tok. Josh has been covering the company and its predecessor Musical.ly for years, and has also been writing about how Facebook should confront this new competitive threat. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Josh’s first recommendation is for a book that addresses precisely the rise of Chinese-owned apps and the fight for the future of artificial intelligence:

If you want to understand how artificial intelligence is going to impact employment and geopolitics, this is a must read from the former head of Google China. It recounts wild stories of tech startup competition and the rise of the ecosystem in the country, and explores why every country but the US and China have hard times ahead.

AI Superpowers was also the most recommended book by Extra Crunch readers in our survey, and also a book I can personally endorse as well (thanks Josh for stealing my recommendation).

Danny Crichton (i.e. yours truly)

Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age by Stephen R. Platt

Knopf / 592 pages / May 2018

Publisher’s Link

Speaking of China, the trade war continues unabated between the U.S. and the Middle Kingdom. Whereas AI Superpowers focuses on the present and future, Stephen Platt’s Imperial Twilight rewinds us back in time to the era of the Opium War, when Western forces led by a fascinating cast of characters from Britain, the U.S., and elsewhere used trade as a tool to force open China’s borders, popularize a heavily addictive drug among its people, and engorged on capital flows out of the country in a raw moment of pure political power against an incredibly weakened Qing dynasty.

The book is one of those works that every publisher wants to have in their catalog, complete with an extraordinarily well-written narrative, a deeply textured and nuanced look at a key historical event, and a perfectly timed publication date pegged to one of the most topical news stories of the year. In short, it’s a smash hit.

Catherine Shu

Continuing this China theme a bit, Catherine has covered tech developments in Asia for years (actually, seven with us as of yesterday) from her perch in Taiwan. But she also has interests outside of the latest new startups, and that includes true crime fiction.

I’ve been a fan of true crime since I was a teenager, but over the last year, I have become uneasy about my attachment to the genre. To be blunt, a lot of books and podcasts are fueled by voyeurism, and I am not comfortable with being culpable in the transformation of tragedy into entertainment. So I welcome new books that take a step back and examine famous cases within their cultural context.

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

Doubleday / 432 pages / February 2019

Publisher’s Link

Catherine’s first recommendation flips the lens on one of the most well-known serial murderers in history:

“The Five” by Hallie Rubenhold is probably the first book to comprehensively document the lives of Jack the Ripper’s victims. Rubenhold’s research uncovered myths about the women, including that not all were prostitutes, a misconception that started with contemporary police and press reports (and may ultimately have hindered the investigation), but continues to be perpetuated by the industry that has grown around the murders.

Rubenhold did an enormous amount of research, but ultimately the book’s impact comes from the very simple but powerful act of restoring these five women’s humanity — an admirable feat considering that their violent murders have been commodified and romanticized for over a century.

The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson

Simon & Schuster / 400 pages / March 2019

Publisher’s Link

Meanwhile, her second recommendation takes a more expansive view of a famous axe murder case than has traditionally been the norm in the real crime genre:

“The Trial of Lizzie Borden” by Cara Robertson is one of the best books about the case I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot). In addition to providing an exhaustive but extremely compelling account of the legal proceedings that concluded in Lizzie Borden’s acquittal, Robertson, a lawyer, also analyzes the case as an example of contemporary attitudes toward gender, class, and criminality.

Her examination of newspaper accounts reveals how the case almost immediately became a media sensation and also that many of the trial’s spectators were dismissed as “a crowd of morbid females” by one reporter — a misogynistic label that continues to be attached to true crime fans, many of whom are women.

Devin Coldewey

Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight by David A. Mindell

MIT Press / 376 pages / April 2008

Publisher’s Link

Devin has had long-standing interests in space, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and other hard science and tech subjects. His recommendation this year is a classic of the genre written by David Mindell, a long-time MIT professor of engineering history who also is founder of the startup Humatics, which has raised some serious venture capital dollars to make location detection inside of buildings (think robots in factories) a reality. On Digital Apollo, Devin says:

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 is a great opportunity to learn about one of the program’s most fascinating aspects: the computers that ran it. But Digital Apollo is far more than some survey of early computing hardware. Mindell documents the fascinating people and processes behind the creation of this unprecedented system. Stubborn astronauts, idealistic engineers, and skeptical officials face off while the hard deadline looms, making this an interesting and inclusive story as well as a highly informed history.

Not only is it a great story, it’s one that will be recognizable to any engineer that has ever had to ship product while dealing with other humans.

Kirsten Korosec

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt

Knopf / 416 pages / July 2008

Publisher’s Link

Kirsten has vigorously reported on the transportation sector (you should sign up for her weekly transportation newsletter The Station), including the rise of companies like Tesla and whole new categories of startups like self-driving cars and scooters. Yet despite all the futurism in the industry, she wanted to take a step back in her recommendation to a book that discusses some of the first principles that ‘drive’ mobility in the first place:

This book is a decade old and yet it’s more relevant than ever before as our cities become more dense and we look for ways out of the congestion. If you want to understand opportunities and challenges for automakers, cities, and even startups around mobility, start here.

With Traffic, Vanderbilt’s goal is to show that humans have cognitive limits, and those limits have a direct effect on our traffic systems and the designs of our mobility products. As we increasingly enter a world of human/AI hybrid cars and people speeding rapidly down Market Street on rickety scooters, his book offers us a panorama view of just how hard it it to get mobility right and make it safe.

Matt Burns

Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey

AMACOM / 336 pages / March 2006

Publisher’s Link

Among our longest tenured editors, Matt Burns has been writing about automotive topics among others for more than a decade here. He brings us a book about one of the most storied companies (positively and negatively) in American history:

This is the story of General Motors and how a successful carriage maker purchased the Buick name and turned it into the largest automaker in history.

And then how Billy Durant ran the company into the ground and lost control.

So what did Billy Durant do? He founded another company, Chevrolet, the only car to ever be manufactured in New York City, and used wild stock manipulation to regain control of General Motors. And then he lost control again and ended up managing a bowling alley in Flint, MI until he died nearly broke.

Meanwhile, there’s Alfred Sloan, a methodical manager of an auto supply company who took over General Motors, devised the yearly model update and eventually wrote the book on managing corporations.

The story of Billy Durant founding General Motors resonates today. It’s the story of a wild entrepreneur who’s vision and command of the stock market led to the creation of a mega corporation but who lacked the management skills to scale. The book details his incredible rise and fall through vivid stories and first-hand accounts found in Durant’s unpublished autobiography.

Darrell Etherington

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac

W. W. Norton & Company / 408 pages / September 2019

Publisher’s Link

Darrell has chronicled the tech industry for many years (picking up a theme here?) and has picked a chronicle of a tech industry luminary which has since lost much of its luster:

This account mostly focuses on Uber founder Travis Kalanick, from his pre-Uber entrepreneurial formative years, right through the corporate power struggle that led to his ousting in 2017.

What I especially enjoyed about it was its depiction of Bill Gurley – an interesting counter-positioning of this Silicon Valley legend with Kalanick’s foil that may or may not match your understanding of the real story, depending on who you hear it from.

If you had to pick the “startup profile book of the year award,” Super Pumped would almost certainly take the crown this year. The book was also recommended pretty heavily by Extra Crunch readers in our survey as well, although it didn’t quite make the cut.

Manish Singh

Big Billion Startup – The Untold Flipkart Story by Mihir Dalal

Pan Macmillan India / 320 pages / October 2019

Publisher’s Link

Manish joined us relatively recently to expand our tech coverage more heavily in India, where the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem has been exploding crazy fast the past decade plus. Perhaps no startup better represents the potential for India than ecommerce giant Flipkart, which is the focus of Manish’s recommendation:

“Big Billion Startup – The Untold Flipkart Story,” by journalist Mihir Dalal, is a fascinating look at the making of India’s largest ecommerce platform. Flipkart, which sold a majority stake to Walmart last year for a sweet $16 billion, was founded in 2007, six years before Amazon started its online shopping business in India.

The book, released in October, not only documents the struggle, pain, and setbacks two former Amazon employees went through to build the business from a crummy apartment in Bangalore, but it also reminds us of how different India’s startup ecosystem was then.

As we wrote last month, India’s tech startups have already raised a record $11.3 billion this year. But in the early days, there were very few VCs who believed in India and even a $50 million check to a startup was unheard of. Flipkart was the trailblazer that paved the way for others to build great startups.

#TechCrunch

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ethanalter · 7 years

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HBO Oz 20th Anniversary Oral History

(GIF: HBO)

In today’s Peak TV landscape, television creators have a multitude of content-hungry outlets eager to attract an audience for their wares: Streaming services and premium cable compete alongside basic cable and network television, while viral video-generating Internet hot spots like YouTube and Funny or Die are cranking out original programming as well.

It’s a brave new world, one that began to take shape 20 years ago on July 12, 1997. That’s the date that Tom Fontana’s sprawling prison drama, Oz, premiered on HBO, setting a channel best known for replaying movies and the occasional cult comedy series like The Larry Sanders Show on a course to becoming a dramatic powerhouse that lived up to its famous tagline: “It’s Not TV. It’s HBO.”

And Oz was the kind of bold, provocative experiment that only could have aired on a restrictions-free cable network looking to shake up its image. Set in Emerald City, an experimental incarceration unit inside the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility, the show offered an addictive fusion of gritty prison drama, dark comedy, graphic violence, and even a touch of soap opera romance. Oz‘s serialized storytelling and ensemble cast — J.K. Simmons, Eamonn Walker and Dean Winters were just some of the future stars who passed through Emerald City’s glass cells — attracted the attention of critics, as well as those within the industry. Two years after Oz premiered, HBO debuted a new show from David Chase called The Sopranos, and the rest is Peak TV history.

To commemorate the prison drama’s milestone anniversary, Yahoo TV talked with 13 key players in Oz‘s groundbreaking premiere and eight-episode first season. (Sorry, Keller and Beecher ‘shippers, that means no Chris Meloni, who joined in Season 2.) Read on to discover which famous hip-hop star played the role of narrator Augustus Hill before Harold Perrineau, how Simon Adebisi acquired his name (and famous hat) and the unsung heroine behind both Oz and the premium cable boom.

The Participants (In Alphabetical Order) Kirk Acevedo (Miguel Alvarez) Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Simon Adebisi) Chris Albrecht (CEO of Starz; Former CEO of HBO) Jean de Segonzac (Director of Photography; Director) Tom Fontana (Creator/Showrunner) Ernie Hudson (Warden Leo Glynn) Terry Kinney (Tim McManus) Darnell Martin (Director) Tim McAdams (Johnny Post) Jon Seda (Dino Ortolani) Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher) Dean Winters (Ryan O’Reily) Luna Lauren Velez (Gloria Nathan)

‘Oz’ creator Tom Fontana (Photo: Getty Images)

Chapter One: The Wonderful Wizards of Oz Tom Fontana never set out to be a premium cable pioneer. The Buffalo-born writer was a creature of network television, getting his start as a writer and producer on the beloved NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere, before collaborating with Barry Levinson and Paul Attanasio on NBC’s acclaimed police series Homicide: Life on the Street. It was during the making of Homicide that Fontana found himself contemplating what happens to criminals after they entered the penal system. That germ of an idea eventually grew into Oz, which he developed in collaboration with Levinson. As Fontana quickly discovered, his show never stood a chance at making it onto a broadcast network.

Tom Fontana: I grew up watching cop shows where at end of the episode the bad guy traditionally got arrested and went to prison while the cops sat around in the last scene and did a funny little joke. Then we all went to bed feeling [satisfied]. While I was doing Homicide — where the bad guy didn’t always get arrested — I thought, “Maybe the more interesting story is what happens to these people when they go to prison.” In David Simon’s non-fiction book [that inspired Homicide] there’s a section about a prison riot in Baltimore, and I decided to expand on it for an episode, [Season 5’s “Prison Riot”] and bring back some of the murderers we had seen in previous seasons. That was my first swing at seeing what writing a prison show might be like.

While developing Oz, I spent about two years going to prisons all over the country, and I saw that there were two kinds — these old Gothic horror chambers, and new, experimental prisons. But there was never a place where the two were together, and it was important to me that you had the old and the new butting up against each other. When I talked to prisoners who were in places like Emerald City, they were very clear that it was worse for them because they had no privacy. I found that very moving, and so that’s where Emerald City came from, and the idea of glass so that everybody could see everybody else at any given moment.

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Back then there were only four networks, and none of them were the least bit interested in my version of a prison show. I sort of pathetically adapted it as I got each rejection. I can’t remember which network I pitched which version to, but one of them was set in a juvenile detention center, and another was a Club Fed, where it was rich white collar guys who been sent up the river. Once I really started to examine what I wanted to do, I went back to the idea of that Homicide episode, which was a down-and-dirty prison with all sorts of crazy characters.

I was lucky that Chris Albrecht at HBO was looking to start doing original material. At that time, HBO had a comedy side — they had Dream On and a few other comedy shows — but they hadn’t really had a drama side yet. Chris had the vision to say, “We need to expand the reach of our network.” He told me that the [network] had had success with prison documentaries, so he had an instinct that a prison show might appeal to his subscribers. He said, “I’ll give you a little bit of money to shoot a presentation, about 15 to 20 minutes, and let’s see what it looks like.”

Chris Albrecht: The show had been in development for quite a while before we were really even contemplating doing a lot of original programming. There was a change in management, and we wanted to ramp up our originals. We hadn’t ever done an hour-long drama before. I went to Tom and said, “Look, we’ve put you and Barry [Levinson] through the ringer here. I’m not going to ask you to make any more changes, but we need to shoot something, so, here’s a million dollars. Shoot as much of this as you can.”

Fontana: I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will — it wasn’t enough money! We shot it in Baltimore while we were shooting Homicide, so we would book a location and I would say, “Okay, we’ll shoot the Homicide scene here, and then we’ll shoot the Oz scene.” So, in a way, NBC paid for it a little bit, if you know what I’m saying.

Darnell Martin: I had directed a feature, [1994’s I Like it Like That], but Homicide was my first television experience. They gave me the script for “Sniper: Part 2,” and it was written like a film, with helicopter shots and blockaded streets. I kept trying to figure out how to do that for the budget and time that we had. Maybe that was a seller for Tom. He asked me to direct the Oz presentation.

Fontana: The cast of [the presentation] was different. Jon Seda and Terry Kinney were in it, but the part that Lauren Velez [now Luna Lauren Velez] played, Dr. Gloria Nathan, was played by Jennifer Grey. The reason I later made the change was I really felt like the cast was [too] white, and I also liked the idea of a Latina woman in the midst of all these men. And there was a different guy playing Augustus Hill than Harold Perrineau.

Martin: I cast Mos Def as Augustus. He was amazing. Amazing. He was recast. It was crazy! I begged and I fought — not with Tom. It was above Tom; Tom couldn’t change it. Harold is wonderful, but you know, Mos Def had something really special.

Harold Perrineau as Augustus Hill ‘Oz.’ The role was played by Mos Def in the original presentation (Credit: HBO)

Terry Kinney: Tom had cast me in a Homicide episode, [Season 4’s “Map of the Heart”] and he said that he’d always wanted to make up for that, because it was an indecipherable episode. I played an NSA mapping guy, and to this day don’t know what it was about! I remember meeting Tom and Darnell for the Oz presentation, and they were talking about a character that was a die-hard liberal in a way that seemed extremely naïve. I basically played the warden, whose name was still McManus.

Jon Seda: I worked with Darnell on I Like It Like That, and she raised the bar for me. I told her that anything she ever does, I’m going to say yes to it. Sure enough, they said, “Hey, listen, there’s a script that’s called Oz. It’s a presentation. Darnell Martin’s directing.” I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” I didn’t even know what the role was. What a lot of people don’t know is that at the same time that I was shooting that, I was also shooting the movie Selena. So when I met with Darnell, I said, “You’re going to have to help me, because I’ve been living as this sweet guy Chris Pérez for a couple months already, and now I have to play this ruthless Dino Ortolani.” I didn’t know how I could do it, but she said, “Just trust me. Put everything in my hands and it’s going to be great.”

Jon Seda in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Tim McAdams: I had built a pretty strong relationship with Pat Moran, who was the local casting agent for Homicide. When they decided to do the presentation for Oz, I auditioned and got cast. Nobody knew what Oz was or really thought anything of it; I just knew it was a show I got hired for and I was a young actor trying to work. We shot this presentation, and Mos Def and Jennifer Grey were in it, so I was like, “Wow! We got some names in this thing, and maybe it’s gonna get some traction!” I was honored to work with Jennifer Grey; I remember how excited I was and how friendly she was. And growing up in that era, having a chance to spend time around Mos Def and watch him transition to becoming an actor was really exciting. Sometime later I got a phone call about the show being picked up by HBO, and they said, “They’re gonna be doing a lot of recasting, but they’re going to allow you to play Johnny Post.”

Fontana: That initial presentation was more tonal; it was a real attempt to say, “This is the kind of subject matter we’re going to cover, and these are the kinds of characters we’re going to see.” You have to remember, this was before we built the Emerald City set, so it was all hallways and rooms, but it wasn’t what the show eventually looked like. Though, if you watch the first episode of Oz, there are a couple scenes that are from the original presentation, like the shower scene where Seda gets the s**t beat out of him by the COs. And I think the hospital scenes are from the original presentation.

Ernie Hudson as Warden Leo Glynn and Terry Kinney as Tim McManus on ‘Oz.’ In the pilot presentation, Kinney played the warden. (Credit: HBO)

Kinney: Jon Seda and I were two of the survivors of that 15-minute presentation. I didn’t think that I was going to make it to the series. I remember that I was in Los Angeles doing something else, and I called Tom and he said, “You know what, you’re my guy. Let me work this out.” What I think they’d done is they wanted the warden to be African-American. They wanted Ernie [Hudson], and they had a relationship with him. So Tom made me the keeper of the Emerald City section of the prison. I was grateful [for] his loyalty.

Albrecht: At the end of the presentation, the lead guy, Dino, gets killed in his cell. I said to Tom, “He comes back next episode, right?” And they said, “No, he’s dead.” I go, “What do you mean, he’s dead? He’s the lead in the show!” They go, “That’s what’s happening here.” That’s when I realized that they were gonna change the rules.

Seda: What’s funny is that I remember that the death scene wasn’t supposed to carry over [to the pilot]. I was expected to come on and be a regular on the show. I think what happened was that HBO just really loved the idea of the lead guy actually dying. That kind of set off the trend on Oz.

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Fontana: We got an eight-episode order. I was literally yelled at by friends of mine and peers of mine on the drama side of television. They said to me, “Why are you going to work over at HBO? It’s a movie channel. Nobody watches it.” And I said, “Well, who cares if nobody watches it? They’re going to let me make the show I want to make.” Literally people thought it would kill my career, that I made the wrong tactical move and that I should be doing Touched by an Angel! I’d like to tell you that I’m the visionary who had this incredible sense that cable would someday dominate the television world, but it wasn’t that. It was simply that there was an open door and I went through it.

Chapter Two: Populating Emerald City Having walked through that open door, Fontana’s next task was assembling his prison population. At the time, and still today, Oz stands as a model og diverse casting; it’s large ensemble encompasses a multitude of races, religions and sexual orientations. And shooting in New York, Fontana tapped into a deep reservoir of veteran actors and fresh faces.

Fontana: Our feeling about the penal system in America is very cyclical; you go through periods of “[Prison] should be about redemption” and then “[Prison] should be about retribution.” At that time, it was about retribution and there was this sense that prisoners were bad people, and there were no heroes in those stories. The truth is, I wasn’t interested in writing heroes per se. And that was the great thing about Chris. I’ve often quoted him as saying, “I don’t care if the characters are likable as long as they’re interesting.” That was what I needed to hear because I wasn’t planning to make likable characters — I was planning to make interesting characters.

J.K. Simmons in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Throughout the life of the series, we were able to get some wonderful, brilliant New York theater actors. We’d used J.K. Simmons in an episode of Homicide, so I gave him the part of Vern Schillinger because I knew he could do it. Dean Winters had done Homicide episodes, and was my favorite bartender before that, so I wrote Ryan O’Reilly specifically for him.

Dean Winters: Tom had come up with the idea of Ryan O’Reily by watching me bartend. When I was a bartender, I was a real hustler. My motto was, “If you leave my bar with cab fare, then I failed.” I would try and drain you of every dollar you had. I quit my bartending job and was in Los Angeles doing my first movie, Conspiracy Theory. It was a real leap of faith. Tom came out to visit, and we had a long talk. I told him, “You know, I really don’t think this acting thing is for me, it doesn’t feel right.” And he goes, “Listen: I was doing a little presentation for HBO about a prison, and I think it might turn out well for all of us.”

Dean Winters as Ryan O’Reily on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Ernie Hudson: The first time I heard of Oz was when I got a call from Tom. I did a six-episode arc on St. Elsewhere [in 1984], where Tom was a writer and producer. I got to know him a little bit on set, and when he called me about Oz he said, “Do you remember we talked about working together on a project?” I didn’t remember that conversation, but I pretended that I did. I based Leo loosely on Robert Matthews, the first black warden of Leavenworth prison in Kansas. I read a book where he talked about how father was a minister, and wanted him to go into the ministry. Later on, he said to his father, “This is my ministry.” I thought of it that way. He was a guy who finished college, but probably started at junior college, and went to night school. He’s worked his way up. He’s the guy who loaned money to the friend and never got paid back.

Luna Lauren Velez as Dr. Gloria Nathan on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Luna Lauren Velez: My first film was I Like It Like That, directed by Darnell Martin. She called me and said, “Do you want to do this show, Oz?” And I said, “Well, I’m doing this other show, [the Fox drama New York Undercover].” She said, “It might be a one off, I’m not even sure what’s going to happen with the character,” and then she said, “Jon Seda is doing it.” Jon and I had done I Like It Like That together, so I came onboard and they just kept asking me to come back. My understanding was that Jennifer Grey played Dr. Nathan in the [presentation]; everyone had glowing things to say about her, but said, “We decided to go a different direction.”

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I went in and read for the casting director [Alexa L. Fogel]; there were only two lines and I read them in a British accent, an American accent, an African accent and a Jamaican accent just to show what I could do with it. She told me to wait, auditioned a few other people and then closed up shop and took me over to Tom’s office. He was in the middle of writing, and she told me, “Okay, he’s going to give you two minutes.” He didn’t even look up; I performed the lines in those various accents, and he said, “All right, stop. That’s enough.” That was it! He didn’t say I got the part — he didn’t say anything.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Alexa called me the next day and said, “Tom liked the African character, the Nigerian one. He doesn’t have one of those in the show, and he’d like you to play that.” I was a little bummed, because I wanted to play an American. Then she said, “What he wants to do is he’s going to write it as an American and he wants you to be able to translate it into the African character,” which was freaking great. When I met Tom again, he told me that he had a Nigerian friend he went to college with whose name was Bisi. So he said he would use part of my name and part of his friend’s name: that’s how Adebisi was born.

Fontana: Eamonn Walker was someone I didn’t know until he came into audition, but he was so incredible that it was a foregone conclusion he’d be part of the cast. I was obsessed with getting that character of Kareem Said right. And Eamonn was equally obsessive about getting it right. Some of the extras in his Muslim Brotherhood prisoner group were actual Muslims, so he would go once a week to the mosque, and pray and experience the whole religious side of what it is to be an Imam.

Eamonn Walker as Kareem Said on ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Kirk Acevedo: Originally Tom wrote Miguel Alvarez for someone else, and then I came in and I got the gig. I remember the exact audition: there were five actors ahead of me, and the scene was an emotional scene where you had to go in and scream and yell about some s**t. Every actor who went in before me screamed and yelled, and I was like, “Well, I can’t scream and yell, because no matter how good I can do it you’re gonna get tired of seeing the same fucking thing.” So I played it just the total opposite, and I stood out and got the gig.

Lee Tergesen: I had been doing a show for USA called Weird Science, which had just finished up, and I was working on Homicide for a couple of episodes. I was down in Baltimore and Tom said, “When you’re done, can you come up to New York? I want to talk to you about something that I have in the works.” So I went up and he and I started talking about something that ended up being Oz. We talked about a couple of different ideas he had for parts, one being a guard and the other one being this guy who ends up being in jail as sort of a fish out of water. I was like, “That sounds more interesting than a guard.”

Fontana: Initially HBO didn’t want me to cast Lee as Beecher. I was like, “Well, what’s wrong with him?” And they go, “Oh no, he’s a brilliant actor. It’s just not who we had in our head.” I said, “Well, he’s who I had in my head, because I wrote the part for him. So you’re stuck with him.” And then, of course, they were [ultimately] thrilled with him. But at first they were a little nervous, because he didn’t look like who they thought Beecher should look like. I never understood what that meant.

Albrecht: I do remember talking about that, because Lee was such a prominent character in the beginning. We were kind of new to it all. I had worked pretty closely with Garry Shandling on The Larry Sanders Show and Marta Kaufman and David Crane on Dream On, but this was really the first time that we had this size of a show, and this kind of serialized drama. So I think we were just babbling at Tom and Barry, who obviously had a lot more television experience than we did.

Lee Tergesen as Tobias Beecher on ‘OZ.’ (Credit: HBO)

Tergesen: In retrospect, I know that happened, but Tom didn’t make me aware of it at all in the beginning. But yeah, my understanding now is they [thought]: “This character is so important, and this guy has just being doing Weird Science.” And Tom was like, “Well, don’t worry — you’ll see, you’ll see.” I wonder what they think now!

Fontana: I had met Rita Moreno at a party at Elaine’s that was marking the end of The Cosby Mysteries, which she had been a regular on. I went up to her and said, “It’s such an honor to meet you — I’m such a big fan of your work.” And she went, “Well, if you’re such a big f***ing fan of my work, why didn’t you f***ing write me a part?” I went, “Okay, I will!” So years later, I took her and her husband to dinner and was talking about Oz. She goes, “It all sounds fantastic. What would I play?” And I went: “You would play the nun.” Well, she laughed for about a half hour and then said, “Tom, I’ve played hookers, I’ve played bandits, but no one’s ever had the balls to ask me to be a nun.” I also talked to her about my sister, who is from a very liberal order of nuns. In the summers, she would run the hospitality house at a prison near Buffalo. I always thought it was so incredibly ironic that my sweet sister was scheduling conjugal visits for prisoners. I told Rita all that, and she said, “Okay, just as long as I’m not going to be in one of those habits.”

Martin: Tom was fabulous in the way that I could say, “Tom, check this guy out. Is there a place for him?” And he’d say, “Yes, I’m going to write him into it.” There were some people that were just out there in the world, and not necessarily actors yet. He was really open to bringing people in, looking at them and trying to find the place for people who had this very specific New York vibe. With a network, you try to get someone hired and it takes so long. With HBO, it was fabulous: if Tom and I liked an actor, we would go to the one person over there and it turned around real quick.

Rita Moreno as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on ‘OZ.’ (Credit: HBO)

Fontana: I was very clear in the auditions, and when people signed the contract that they might be asked to be nude, and that there would be violence. I didn’t want people who were going to be skittish.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: Tom made it clear that this was going to be groundbreaking, and that he was really targeting authenticity, so that meant that it required certain actors and certain characters to go in places that may be uncomfortable personally. There were rape scenes and all kinds of complications that weren’t going to be comfortable. He made it clear that if you don’t want to do that, then you’re not the actor for the part.

Acevedo: No, he never warned us! I think there was a nudity waiver because there might be nudity. But every week it was like, “Alright, Kirk, today you’re gonna eat s**t out of the toilet.” Every week we were just like, “Dude, as long as I don’t get raped, I’m alright.” It wasn’t a scary thing, it was kind of titillating. It wasn’t like we were all nervous about it, because we would do it. It was more of like, “What’s he gonna have us do?” I don’t ever remember him warning me, but then I’m pretty sure there were people he didn’t have to warn because we were all game to do it.

Kirk Acevedo as Miguel Alvarez on ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Winters: I was there from the inception of the show, and I told Tom, “Look, I’ll do anything you want.” And I did. The smart actors knew that we were doing a show about a prison, not a show about a prep school, and it’s cable television. If you had half a brain you knew that this was not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and it was not going to be a walk through the daisies. So that’s the way that I approached it, and obviously there were people who had a hard time with it. Some guys didn’t want to do this, some guys didn’t want to do that, but that’s the nature of the beast, I guess.

Kinney: I remember in the first episode that Edie Falco [who played a correctional officer] and I were supposed to have a love scene during an execution. As someone was being electrocuted, we were supposed to be having sex in a cell. As much as everybody took their clothes off on the show, both Edie and I felt it wasn’t the right choice, and asked if we could do it in a way that was less graphic. From that point on, that’s how my character was treated. I wasn’t one of the people who had to do [anything graphic].

Edie Falco as Officer Diane Wittlesey on ‘Oz.’ She later was cast on ‘The Sopranos’ but made occasional appearances on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Fontana: I have to say, over the course of the series, there was only really one actor who lied to me and said he would do whatever I asked him, and then when it came time he said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” But he wasn’t a regular and I was able to kill him off fairly quick. Let them guess who that was!

Chapter 3: Getting Into ‘The Routine’ Some TV shows take a little while to find themselves, but Oz‘s series premiere lays down the law about what viewers could expect from their time inside Emerald City. Written by Tom Fontana and directed by Darnell Martin, “The Routine,” swiftly establishes all the elements Oz would become infamous for, including densely-intertwined narratives, a parade of compelling characters, shocking acts of violence and a pervasive sense that nobody is safe within Oswald’s walls. Especially not the person you think is the main character…

Fontana: In terms of the writing of the first episode, Augustus was the first voice I heard in my head. In terms of the design of the show, Beecher was the first character that I came up with, and then McManus. One is there as a prisoner, and one is there as a warden. It just seemed like, for the audience, Beecher’s our Dante coming into the Inferno. He’s the one who’s guiding us into this world where we’re going to be exposed to these different cycles of violence.

Jean de Segonzac: The very first scene we did was in McManus’ office where he tries to put the glass on top of the cockroach. That was the very first shot on the very first day.

Kinney: I hated that scene. It was a trained cockroach; there was a cockroach handler, and back-up cockroaches. That’s a delicate area for me, cockroaches. We did endless angles on it, because Darnell did a lot of angles.

Winters: I knew no one on my first day besides Lee Tergesen. So it was like the first day of school at a juvenile delinquent reformatory. Everyone’s kind of looking around going, “Oh yeah, so you’re Alvarez, alright. I got to keep my eye on you.” Or “You’re Adebisi, alright, you’re big and scary, okay.” Or “You’re playing Said; okay, you’re kind of cool, but what’s up with the English accent?” In the first couple of days, it was just like, “What the fuck have I gotten myself in to here?” But in a good way, obviously.

Tergesen: Nobody really talked to me in the beginning. In the first four or five episodes, the extras would not talk to me. But once Beecher went crazy and attacked Schillinger [Episode 7, “Plan B”], all of a sudden everybody was like, “Hey Beecher, Beecher, Beecher, oh hey Beech!” It was so weird. It was like high school.

Fontana: This is a little piece of backstage history: we shot the pilot and the first season in Manhattan at what is now Chelsea Market, and what used to be the old Oreo cookie factory. The cafeteria had really high ceilings because the stoves had to go up to those windows to let out the smoke from baking the Oreos. We always had to cut if somebody left the cafeteria, because there was no way they could walk to the next set. It was all a bunch of different rooms.

McAdams: I’ll never forget the first time I arrived on set. You’d get off the elevator, and it would be like a normal office with people going about their duties. Then you’d turn the corner, walk down a little bit and you’re in prison.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: We were about five floors up; the first four floors were offices, and then when you got to the fifth floor, it was literally Emerald City. At any given time, there were 300 or 400 extras in there. The cells were real cells, with the right size and proximity. It was hot, sticky and you felt claustrophobic, like you were in prison. In between takes, there were waiting room areas where we could go, but I chose to stay my cell for the whole time.

Seda: It was scary when the reality hit you that this is the life for so many; at least we were actors and able to walk away at the end of the day. All the details were incredible, and it just really added to making it just so authentic. The set itself was probably the biggest character of the show.

Hudson: It was like being transported to another world. I’d walk to work from the Upper West Side down to where we were shooting, and the contrast of being on the streets of New York and then going in and being on the set of Oz was cool.

Winters: People used to ask: “How did you prepare for the role?” It was very easy. You just got off the elevator, and walked down to the set. It was a f***ing prison! With the glass cells, you realized that everyone was being watched all day long. It was very unnerving. I remember Vincent Gallo came by the set one day, and he was looking around and goes, “Man, this set’s the f***ing cream.” Meaning, they really nailed that set. And my brother [Scott William Winters, who joined the cast in Season 2 as O’Reily’s brother, Cyril] actually spent the weekend on the set by himself, just to get that feeling of incarceration.

Adebisi and Beecher get to know each other in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: For my scene with Beecher in the first episode, Lee and I were meeting for the first time as actors. It was kind of organic because his character was entering the prison, and it was a new world for him, whereas I’m a lifer. The thing for me was to establish that I own him. I own his life, I own his physical body; he was going to be my bitch and do exactly what I told him to do. I had the luxury of sleeping in my cell, and I would not wash. I became one with my own odor to stake my territory [despite] the complaints of the DP and the crew. Quite often they said, “Perhaps you should shower.” But I told them I was going to stake my claim. Whatever feeling I would evoke in the crew was exactly the feelings that were intended when the actors would come in my cell: repulsion, fear and disgust. It was lovely!

Tergesen: I don’t remember that! I do remember Adewale being ridiculous. He was so f***ing good in that part. I used to say that being in that cell with Adebisi was like being on a date from hell that lasted a month. I mean, he literally grabbed my penis more than women I had dated for a month.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I had two scenes in the first episode, and was meant to die in the second episode. But Tom liked what he saw [in the premiere], and kept liking what he saw. I’ve lived a life that gave me an insight as to what it was like to be in a gang in my teenage years, so I just brought that rawness to it. I wore my hat in the way that I used to wear when I was a teenager on the street myself. I knew that the tilt of the hat represented defiance. The costume and production were very much against me wearing the hat initially, because they wanted everybody in prison to be uniformed. I had to respect that, but I just knew that I needed to put my stamp on the character. That scene with Beecher was the first scene I shot, and when they said “Action,” I pulled the hat out of my pocket and put it on. When we wrapped and moved onto my next scene, the director said, “Wait a minute — he had the hat on. Now we have to keep it.”

Tergesen: I was so happy to get out of [Adebisi’s cell], but then I go to Schillinger’s cell. We didn’t rehearse at all on that show, so J.K. and I just met when we started shooting. The funny thing about him is when we’re playing those initial scenes, it’s like he’s the nicest guy on the planet. You know, he’s always smiling. It’s like, “I can trust this guy!” And then it just devolves. The branding thing ends up looking like I’m getting f***ed in the ass, which I didn’t realize was going to happen. Not that I minded, but when he was burning my ass it was causing me to like buck like I was getting f***ed. That was my ass, bro! No stunt ass.

De Segonzac: One image I have, which I can’t get out of my head, is Tergesen’s ass two inches from my face while Simmons is branding him. I’m just going, “This is the weirdest way of making a living that I can ever think of.”

Fontana: When it came to shooting the first episode, moments like the swastika on the ass were defining moments for the show. And the moment when Dino is naked and getting beat up in the shower was, at the time, as brutal, a scene I’d ever seen on television. Those are, to me the moments that said to people this isn’t your father’s [TV show].

Seda: The shower scene was wild. It showed how quick things can happen in prison. Dino wasn’t afraid of anyone, and I was so into being that guy that I carried that with me. I literally walked onto set butt-naked. I walked right up, and stood there talking to Darnell as if I had clothes on. I said, “Okay, let’s go. Let’s shoot this scene. What do you want me to do? You want me to do this? Want me to be here? Want me to do this? Okay. Great, let’s do it.”

Velez: The storyline with Dino and Emilio [a prisoner dying of AIDS] really resonated with me because I have friends and a family member who are HIV positive. I also loved working with Jon. There’s one scene where I could barely keep a straight face because we had done that movie together, so there was something delicious about watching him play this wise-ass character. It’s really one of the few times in the pilot that you see Gloria engaging with one of the inmates in a fun, slightly flirtatious way.

Seda: Jose Soto did such a fabulous job as Emilio. What I love about that scene was how well it was written. It wasn’t that Dino just didn’t like Emilio because he had AIDS; Dino actually found compassion for him. The fact that he honored his request to take him out was done from compassion. That was a way for Dino to be in touch with his heart. It was just brilliant.

Fontana: When I talked with Chris Albrecht, he said, “What’s the one thing you’re absolutely not allowed to do on a broadcast television?” And I said, “Kill the lead in the pilot.” And he said, “Well, then go ahead and do it.” So I hired Jon and told him this is what’s going to happen. He was cool with it, and then I hired him on Homicide, to sort of compensate for the fact that he was killed off.

Seda: For Dino, there’s a point where what was keeping him afloat was the fact that he still has his family out there. There’s a scene where his wife comes to visit him and the kids are there playing and that’s when he makes the decision that it’s never going to happen. The reality of the fact that he’s here for life really hits him. Darnell and I added a moment where Dino taps the glass, kind of like he’s touching her for the last time as a family. I don’t know if a lot of people realize or catch it, but that tap on the glass to her is basically saying that’s the last time she’s ever going to see him. From that point on, it’s just a matter of time for Dino.

Winters: I remember reading the script and going, “Oh, Dino’s a badass!” And by the way, Tom named the character after me, because my nickname is Dino. Then all of a sudden he’s dead, and I’m the one who has him lit on fire. My first thought was, “I feel pretty f***ing good, because I’m not the one dying!” But I was also blown away that this was what Tom was going to do.

McAdams: To say I was excited [to kill Dino] would be an understatement. At that point, I didn’t realize that I would be the first inmate to kill somebody on Oz. That didn’t connect until way later, what I realized the show had a reputation for killing people off. The idea that I was going to be killing someone was just a thrill, and I knew that it was going to be memorable. The fact that they were killing Jon off in the first episode told me how edgy the show was going to be. No one’s safe, and episode to episode, you don’t know what’s going to happen, who’s going to die, and how it’s going to happen. You just don’t know. You have to tune in and watch.

Seda: Talk about going out in a blaze of glory, right? That’s what he did. It was pretty wild how it was shot. I remember seeing the dummy that they had made up in the makeup trailer, and I said, “Oh my gosh, that dummy looks just like me!” When we were shooting it, I remember just looking up and telling Tim, “Hey, hey, hey, don’t actually light it.” A couple times, he kept forgetting and actually lit it. I’m like, “Wait! You’re going to drop this on my face, dummy!”

McAdams: Dropping that match under the camera and watching those flames come up was the most exciting and invigorating feeling. To this day when I see it, I still get excited. Because that wasn’t CGI, it was a glass plate. Also, being given the creative autonomy again to just go in there and have fun with it. Johnny Post wasn’t wired right, so just dropping the match would’ve been one thing. But dropping the match like, “Boom, you’re gone,” was so fun as an actor, because we were so deep in the character at that point.

Fontana: I wanted to do a show in which the audience never relaxed, because I these men who are in prison don’t get a chance to relax. So if I’m really going to try to convey what they’re going through, then the audience should never be able to kick back.

Winters: I’ve never seen this before or since: the scripts would come out, and people would take one and rush to their dressing room, a corner of the set or go in a jail cell, and read the script and see if they’re still alive at the end. It was nerve-wracking.

Seda: I don’t remember any [farewell] party. I think it was just, “All right, you’re dead. Goodbye.” But Fontana came to me and said, “Don’t worry. I’m going to bring you on Homicide.” So that worked out great! [Seda played Detective Paul Falsone on the final two seasons of Homicide.]

‘OZ’ director Darnell Martin (Photo: Getty Images)

Chapter 4: The Future was Female When the histories of cable’s rise have been written, they tend to dwell on the accomplishments of male showrunners like David Chase, Alan Ball and Shawn Ryan. While Tom Fontana is certainly part of that group, both he and Oz‘s cast are quick to note that one of the show’s key creative architects was a woman. As the director of the original pilot presentation, and then the series premiere, Darnell Martin established the innovative visual language that distinguished OZ from anything else on TV at that point. Having gotten her start as an independent filmmaker before landing television gigs, she sought to infuse the series with some of the same spontaneity and energy that defined that era of indie movies. Martin continues to alternate the occasional feature film, like 2008’s Cadillac Records, with a diverse slate of TV credits that includes such series as Grey’s Anatomy, Grimm and Blindspot. If Tom Fontana is among the founding fathers of the premium cable boom, than Darnell Martin is its founding mother.

Fontana: I’m not a director. I never aspired to be a director, and I have no real interest in it. So I rely very heavily on directors to create a visual style that goes with the storytelling, and I trust directors that I hire to bring their best game to the playing field. Darnell was there from the beginning. She and I had worked on Homicide together, and I thought, “Oh, she’s really got some stuff going on here.” I suppose back then the idea of a woman directing a male prison show didn’t make sense to some people, but it made sense to me because of Darnell.

Martin: The funny thing is, I didn’t want to do it at first! I had brought another project to Tom, and we brought it to ABC and ABC ended up not making it. I really didn’t want to do this show. Not because I didn’t like it, it was just because I had a thing about people in jail. I grew up in a very rough place, and I know a lot of people that really needed to go to prison because the neighborhood was a lot safer with them not there. I had my own very real and personal reasons not to want to glorify that. Then I said, “Let me go visit some [prisoners].” So I visited prisons, and said, “You know what? People in jail are human beings, and there but the grace of God go I.” I didn’t want to do it if they were going to be other than me. [But when I] saw people in prison and how they were living, that helped me emotionally get around dealing with the show and made me want to do it.

Albrecht: Darnell was such a critical part of setting the tone and the style; she worked with Tom on the production design and how to shoot this. I think we all set out to do something different visually. Drama has been a staple of network television obviously, and the fact that we [at HBO] were now entering that arena, the one thing that everybody felt was we really needed to differentiate ourselves. I don’t think if any of us on the HBO side had any idea that Tom and Darnell were gonna take that so literally, and just make something that startlingly different.

Winters: Darnell Martin is no joke. She came in with a vision, and her vision just happened to match Tom’s. I think she’s kind of left out of the conversation a lot of times when it comes to Oz, and she should really be part of the conversation, because she came in there as a woman, in a hyper-male environment and she laid down the law in this jail. She really did; and people took notice.

De Segonzac: She’s someone with a real vision. Tom was always telling me, “Just do your thing.” And I, of course, was trying to do Darnell’s thing. The [visual] theme was us being in these tight quarters, just participating. Basically, we just did whatever we felt like within the moment. As you’ll see, some scenes are all on a dolly and laid out, and others are completely handheld. For one shot, I remember being on a foot dolly, and going around the edge, while Jon Seda is trying to force feed a guy who’s dying of AIDS.

Jose Soto as Emilio and Seda as Dino (Credit: HBO)

Martin: There’s an idea in television that I don’t think makes the best television, and that is you have a plan before you get there. If you’re new at doing this, that’s probably helpful. The bad thing about it is that you can have a plan, and then all of a sudden the light is over here so you have to deal with shadows or maybe an actor has to go to the hospital. There’s always some kind of issue in this business. What you need to do, and what I like to do, is go to a place, sit in that place and come up with all the ways I could shoot it. I think shot lists are so reductive, because you can go through every scene [ahead of time], but in reality, you didn’t even work with the actor. You have an idea of blocking, but it’s only you know that knows exactly how you’re going to block it, and then you’re going to make that actor a puppet. That’s a big problem. These actors were very passionate about their characters, and had very strong ideas about their characters, and they all had their homework done when they came in. They were all willing to rehearse and find it and they were generous to one another.

De Segonzac: We had to go fast, fast, fast because there was so much to do. I remember that the dolly guys would just be sitting on the dolly [between takes], and I was like, “What the f**k are you doing? There’s not sitting around here.” At 7 a.m. all the cameras were built, the sound cart was ready and the actors were on set in costume. There was one time where we were running out of time, and Tom happened to be visiting the set. Normally, he wouldn’t be there, but he showed up and he was angry that we were going to go late. So I’m saying [to Darnell], “We’ve got to go fast, so if I do this and this, will you be happy?” And she was angry at me. Tom pulled me by the arm and said, “Why are you talking to her? Just do your thing. Just do whatever you always do.” 15 minutes later the scene was done.

Kinney: Sometimes somebody would be late, and that was a bad thing, because we had to start at 7am and finish at 7pm. If somebody showed up for the first scene late, then that person had sole responsibility for killing our day. We all understood that. For the most part, there was never a hitch in any of it. Darnell had a very specific shooting style; it was a lot of pushing in. The camera was its own character. It was cool to be a part of, but at the same time, you had to hit marks a lot in terms of your acting with that style. You had to turn at exactly the moment the camera arrived. She did a lot of things as one-offs, and that saves some time, but it also makes for very complicated shots. We used to get into little dust-ups about it, but it wasn’t anything that was bad. I would just say, “I’m trying.”

One of Martin’s signature push-ins (GIF: HBO)

Tergesen: She was a very strong personality, but I got along with her pretty well. Every once in awhile there would be something camera-wise [that was tough]. I remember I had a scene with Terry Kinney, and I thought, “Why would I stand right here in a place where he can look at me?” And she’s not letting up or even letting me have an idea about what I wanted to do. She’s rolling the crane across the big main room, and I’m like, “Is this about a crane shot?” She said, “No,” and of course it was about a crane shot. It was a cool shot! Sometimes you have to give up to the people who know what they’re doing.

Hudson: I like Darnell. I did not like the fact that she really liked Eamonn Walker more than me. That really annoyed the hell out of me. She kept praising him, and didn’t have a damn thing to say to me. Since then I’ve gotten to know her. In fact I did a series called APB for Fox, and she directed one of the episodes. I really like her a lot.

Velez: I can put any episode on, and say, “Darnell shot this.” She’s got a great eye; it’s the specific way that she’ll shoot something. Or those unexpected, beautiful tracking shots that Darnell does. It’s almost like a dance with her, and theatrical as well, because it has to be seamless.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: Darnell would do these sweeping moving shots where she would literally introduce about 10 characters at the same time. There was a lot of movement, and you just had to do all your dialogue on the move, and interacting with other characters. It was very fluid style, which was tricky because as an actor you just have to be very ready, and very much engaged in your character so that you don’t miss a beat. You had to be in rhythm with the flow of the camera, because it moved a lot with Darnell. It was alive, and I think that’s what it was meant to capture.

De Segonzac: We shot everything on 16mm; there was never any question of going 35mm. Back then, the 35mm cameras were immensely huge, and very heavy. For the spaces we were crunching ourselves into, it never would have worked. We were just constantly doing stuff you could never do with a big camera or a huge dolly. At one point, I got enamored with the Dutch tilt [a canted camera angle], so I’d start my shot at a Dutch and then move back and straighten it out, or maybe even Dutch it the other way. I wanted to have fun. After a week of doing that, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a phone message from Tom, and it said, “Enough of the f***ing Dutch tilt.”

An ‘Oz’ Dutch tilt (Credit: HBO)

Fontana: The cube that Augusts is in was her idea. I kept saying to her, “We’ve got to find some place where he’s isolated, but I don’t want him to be in front of black curtains or something.” She was at some museum, and there was some kind of cube there. She told me, “You’ve got to see it, because that’s what I think we should use for Augustus.” Every director after her hated that cube! But I insisted that they had to use it in some way, shape or form because it was so expensive to build that I wanted to amortize it over the course of the series.

Martin: I was at the Whitney Biennial, and I saw this box in a room that was tilted on its side. I wanted to utilize something like that, and I brought that to the production designer [Gary Weist] who was phenomenal. From there, we started to riff; we riffed about 2001: A Space Odyssey, the way they’re kind of under this glass. We started talking the tricks we could do with the box and really show this idea of isolation, and no longer having any privacy. You can’t even go to the bathroom without the world videotaping you and watching you.

De Segonzac: I saw the same show at the Biennial. The box just looked like a silver box with windows; some kind of construction art. I was not impressed by this thing at all, and it didn’t occur to me to think twice about it. But she came while we were building the set, and she was talking all about this box that she saw. Perrineau’s character was supposed to be in a wheelchair, so he had to be able to get into so that his wheelchair would be latched down and the whole box would turn and move. We built a box that had a crank and a motor on it, and we could put Harold in there, strap him down, and send him upside down.

Seda: I got a chance to be in the box in one of the episodes where Dino comes back as a ghost. [Season 6, “A Day in the Death”] It was pretty wild. Harold had so much dialogue, and [I loved] the way he made it flow in that setting. I’m sure Harold would say he loved it because it made him become one with the character. That cube just became his M.O.

Tergesen: The crank made so much noise that you couldn’t shoot sound with it. So Harold had a lot of looping to do. I did a few things in the box, and, of course, J.K. and I did that Barry Manilow song, “The Last Duet.” [Season 5, “Variety.”] That was a song I was gonna do in the 10th grade with my girlfriend, but we never did it. As soon as I thought of it [for the episode], I knew Tom was going to love it. And then two years ago, I was sitting next to one of the guys who wrote the lyrics for that song. He said, “You used one of my songs in your show.” And I was like, “No s**t. I picked it!”

Kinney: I really liked the cube. In the two episodes I directed, [Season 3, “Cruel and Unusual Punishments” and Season 4, “Wheel of Fortune”], I did some very fun stuff with it. In my first episode, I remember making Harold be in smaller and smaller boxes, until he was inside a little dark thing. I didn’t find it an entirely successful exercise; I would have needed production values that we just didn’t have at the time. For the second one, I made the cube a big lottery thing. We spun it around with all the balls inside. I strapped myself in and tested it out before I put Harold in there to see if he was going to be able to talk and hang upside down a lot. He was amazing, that guy. He’s an acting machine. Every time he gets to the cube, he’s not only super-prepared with those monologues, but ready to take on any challenge to get it done.

Fontana: Where I get nervous is when a director creates a visual style that isn’t telling the story, because then I think they’re just showing off. But if you have a director who stages a shot like that great shot that Darnell does in the first episode where we see Emerald City for the first time, and the camera moves wide? That to me is excellent visual storytelling.

Martin: What’s great about Tom is that he understands filmmakers; he’s not trying to prove anything, and he’s really open to being collaborative. The problem now is that that we’ve dumbed down the idea of directing episodic TV. On a lot of these shows, anybody can walk in and do it. Directors like working for Tom, because Tom doesn’t consider them idiots. He created these wonderful stories, he had a great vision, and then he put it in the hands of other artists who gently put it through themselves and added new colors to it. I think he set a tone because he was not a dictator or micromanager. No one knows I directed the premiere. It started with a female director, and that was only possible because it was a forward-thinking man who thought that was important.

Chapter 5: Life in the Big House As Oz’s first season unfolded, the cast and crew became comfortable inside this prison of their own making. Largely left to their own devices by HBO, a familial atmosphere flourished on set that was nourished and encouraged by Warden Fontana. As with all families, tensions occasionally arose, but nothing like the prison riot that closes out the first season.

Fontana: What was important for me, and what I always worked very hard to do, was take a character who was despicable and turn him into a sympathetic person. And then, just when the audience was rooting for that person, have them do something despicable again. So if you watch the series over all the seasons, you’ll see character like O’Reily who do the worst possible thing and then have this incredible moment of vulnerability. And then as a reaction to that, he does something worse! The other thing I promised to myself was that every character in Emerald City belonged there. I didn’t want to do the wrongfully convicted story. Not that that isn’t valuable; it’s just that I met so many men in prison who told me they were innocent that it felt like almost like a joke. It would also feel more mainstream to suddenly have a character in there that was innocent.

Kinney: In the first episode, Darnell saw McManus as one of those misguided, but well-intentioned educated white guys. He thinks everybody can be rehabilitated, and put back out onto the streets. But the prison system itself teaches you otherwise. Given that conundrum, this character was an anomaly in the prison. In the first episode, I was campaigning with Tom to change that. I said, “We’ve seen that guy, and he’s going to wear out. You’re going to lose interest. Let me change. Let the prison system seep into me. Let me become more and more one with it.” Slowly but surely, Tom agreed to start shaving my head a little more, to grow the beard, and to start to look a little more like a prisoner.

Hudson as Leo Glynn in ‘Oz’ (Credit: HBO)

Hudson: I thought Leo was as balanced a guy as you can get under those circumstances, but I’ve heard people say, “He was the worst. He was an awful guy.” I’m like “Really?” There was a website in the late ’90s where fans could give their comments, and I remember going online and some guy had said, “Leo seems to have a stick up his ass. That actually broke me of the habit. Even now, 20 years later, I don’t go online to find out what people think. The thing I take away from my character is — and I’m sure Tom would hate me saying it — but he was the dumbest warden! He was a well-intentioned warden, and he could be stern, but he never got to the bottom of anything. He had a murder a week and he never figured anything out. I’m like, “Can I just solve one of these frigging cases?”

De Segonzac: During the first season, there was only one accident, which I was the fault of. We were doing the riot scene in the Season 1 finale [which De Segonzac directed], and with 150 guys running around, you had to find someone each of them could do. Tergesen had the fire extinguisher and was spraying it all over the place. He was like, “Really?” and I said, “Yeah, it’ll be great, you’ll see.” There was this one young guy — who I think in real life was a violinist and he somehow got a part on the show — the guards beat him up, and they put the cuffs on him behind his back. The scene felt like it was about to lose energy, so he screams at the guards, “Get them off!” They grab him by the arms, but he’s handcuffed and that’s exactly the wrong thing to do. Now the guy is squealing, and I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty f***ing good.” But it turned out that the cuffs had cut him to the bone! I was very embarrassed.

Velez: I wasn’t in the riot episode at the end of Season 1, and that’s because Tom said, “I don’t want you to be in that episode.” Because the prisoners talked about Dr. Nathan a lot, and would be like, “Oh, Nathan’s hot.” He said, “I’m afraid it would have to get graphic. They’d wind up raping Gloria, and I don’t want that.” Which I thought was very interesting. In some ways, it would have been predictable; you would expect that to happen to the character. But then she could never go back there and I think there were all those considerations as well. We’d have to lose her, because there’s no way she would come back to work in this prison. No way at all. Tom had the wherewithal to think about the totality of the show, and being able to see it going beyond what we saw.

Velez in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Acevedo: At the end of every season, what Tom would do is sit down with you and say, “How’d you feel about your arc? Where do you feel that you could’ve gone or that you maybe want to go next season?” I’ve worked with everybody, and no showrunner has ever done what Tom Fontana has done. The whole storyline in the third season about Miguel being too white, and not Latino enough was something I brought up with Tom, because it was a big issue for me growing up in the South Bronx. He put all of that into the show.

McAdams: I just remember not wanting Johnny Post to go out like a punk. So I loved reading my death scene, and realizing they set him to go out in all his glory, cussing and fussing and telling people to kiss his ass. The fact that they decided they were going to chop his penis off and deliver it back as their message meant that I knew I’d spend the rest of my life being laughed at. My only request was that it was delivered in a big box, not a small box.

Velez: Tom was always really great about discussing where he thought something was going to go, and it was always in a very off-handed manner. At one point, we hung out and had steak and whiskey, and he said, “I’ve got something I’m thinking about, and tell me if it’s crazy. Would this woman ever fall in love with a prisoner?” And I said, “Absolutely.” He said, “I’ve spoken to other women and they said no.” I replied, “When you fall in love with somebody, sometimes you can’t help who that is. The more complicated the better. Please make that happen!” So she fell in love with Ryan O’Reily. I’ve never had a woman tell me that they didn’t buy it or that they thought it was inappropriate.

Fontana: Initially, we had a consultant who had been in prison, but he wanted to be a writer and he just would have preferred if I had just handed him the pen and said, “You can write everything.” So that was very short lived. All I can say is I that did two years of research, and I continued to read and talk to COs and ex-cons, so I kept having conversations about what was going on in prisons. The thing about prison is that no two prisons are the same, so I had a lot of room to make up s**t. But I also took my responsibility very seriously; I didn’t want anything to be salacious or sensationalistic just purely for that. Anything that happened had to come out of character. On the other hand, you also find out stuff that really happened, like a guy who worked in the prison cafeteria hated this other guy so he fed him broken glass. My attitude was if something was real, then it was fair game. Oddly enough, as the series went, I would get yelled at for something I didn’t make up, but people assumed that I had made it up.

Albrecht: We were certainly put back on our heels a few times [by the content], and I don’t remember if we ever actually asked Tom to change something or just voiced our concerns about things. We really were charting new territory here. We had no idea what was possible to do, and the content of Oz was certainly beyond any of the content of the movies that were on HBO.

Winters as O’Reily in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Winters: I’ll tell you one thing: I had two friends in prison during Oz, and they were like, “You motherf***ers got that s**t right.” Prison is a microcosm of our society, and a lot of bad s**t happens in our society every day. I’ve been on panels where I’ve heard this question from some white guy whose face is melting into his khaki pants, blue blazer and red tie: “Oh, is this really [accurate]?” It’s like, go f**k yourself. Have you ever been in prison? Have you ever even visited a prison? Because I’ve visited prison, and it is not a cute place. There is some horrific s**t that happens there. I don’t think Tom went deep enough. He could have gone so much darker, because the stories that we heard while we were making this show, would never even pass the HBO censors. So, you know, suck on that.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: In terms of the sexuality and sensationalism, there were occasions where I felt it was not always necessary. But then there are occasions where it would go there because it was written from an authentic place. I think there’s a wonderful balance, and Tom was always open to that collaborative dance. We all trusted Tom. We didn’t necessarily like him, and I mean that in the best possible way. He’d done meticulous research so you knew it was not just some flippant, sensational kind of thing.

Martin: There’s a scene with Schillinger after he’s branded Beecher where he’s just talking to him. I said, “You know what I want you to do? I would like you to have your shoes off and your foot in his lap, and you’re making him give you a foot rub.” For some reason, that just seemed right. The branding had nothing to do with sex; it was about power. There’s such an intimacy to the foot rub, and J.K. just ate it up; he was tickling Lee with his toe. That scene explains to me, in a weird way, how I handled [the sexuality]. Sex, in general, is not an empty thing to me, and sex scenes are not about, “Lay on top of this person and bounce harder, and then it’s over.” It has to be about something. Beecher probably massaged his wife’s feet, you know what I mean? So that scene is about something other than power, because we just played that beat with Schillinger tattooing the swastika on his ass.

Kinney: When the romance between Beecher and Keller started [in Season 2], here were two straight guys that were being asked to engage in a graphic depiction of a gay prison couple. They were a little bit shy going into it; one of the things that happened was that everything was out in the open. Everything was shot in a wide open space, so there was no sense of, “Hey, this is a private set.” We would all stand at the monitors and watch this stuff. And they went for it. The whole dynamic in that building was “Go for it,” and that’s what those guys did. What was surprising was how it caught fire. That was one of the first things that became a really popular element of the show. There were a lot of viewing parties for those two.

Chris Meloni joined ‘Oz’ as Chris Keller in Season 2 (Credit: HBO)

Tergesen: I loved the part of the show. In my opinion, it was never about them being gay, it was just about them being in love. If you can find love in a place like that, you’re lucky. My first memory of Chris is that he came to set for a costume fitting, and he was wearing a Tool shirt. And I was like, “This guy seems like a tool.” I told him, “Listen man, let’s go have dinner.” So we went out to dinner, and I said, “You’ve seen the first season, so you know we’re trying to push the envelope. I know the tendency is for two guys who are not gay to try and skirt around it, but I have a feeling we’re going to be doing a lot of this and I think we should try and make it sexy.” Chris looked at me for 10 seconds and then said, “Wow.” But I feel like we did that; there were some amazing moments of tenderness [between them], and I love that it was just about the love. The funny thing is, just as an aside, he and I went to a Tool concert the other night!

Acevedo: We worked together twelve hours a day, and then we would go out four to five nights a week with each other. We were all in our twenties, and we saw each other at work and after work. We all hung out with each other in general, but there was a devious mentality with the inmates. Adewale would get these scenes where it would be like “Adebisi rapes this guy,” and we would be like, “What you going to do?” He would say, “I don’t know,” so we would give him [advice]. Like, “I think you should grab him by the hair or rip his pants.” That was the best part, because the material was so heavy and emotional. You can’t walk on set and be like that the whole day; you’d be so burnt out. It was easier to joke around during those moments.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: There were several times when we had extras on the set where altercations would break out. They would! They were quickly broken up, but it was just the nature of the beast. When you’re being pushed to be as defensive as you can without actually being the actual prisoner, there were times when it would spill over. I know for myself, certainly with the guards or the warden, I wouldn’t mix with them. Because they were guards, you know what I mean? Many times there were blurred lines, and in the heated scenes you’d go overboard sometimes. That’s why you got such great chemistry and great work coming out of it.

Hudson: I knew Adewale [before Oz]. We shot the movie Congo in Costa Rica together and we became, I thought, really good friends. When I first got the show and found out he was going to be on it, I was like, “Great!” Then he became Adebisi and suddenly I go, “Who the hell is this guy?” He maintained that character for years. Towards the end, in the last couple of seasons, we went, “Okay, we can let our characters go. We do know each other.” There was about four years there where I don’t think I could even speak to him.

Velez: I remember the first time I met Adewale on set, he literally almost skipped towards me! He took my hand, and with the most incredible smile said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you.” I was like, “What?” We just walked hand-in-hand across the stage just gushing about each other, and this is this guy who plays Adebisi! Take your pick between him and Schillinger about which is more reprehensible. I had the same experience with J.K. when he was in the infirmary. At one point, he was sitting there and he had the most beautiful, glowing smile. It was interesting. Sometimes in the beginning I couldn’t put two and two together between the actors and the characters.

Kinney: I went out with Adewale all the time. People would recognize him immediately because of that little hat and everything else. He’s a beautiful man. We’d go to bars, and he was quite popular. I hung out with everybody, especially Tom and his posse — Lee and the Winters brothers.

Adebisi abiding in his cell in ‘The Routine’ (Credit: HBO)

Winters: At the end of the day, we were all just a bunch of kids, even the guards. Most of us were new to this. You would want to think that there was animosity on the set between the guards and the prisoners, and there might of been a little tension off set here and there. But the truth of the matter was that we were just a bunch of golden retriever puppies in a storm box going bananas. In between scenes and during down time, there were guys break dancing, having a push-up contests, working on their one-man shows and reading poetry. It was really like the Royal Fontana Company, a kind of theatrical experience during the day. Tom and his crazy roving company of just insane bandits, just going, “What the f**k just happened?”

Chapter 6: What Oz Hath Wrought By the time Oz ended its six season run in 2003, HBO’s ranks of original programs had swelled to include such era-defining shows as, The Sopranos, The Wire, and Sex and the City. The larger cable landscape had changed as well: Showtime had ramped up its originals slate with Soul Food and Queer as Folk, and in 2002, FX premiered The Shield. In several cases, these descendants overshadowed their ancestor in terms of ratings and awards. Still, 20 years later Oz remains a singular TV series, and a foundational experience for everyone involved in its making.

Fontana: HBO didn’t bother us with ratings. If they did marketing or demographic research, they didn’t share it with me. The thing that Chris said to me was, “I don’t care if this show is talked about in the TV section of the newspaper. I want it on the op-ed page.” So anytime somebody on an op-ed page made a reference to the show, he considered that a 40 share of a Nielsen rating. He wanted HBO and the show in places where people who don’t watch television are looking. I had no idea what the ratings were; all I knew is that he said, “Let’s make more of them,” and I said “Yippee.”

Albrecht: I got a lot of comments [about Oz] from people who were my peers in the entertainment business, so I knew that people were paying attention to it. I think that was the first step towards having it be an impact. I don’t know how many subscribers we had at that time — 15 or 17 million maybe — but the fact that we were getting that kind that kind of attention for something that we had done for our programming strategies [told us] we were in uncharted territory. There was a bridge here we could continue to widen and build as long as we were prepared to make the investment.

Winters: Back in 1997, who had HBO? I didn’t. Did you? And given the content of the show, we were going to work thinking, “Are these people f***ing crazy? No one’s going to watch this.”

Tergesen: Right before it started to air, a bunch of us had this thought, like, “Oh my God, what the f**k are people gonna say when they see this thing?” And there were definitely some people like that. One of my favorite reviews was a review that said, “This show offends God and it offends me.” But then it came on, and it was such a great show. And it was a great show to be in New York doing, because people were so verbal. When the show was on, there was always a bunch of stuff happening with people on the street. People who had been to jail would be like, “Yo man, I love that show you’re doing, but I just gotta tell you — the sex stuff, it’s not like that.” Like really bro? You need to tell me this on the street? I wasn’t thinking about whether or not you had sex in prison until you just brought it up now.

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Hudson: I got a call on to be on some talk show on MSNBC; the Monica Lewinsky thing was going on, and the wanted me to come on a panel to discuss Bill Clinton. I didn’t know why they asked me, but I go on the show and I say, “Well, you know, we all make mistakes.” The commentator said, “That is not what you said on the show.” Then it occurred to me that they actually thought I was a warden! They were dealing with it like I was this authority having worked in prison. I don’t know who did their homework, but I’m like, “I’m an actor. What I say on the show comes from Tom Fontana and the writers. It’s nothing to do with me.”

Velez: There was some strange fan mail about outfits they wanted Gloria to wear. I was like, “Wow, this is just a little bit too much.”

Acevedo: All of us would get mail from prisoners. I would get mail constantly. “You remind me of me. You remind me of my brother.” Or, “Hey, can I get a job? Because I was really in prison and I know what’s up.” Stuff like that. The one complaint that people did say was, “Goddamn, everybody’s so handsome in prison!” All of us were too good-looking to be in prison. We’re actors, though. I think probably none of us would survive in prison.

Fontana: I took the responsibility of doing the first drama series for HBO very seriously. Because when you’re given unlimited freedom in terms of language, sexuality, and visual storytelling, it’s very easy to go, “I’m free at last! I can do anything I want!” It was a real lesson for me to try to truly use the violence and the sex when I felt it was necessary for character stuff, and not just to put it in because I could. Not knowing who the next people at HBO doing drama series would be, I felt a responsibility to them. If I f***ed up, Chris would say to them, “I trusted Fontana and he f***ed it up, so I’m not trusting anyone after that.” Fortunately, I didn’t f**k it up too much, and David Chase was the next guy in the door.

Albrecht: First and foremost, OZ was an “Open for Business” sign for HBO. But it wasn’t like all of a sudden the floodgates opened; it was still a growing process. Even The Sopranos was brought to us through Brillstein-Grey, because Brad Grey had been a dear friend of HBO for a long time. The idea that he was going to pitch a show to us was not unusual, but what was unusual was that it was an hour-long drama instead of Fraggle Rock or a comedy special.

Winters: When HBO got wind that hour-long programming could work, they greenlit The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, and then Oz kind of got lost in the conversation a little bit. I’ve always looked at that as a little unfair to Tom, because Tom really needs to be credited as the guy who literally broke down the walls of late night [original] programming for cable television. It’s not sour grapes at all, because those shows were amazing. All I’m saying is that Oz was the guinea pig, and guinea pigs usually get left out of the equation. But you’d have to be really academically bankrupt or just stupid to watch OZ and not see the bigger picture. In mean, in 1997, one of our lead characters was a Muslim. People are talking about Muslims on TV now, and we did it 20 years ago. Tom was so ahead of the game that it frightened people, and they’re just figuring it out now.

Kareem Said talking to his Muslim brothers. (Credit: HBO)

Kinney: All of us were resentful; that’s just the truth. The Sopranos came on, and we loved that show. I still do, obviously. We just really felt like the bastard cousin. We kept wanting recognition; we kept wanting marketing and publicity to put us out there more. We kept wanting to be put into at least the mainstream of cable, since we were the first cable drama ever. We were all working under the radar, and we were all wanting the radar to find us a little bit.

McAdams: Twenty years is a long time with multiple generation gaps, so there are a lot of people who just don’t really know the value of what this show meant to cable television. They don’t know how it set the foundation for all these other shows that came on HBO that everybody loved. Not just The Sopranos; I’m talking about shows like The Corner and The Wire. I was blessed to work on The Wire for a number of seasons, and people get more excited about me mentioning that then they do when I mention Oz. That’s because they don’t remember Oz

Albrecht: I think maybe from the subject matter point of view, Oz was a tougher show to watch than a lot of the others, even though the others were groundbreaking in their own way. Oz was more violent, and that’s saying a lot compared to The Sopranos. Even in The Sopranos, you didn’t see people get killed a lot; they god killed off-camera. In OZ, the violence and stuff like that happened right in front of your face. The other shows were maybe easier on the stomach for people.

Tergesen: You now, whether Oz gets included in a list [of influential shows] or not, it doesn’t matter. I know what it was, and to this day, I find people are always stopping me and talking about it. So was The Sopranos a major hit? Yes. But it was part of a process. There wouldn’t have been a Sopranos if there wasn’t an Oz.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I think the very reason that we’re talking about it today shows that it’s not overshadowed. We were first, and Oz was probably an uncompromising show that was always going to be a hard pill to swallow. But what it has become as a result is a cult phenomenon. The Sopranos was slightly more commercial, and a little bit more palatable but Oz was uncompromising.

Martin: I think Oz was so far ahead its time, because it didn’t have a Tony Soprano. That was deliberate on Tom’s part, because he really wanted an ensemble piece and he loved this idea of the guy you love might die. In a weird way, Oz shot itself in the foot, because there’s nobody for you to hold onto. Tom would kill them off so quickly. You watch for the performances, but not for any one performance. That couldn’t work for a very long time, and now where do we see it working? Game of Thrones also has no Tony Soprano. Oz is the one that started that. It’s a very forward way of thinking, and now everyone’s thinking that way.

Fontana: Even though they were both about criminals, The Sopranos was so different from Oz that it wasn’t like it a copy of something we did. It existed in its own universe. I’m glad Oz worked for HBO, and gave them the courage to keep pushing the boundaries that it did with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under and all the shows that have come since.

Albrecht: I learned a tremendous amount by doing Oz Tom was a consummate showrunner and supportive friend. There’s a real bond that’s made when you go through something like that. I’m incredibly proud of the show, and I always talk about it like Tom and Barry were a little like Lewis and Clark, looking down at the Pacific going “Holy crap, we made it.”

De Segonzac: What I like about the show is that it’s completely timeless. Re-watching the first episode, it could be happening today. It’s also just a great memory of what filmmaking can be about, and the kind of feeling that happens if the people involved are given free rein.

Tergesen: Oz changed me in a lot of ways, and most of the time work doesn’t, you know? I learned a lot about myself as an actor, and I have a career that’s largely based on the fact that I did this show 20 years ago. I’m so happy that I got that chance, and the relationships that I still have to this day. When J.K. won the Oscar for Whiplash, I texted him, “Wow, I just realized I licked the boots of an Oscar winner.” And his return text was, “If memory serves you also shit in the face of an Oscar winner.”

Future Oscar winner J.K Simmons as Vern Schillinger on ‘Oz.’ (Credit: HBO)

Akinnuoye-Agbaje: No matter where I go in the world, people will always call me Adebisi, and that’s cool with me because it’s been the foundation of my success. Whatever role I play is a result of writers, directors and producers watching Oz. And I think it made people aware of what goes on behind those bars. I was invited to Rikers to speak to some of the younger offenders in there, because the prisoners were some of the most popular viewers of the show, and felt that it was an authentic voice as far as it could be.

Seda: Every now and then, someone will be like, “Hey! I love Dino, man. It was the best character. Why’d they kill you?” I’m like, “Aw, thanks.” It’s great to be a part of something that when you pour so much into and you get so much passion in your heart. It was just a great project to be a part of.

Acevedo: This is gonna sound so mushy, but Oz was the truest sense of an artistic family that I could ever, ever have. I was in New York two months ago, and I had drinks at Tom’s house. I still talk to most of the guys. So there’s that sense of family, and other actors looking out for you. This whole business is really not forgiving, so for that to be one of my first jobs spoiled me. When I go on any other show, and I see a guest star come on the set, I think about how nervous I was [on Oz]. So I try to be as welcoming as possible. I go, “If you want to ad lib, throw it at me.” I make them feel that it’s okay to f**k up.

Velez: This truly was a family. You hear people say that, but I just remember hanging out watching people’s scenes, and I remember the level of commitment to the work and to the collaborative spirit. You don’t get that often in your career. It made me a better actor and gave me something that I’m proud of to be a part of. And I met some great people that I love.

McAdams: Oz set the foundation for what my career is today, working as a professional stuntman. That only happened because of the exposure I had to the stuntpeople that I met on Oz. It changed my family’s life, too, because when I left New York and went back to Maryland, the dream was real at that point. Oz showed me what was possible in life, and the belief system and faith that I gathered built my confidence for everything else I’ve been able to accomplish.

Hudson: For me, Oz brought a certain integrity and honesty that touches you on a deeper level. It was the most amazing cast I think I’ve ever worked with.

Winters: I’ve been on a lot of great shows, but Oz is the biggest, baddest motherf***er I could ever have been a part of. That was a period of time that will never be repeated, and for that I’m eternally grateful. Plus it was where I got my chops: I learned how to fail, and I learned how to succeed. Nothing will ever come close to it, ever.

Kinney: I have two personal legacies that really shaped my entire being as an artist. One is my theater company, Steppenwolf, which shaped the way I see the world through art. The second thing is Oz. Tom gave me the language for filmmaking and that side of things, and the idea of having one person be the captain of the shop. Tom was the great decider for all of us, and that really shaped so much of how I treated everything after that as an artist. I don’t do anything unless I think it has that kind of vision now. Because of Tom, my standards were raised, and I think all of ours were.

Fontana: As a writer, Oz liberated me in a way that I didn’t know that I needed to be liberated, in terms of how to tell stories and how to develop characters. On a personal level, being friends with the cast has enhanced my life. I get asked every couple of weeks when I’m bringing the show back. But the sets are gone and the actors are all too expensive, so there’s no chance of it. I couldn’t afford Dean Winters or J.K. Simmons anymore! So I can’t say that I sat up night cursing the darkness that we didn’t get the recognition [at the time]. What’s funny is that it’s taken 20 years, but now everybody’s saying that. You know what I mean? I lived long enough to hear it.

Oz can be streamed on Amazon Prime and HBO Go.

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#_revsp:wp.yahoo.tv.us #hbo #_author:Ethan Alter #peak tv #oz #_uuid:4cfd0e6f-728f-3b93-aeb8-b9063963e54a #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT

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