Nashville: Chatting with Sam Jaeger and Sarah Hagan

I'm back in NYC, yo. So let's wrap up Nashville coverage with some odds and ends, starting with two familiar television actors who had movies in the festival, Sarah Hagan and Sam Jaeger.

Sam Jaeger, you may recognize as "Joel" from Parenthood or series regular stints on short-lived series like Eli Stone and Girls Club. We spoke in the late afternoon on a day when the VIP tent was strangely empty. Without competition for attention (his world premiere was the next evening and he'd just arrived) I yanked him my way, verbally. He was super amiable, funny and made no attempt to escape the conversation. (Ha! See, I always wonder if actors dread the constant need to be "on" while they talk to press, fans, or industry types.) We talked about his directorial feature debut Take Me Home, which is about a down on his luck photographer who ends up on an emotional roadtrip with a stranger in his part time gig as a cab driver. I revealed my surprise to him that when I got to the end of the screener I was surprised to see his name everywhere: writing, directing, producing in addition to acting. (The best thing about festivals for me is seeing films without any buzz, hype or information clouding the experience.) He had a self-deprecating sense of humor and revealed that he figured no one else would star in it with the amount of money he was planning on paying the lead. Heh.

From there we talked about Parenthood and I told him about my skeptical initial reaction to his character: 'oh i know exactly where this is going. TV is so conservative and the stay-at-home dad always morphs into a cheating villain' (see Brothers and Sisters for a recent cliche example). To my great surprise his character didn't turn out like that at all. He was not suddenly a "recurring" character instead of a regular. He laughed...

I'm glad they didn't fire me, too!

Parenthood is still awaiting word on renewal for its third season but he says he's feeling confident that they're getting picked up. If you watch Parenthood, you should read this piece at Vulture about what it does right and a few areas where it needs more work. I rarely agree so whole heartedly with an indepth analysis such as that. (Though I fear any attempt to "complicate" the Joel & Julia characters would result in some clichéd cheating that I have no interest in seeing as a plot development.)

Sarah Hagen I didn't recognize quite as immediately. But when she walked past me I did one of those 'I know this person' double takes. It took me a few seconds before I was like "Slayerette! Millie!" Though she's always a welcome small screen presence she is one of those actors who looks quite different offscreen, more traditionally glamorous and pretty than she ever is in onscreen since she's often playing "geeks" (hence: Freaks and Geeks).

Sarah Hagan in (fromt left to right): Buffy, Freaks & Geeks, and Jess+Moss

After we chatted briefly she walked me over to meet her director Clay Jeter, who is originally from Tennessee (hence the "Spirit of Tennessee" award announced yesterday). I congratulated him on Jess+Moss's recent festival win (Dallas) and asked if they'd found distribution yet. They hadn't but the awards notice and reviews had them feeling positive about a pickup. Her director wanted to know how I'd recognized her. I told him Buffy the Vampire Slayer and he said that's the number two response but he hears Freaks and Geeks most often. That was the clincher, I tell him, a one-two punch. And only two of the best television series of all time, lucky girl! Hagan, who turns 27 next month, plays Jess, a recent high school graduate in a memory piece film about a shared summer with her cousin Moss (Austin Vickers).  I asked her if she's eager to move on from the mental association we have of her as a highschooler. "Play young as long as you can, right?" she says with a smile and shrug and I guess that's true for actors of all ages. Unfortunately I was unable to fit a screening in before I had to catch my plane back so Jess+Moss remains unseen... for now. But it certainly looks intriguing in stills and was apparently shot on degraded film stock.