By Karen Davidson and facilitated by Deb Craig

When we requested an interview, Allison graciously agreed.  Questions were submitted to her; then she wrote her responses and sent them back.   No changes have been made to her responses.

How did you end up directing an episode of SouthLAnd?

My manager Ragna Nervik knew about “Southland” and suggested me to Andrew Stern in John Wells office.  Andrew and I met and we really got along great.  Then I met with Chris Chulack, and he and I had such a great meeting talking about Los Angeles, and the neighborhoods and the life here that is often portrayed on TV and in movies really wrong.    Southland gets it RIGHT.  I also loved how Chris described the way the production is run and how it shoots.  There is a brilliant philosophy behind the style of Southland, and this is what gives us fans that feeling of being right there with the characters.  It’s the way I also shoot my movies.   In fact, I’ve even said, Chris is even more of a querrilla filmmaker than me!  I knew I was going to learn a lot from him.

So I was over-joyed when they offered me an episode.   Believe it or not I was actually supposed to direct Episode 7 of the first season of Southland on NBC!  But as all you Southies know, there was no episode 7 of the first season!  They were canceled before I could direct my episode which Cheo had written, which would have been awesome. (Cheo and I are homies, we met online from being mutual admirers — haa haa:  I loved “Notorious” and he loved “Mi Vida Loca”.  We finally met in person on Southland!)

As disappointing as it was when the show was canceled, I was so happy to be offered an episode again for season 3, and to finally get my Southland break!  And I absolutely loved Jonathan’s script for “Sideways”.  It was so perfect for me. (continue reading…)

Photo Credit: TNT (Greg Williams)

I have had a number of people ask me

Where are the original interviews from SouthlandTvfans.com this season?

This is, actually, a very excellent question! The answer, however, is not quite so simple. It never is, is it? (continue reading…)

Sorry this took so long, folks! All that holiday cheer and stuff sort of got in the way along with a nasty case of work!

This is the next in our series of videos from our visit to the set of Southland on December 17th, an interview with Michael Cudlitz who plays Officer John Cooper. We get a bit off track towards the end, but I left it in anyway because it gets a bit funny – you’ll see when you watch. You’ll also notice what I’ve observed in the past about interviews with Michael. He is very animated and boisterous, an extremely lively and fun interviewee. (continue reading…)

As promised, here is the 2nd in our series of videos from last week’s visit to the set of SouthLAnd. Possibly the most anticipated by some of our fans, as well – because the subject here is none other than Ben McKenzie.

Due to the limitations of video lengths on YouTube, as well as my desire not to give away too much in the way of spoilers for the upcoming Season 3 of SouthLAnd, there are 2 small sections of the interview in this video that have been “redacted” – sorry folks! Ben got to talking when one of the other media reps asked some questions she shouldn’t have and gave away more than was appropriate for general consumption at this stage, so you’ll just have to wait for the episodes to air! (continue reading…)

Here is the first in a series of videos of the interviews we did while on the set of Southland on Friday, December 17, 2010. This is the first of 2 solo interviews with Regina King.

Regina was amazingly gracious and friendly, although she had to have been under immense pressure. In fact, all 3 of them – Regina, Ben McKenzie and Michael Cudlitz, plus technical adviser Chic Daniels – were very pleasant and wonderful with us the whole time. It was their last day of filming for 2010, they had a very long day ahead of them still, after a very early start, the weather was horrible outside, and yet they all still treated us like old friends there for a chat instead of website reporters there to pick their brains. They know, as does TNT, that the fans are the ones that helped save this show not once, but twice. They know who they are making the show for and they appreciate it.

So on with the video interview! (continue reading…)