Breakfast came with an introduction from and a short Q&A with Jose Andres, host of “Made in Spain,” a show which I now feel like I need to watch just because he was so darned charming. After that, we got an update from PBS Kids which was surprisingly unexciting, but I stuck it out because I didn’t want to feel guilty about strolling out with the “Dinosaur Train” and “Super Why” toys that were on table. (My daughter’s going to love them…) From there, we shifted into the big ballroom and spent some time with Jeff Bridges as he talked about his upcoming “American Masters” special, then back to the small ballroom for the “Masterpiece” presentations on “Upstairs Downstairs” and “Zen.”

Back to the big ballroom again for “Bears of the Last Frontier,” but although I was fascinated, I had to slip out early in order to do a one-on-one with Rufus Sewell about his work on “Zen.” Thankfully, I made it back in time for the long but wonderful panel for “The Best of Laugh-In,” featuring Gary Owens, Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, and creator George Schlatter. Sadly, I missed most of the next two panels, “Forgiveness: A Time to Love & A Time to Hate” and “Independent Lens: Artists Profiles,” but on the other hand, it’s because I was able to help my buddy Brian Sebastian on interviews with Owens and Tomlin, even getting a few questions in myself.

The evening event was a performance by Harry Connick Jr. in conjunction with his “Great Performances” special, and I thought it was fantastic, if unabashedly jazzy. But, really, if you were expecting anything else, then you clearly haven’t been listening to the man’s music very much. All I know is that he tore the roof off the joint, and I loved every minute of it.

Okay, time for your top 10 quotes of the day. You’ll note more repetition of shows this go-round, but all I can tell you is that there were fewer panels and less instantly memorable moments in some of them. I think you’ll still get a few good laughs from this bunch, anyway, though. See you tomorrow!

1. “I got a little bit nervous when they told me that I had to be speaking in front of TV critics. I knew I was coming here to share time at PBS, but all of a sudden it’s, like, ‘The room is going to be full of TV critics.’ Great: all my life dealing with food critics one by one, and now I’m going to have to be dealing with an entire room of TV critics…?” – Jose Andres, “Made in Spain”

2. “There’s an element in making movies, the collage, that you give all your stuff and then the director cuts it up and makes a different piece out of it. Seeing myself as this young guy (in ‘Tron: Legacy’), it rubbed my fur a little bit the wrong way. You know, it was a bit like…remember the first time you heard your voice on a tape recorder, how weird it sounded to you? Early on in my career…I don’t know if we have time for kind of a long story. You feel like a story or not?

“My first film was called ‘Halls of Anger.’ The movie was about busing white kids into a black school, and I was the white kid who was supposed to be, you know, trying to integrate into the sports and all these things. And the black kids keep beating me up. So now this is the scene here; what I’m going to describe is the climax of the film. And Calvin Lockhart, wonderful actor, is playing the boys’ vice principal. And the scene is; I’ve been beaten up, and now I’m there, and I say, ‘I’m quitting.’ And I’m in tears and everything. He says, ‘No, you got to stick.’ I say, ‘I’ve had it. I’ve had enough,’ you know. So we started shooting the scene, and we did Calvin’s side first. And all my emotion came, and I was thinking, ‘God, I hope I have it when we come back to my side.’ Then they shot all the coverage of all the people’s reaction, and I was there. And then they came to my side, and I kicked ass, man. I was so…it was like fresh, and I got applause from the crew. And I was, like, ‘Oh, man, maybe I should do this acting thing. I’m pretty good!’ Now we cut to Watts, and it’s the premiere of the show, and I’m sitting there with my brother on one side and my father on one side. And I’m saying, ‘Wait till you guys see my…’ Well, you know, not saying it to them, but I’m saying it inside. And here comes the scene. And here it comes. And now they’re on Calvin. Yeah, Calvin, the boys’ vice principal. Yeah. Cut to me. Cut to me. Why aren’t you cutting to me? And now they cut to me…and my face is something like (a grimace). And the entire audience laughs…and I just about had a bowel movement. And if you listened, it was the perfect opposite reaction that I wanted from the audience.

“That was like a real crossroads for me with the acting, because I thought, ‘God, how do you protect yourself?’ And you don’t. You just have to be willing to lay it out there and put yourself in some director’s hands.” – Jeff Bridges, “American Masters: Jeff Bridges – The Dude Abides”

3. “(My performance tonight) was really weak. You know what it is, man? Like, I resorted a little bit of trickery. I haven’t sung a song in four months. I haven’t sat at a piano in four months because I was doing this dolphin movie. I’ve been a veterinarian for the last four months. So it’s unfair in a sense. But you guys didn’t pay to get in here, so I don’t feel that bad about it.” – Harry Connick, Jr., “Great Performances: Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert on Broadway”

4. “Lady Bellamy (on ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’) was played by Rachel Gurney in the first series. The truth of the story is she came into a great deal of money. Her mother died and left her a lot of money. So she went to John Hawkesworth and the other producers and said, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go, I don’t want to do this anymore.’ So she went down on the Titanic, as you’ll remember, Lady Bellamy did. And either (Rachel) ran through the money, or she got bored, and she wanted to come back, so she went to John Hawkesworth and said, ‘Could you please write me back in, darling?’ And he said, ‘Rachel, the only person who could write you back in is Jacques Cousteau.’” – Jean Marsh, “Masterpiece: Upstairs, Downstairs”

5. “’Upstairs Downstairs’ premiered in England in 1971, it went on for five years, there were probably 68 episodes, and about 15 years ago, Jean Marsh and I were at a reception with Princess Margaret, in England. Princess Margaret was notorious as a party girl, as you all know, and there were great gaps in her own personal history. So Jean…I probably shouldn’t be telling the story, but it’s too late now…Jean was introduced presented to Princess Margaret, who was there in the dress, with the handbag. And the equery sort of whispered in Princess Margaret’s ear and said, ‘Jean Marsh, the creator of the very popular television series ‘Upstairs Downstairs.’’ Blank, nothing. Shakes hand with Jean, and the equery says, ‘You remember, the one about the Bellamy family at Eaton Place.’ And Princess Margaret said, ‘Oh, yes. The one about all the classes.’ Now, Jean’s a very feisty piece of work, and it doesn’t go down well, things like that, with Jean. So Jean is shaking her hand, curtsies, whatever you do, whatever you people do over there, curtsy. And she said, ‘How do you do, ma’am.’ Jean said, ‘Did you see it?’ And Princess Margaret said, ‘No, I was away.’ And Jean said, ‘For five years?’ That’s our Jean.” – Rebecca Eaton, “Masterpiece”

6. Ed Stoppard: Rufus has been Tom (Stoppard’s) surrogate son for about the last 20 years. I’m working through a lot of issues, actually, about this at the moment.
Rufus Sewell: This is a breakthrough.
Ed Stoppard: Yeah, and you’re all here. It’s like an intervention. Rufus, as I’m sure you’re aware, starred in ‘Arcadia’ in 1993. So I would have been 19. I remember going to see it — 18, 19 — and I remember going to see it and sort of slightly having a crush on him, really, truth be told. Have I not told you this before?
Rufus Sewell: No.

Ed Stoppard: Okay. Don’t print that. But basically thinking, “This is…” That was certainly one of those moments in my adolescence where I thought, ‘This is something I’d like to do.’ So I kind of knew Rufus from afar, and we’d sort of bumped into each other once or twice over the years. But, you know, Caterina was quoted in an interview I noted where she was asked, ‘What first attracted you to this project?’ And she said, ‘Rufus Sewell.’ And I kind of felt…I mean, that was also sort of pertinent to me. The idea of working with Rufus was…I was about to say very attractive. That’s not what I want to say at all, but…you know what I mean.
Rufus Sewell: More of a breakthrough than we need.

– Ed Stoppard and Rufus Sewell, “Masterpiece Mystery: Zen”

7. George Schlatter: I must admit, (getting Richard Nixon to appear on ‘Laugh-In’) was my biggest mistake, and I’ve had to live with that ever since he announced that that may have gotten him elected, but Paul Keyes was his closest friend, and I said, ‘Let’s do something. What about Nixon?’ He said, ‘We’ll go talk to him.’ So we went over to CBS, and Paul said, ‘Mr. Nixon, we want you to say, ‘Sock it to me.’ He said, “What is ‘sock it to me’?’ I said, ‘Just say that.’ He did say that. So we got a camera. Now, his guys are still, ‘He can’t do it,’ and we’re in there, and we say, ‘Just say, ‘Sock it to me.'” “Sock it to me.” “No, no, Mr. Nixon. If you could say, like, ‘Sock it to me.” ‘Yes, I’ve got it. This comedy is new for me, you know. Sock it to me.’ So we took six takes to try to get the one you saw, and we were out of there like a porch climber and put it on before anybody really knew what we were doing or knew the effect that it would have. Then we chased Hubert Humphrey all over the country trying to get him to rebut it…and he said that cost him the election.

Gary Owens: Well, you know, I was with Humphrey that particular day. He was doing “Meet the Press” that same day that Nixon came on “Laugh In,” but not together. So I knew Humphrey from my days in the Midwest, so I said, “Let’s go down and talk to him.” Well, he can’t do anything except say, “No,” and at this point, he says, “Well, I’m just starting to do ‘Meet the Press.’ Can you guys come back in maybe an hour and a half, and I’ll ask my advisors what I should do.” Well, of course, we’re waiting around thinking he would do it, and his advisors told him that he’d have his pants sprayed with seltzer and fall through a trap door…
George Schlatter: Not a bad idea…
Gary Owens: …which, of course, you wouldn’t have done. But, so, anyway, his advisors told him not to do “Laugh In.”
George Schlatter: They passed a special bill in Congress that would…they had an equal time provision, a special bill that allowed a political candidate, if it was a nonpolitical statement, under five seconds to appear on a variety show so that Nixon could appear. And I’ve had to live with that.

– George Schlatter and Gary Owens, “The Best of ‘Laugh-In'”

8. “I tried to resist…creating a strong persona because of my father, you know, with ‘Sea Hunt’ and Mike Nelson and all that. I saw how frustrated he was, because he was a very versatile actor, and because he was so successful as Mike Nelson. He got offered a lot of skin diving scripts. That’s about it for quite a while. So I went about not developing a strong persona, and now The Dude has sort of materialized as that. And I’m not so I’m not so stuck on not developing a persona. I figure now my persona is going to be whatever it is, and I’ve got enough material around The Dude that the filmmakers know I can do other things, so I’m not as worried as I once was about that, and I love ‘The Big Lebowski.’ It’s one of my favorite movies. I’m partial. I’m in it. That’s one reason. Even if I wasn’t in it, it would still be one of my favorite movies. It always hooks me. You know, I’m one of the guys who clicks on the TV, and if ‘The Godfather’ comes on, I’ll watch that. I get hooked. I say, ‘I’ll just watch a couple of scenes,’ and I get hooked. And ‘Lebowski’ is like that with me too. I’ll watch a couple scenes, and I’m a goner.” – Jeff Bridges, “American Masters: Jeff Bridges – The Dude Abides”

9. “I remember asking Brian May, the guitar player with Queen, ‘How much did Freddie (Mercury) know…like, really know…about music?” And he said he had a third grade piano education, which is fascinating to me because, when you think about the stuff he did like on any song, like ‘Death on Two Legs,’ whatever song you want to pick, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ would be the obvious choice, and there’s a lot of stuff going on there. You know, what I dug about him so much is he was completely uninhibited as a performer. He just didn’t care. Like, he would just go out and wear what he wanted, even with his sexuality and with the way every nothing mattered. I mean, he wasn’t afraid of anything. As a young performer, that’s what you aspire to: to be able to not care. And the more you sort of restrict yourself with the confines of established art form like jazz and when you start to become successful at it, it becomes more and more difficult to be uninhibited because you like the success, you like what’s happening to you. So you would destroy it by doing anything contrary to that.

“I experienced that when I did these funk records. People you know, they come to my shows to hear me singing ‘It Had to Be You,’ and then we’re playing really weird New Orleans R&B, and so it’s difficult. But Freddie Mercury was one of those guys who didn’t care. That’s extremely rare, I think, to be able to do that, and you couple that with his musical abilities, I wouldn’t say he was the greatest piano player in the world, but he’s certainly intensely musical, and his vocals…like, there’s a guy I wouldn’t want to have a cutting contest with as a singer. Like, I mean, he just…that’s just…it’s, like, silly ability. That’s unbelievable to be able to do that, and even when you listen to his vibrato, it’s erratic. You know what I mean? That’s just talent, straight up talent and creativity. That’s ridiculous. Imagine what he would have been able to do had he been trained. Like, it wouldn’t have affected his spontaneity or creativity at all, I don’t think. I think that’s a big myth when you you know, when you become educated, it takes away from the soulful part. Imagine. I mean, that’s just, like, once a century talent, I think.”

10. “You know, some of (the talk show hosts) are great eaters. Charlie Rose is. Conan O’Brien is. But this is entertainment at 1:00 a.m. If you have anyone at 1:00 a.m. awake, don’t talk to them about the future of humankind through food, you know? When I go to these shows, I know I make a clown of myself. They never sit me in the sofa. I’m, like, ‘What the heck?’ Because I’m an immigrant? They make you cook. You know, they don’t invite Frank Gehry and they put him to make little buildings in the middle of the room. But with chefs, they still make us cook. Like, ‘All right, give me a break.'” – Jose Andres, “Made in Spain”

PBS, of course, has never been afraid to take the work of Dickens and transform it into a major production, so it’s no surprise to find that they’re to be airing three such adaptations – “Oliver Twist,” “Little Dorrit,” and “The Old Curiosity Shop” – as part of what’s being called “The Incomplete Dickens.”

When you look at Timothy Spall, known to “Harry Potter” fans around the world as the man who plays Peter Pettigrew, you have to admit: the guy was born to play Fagin in “Oliver Twist.” And when you see his performance, you’ll be hard pressed to avoid using the word “creepy” when describing him.

That might sound like an insult, but let’s call it more of a left-handed compliment, shall we? Besides, it’s not like Spall isn’t aware of a recurring thread amongst many of the characters he has played.

“They’re sort of all repulsive,” he admitted. “They are somewhat divine, and they are repulsive, aren’t they? Looking at what I do and standing the way I stand and acting the way I do, I’ve always thought it’s part of my job to give people who are undesirable a really good crack at the game. And then I laugh at trying to turn the tables on characters that are perceived as being pariahs or outcasts or repulsive or repugnant in some way and make you realize that even the most reprehensible and undesirables of characters are human beings. If I get a chance, I try to give it a go and make you feel bad about hating them as well.”

He’s amused, however, by how much one of the smallest parts he’s ever played – Peter Pettigrew – is the one that has become one of his signature roles.

“Wherever I go in the world, it’s one of the most that gets the biggest recognition,” he said. “I don’t mind. I mean, I think that ‘Harry Potter’ is kind of a phenomenon, isn’t it? It’s sort of universally loved. There are a few people in the universe who despise it, but it’s actually one of those places where I’ll go in a lift somewhere in Middle America, and somebody will go, ‘Hey, are you the rat dude?’ And that will be somebody in their fifties, you know? But, no, it’s remarkable. It’s a phenomenon, and the great thing about it, as — and I’m not doing a cheesy segue here, ‘Dickens on the Telly’ – it makes people realize that, you know, you can read a book, actually. It’s not stupid, and it’s not weird if you’re a kid. And I think, you know, one of the most beneficial things of ‘Harry Potter’ is it’s got a whole generation of kids who would never have read reading, and I think that’s going to be great.”

Spall earned bonus points by utilizing a Radiohead lyric to describe the role Fagin in “Oliver Twist” (“he’s a creep, he’s a weirdo”), but despite the character’s reprehensible nature, Spall still manages to find him an inherently sympathetic individual because he’s a victim of his own circumstances.

“I thought, ‘Well, there’s been many brilliant performances of it,’ and I wasn’t an obvious choice for the character, but somebody was willing enough to tolerate me having a go at it,” he said. “I realized that you can’t reproduce or copy, but on the other aspect, you don’t want to try and be clever by being so adverse to what anybody else has done. So I started to think about where he was from, why he was like he was. And I kept having an image of him being an outcast somehow possibly thrown out of a nation Yiddish job and Yiddish culture and cut loose as a child and then had to take care of himself internationally. So he gathered many different attributes of a life of possessions and jewels and just basically trying to keep himself together. And, you know, actors always try and work out what makes a character tick. I was very mindful of why this pariah would end up being in London and hopefully try to make him creepy and exotic, but slightly vulnerable as well.”

Similarly, the cute-as-a-button Claire Foy seems tailor-made for the title role in “Little Dorrit,” though you’re likely unfamiliar with Ms. Foy, given her limited resume. This is her first significant role, but it’s clearly not to be her last, given that she flew in for the TCA panel – it was her first-ever trip to Los Angeles – from the set of the movie “Season of the Witch,” which she’s filming with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. Still, she’s not likely to forget the audition process anytime soon.

“There were quite a number of rounds,” she said. “Four times. Possibly five. I can’t remember. It was all right, really, because it was never something that you kind of assumed, ‘It’s going to happen.’ Because I grew up watching BBC ‘hair dramas,’ I loved them, so I never took it very seriously. Well, I mean, I took it very seriously, but I was even shocked even down to the last group. But it was wonderful, exciting, and everything. And then I found out I got it, and then I started to worry, and fear set in a bit. Nothing really prepares you at all, I don’t think, except just getting the job done and don’t think about it because, otherwise, if you think about it, you will go a bit mad. So you just have to carry on and ignore it.”

“Oliver Twist” airs on PBS on February 15 and 22, with “Little Dorrit” following from March 29 to April 26, and “The Old Curiosity Shop” closes out the run on May 3. They will also be rebroadcasting their production of “David Copperfield,” starring future-Harry Potter Daniel
Radcliffe in the title role, on March 15 and 22.

There have been plenty of “Wallander” films made in Sweden, but this is the first time the books have received an adaptation for an English-language audience, and given how many Wallander adventures there are (eight novels, several short stories), this has the potential to be a lengthy gig for Branagh.

But does he want such a gig?

“I’d certainly be very, very happy to make some more of them,” he said. “I get rather superstitious about assuming the audiences may want to watch it for years to come. I think that when we approached it, we were very aware of how many excellent detective stories there have been on television and that we had to really earn our right to be there. There are another seven books that could potentially be adapted. And I think we would very much like to and are very much looking forward to planning another three. But when we all met as a creative team just before Christmas and had a chance to sort of debrief after the screening of the three films in the UK, I think we were very thrilled with the reaction, which had been very positive, and very excited about that, but we did feel there was an enormous amount of work still do, excitingly to do, in terms of developing the character. So I think we’ll just…if we’re lucky and, as my mother would say, if God spares us, we’ll take the next three, if we can, and do them and hopefully learn from some of the things that we wanted to develop on this time. Whether that then develops into years to come remains to be seen.”

Branagh’s “Wallander” co-star, Tom Hiddleston (who plays Martinsson), showed his age when discussing how the two had worked together briefly in the 2001 TV production, “Conspiracy.”

“I had a small part playing the phone operator, so I was actually on the set for six weeks, watching him work,” said Hiddleston. “Basically, it was my first professional job, so I had very few lines, but I sat behind my phone-operating desk, watching the performances of Ken and Stanley Tucchi, Colin Firth, and a great cast of Brits. I’ve never said this to you before, but I was terrified, because I watched ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ when I was…”

“Easy with the age thing, Tom,” warned Branagh.

“Sorry, sorry,” apologized Hiddleston. “But, you know, I was the teenager growing up and starting to act and, you know, I knew quite early on that I wanted to be an actor. And I suppose Ken was like…he was making British films that I wanted to be in, and he was the guy. And I saw ‘Hamlet’ when I was 16. That’s another age thing. I apologize. But it was a great thrill to be allowed to work with one of the best actors that we have in the UK, I think, and to act with him as well and not just be directed by him. It was great.”

Fans of the original novels will be pleased to learn that the dark grittiness has successfully transitioned to the television adaptation…or, at least, that’s what I took from Hiddleston’s statement that it opens with a scalping and Branagh’s reference to a girl dousing herself in gasoline and setting herself afire.

“I found that image in the book, that particular image, very striking and haunting,” said Branagh. “But as often is the case, on reflection when we came to do it and when I was working on the script and looking at that sequence, much more was suggested than was explicit. And it’s true also on the TV, that we were inspired by that, trying to suggest and leave room for the imagination of the audience, so it will go to as dark a place as they care to go, I suppose. I think the seeds are there for that to
work in that way.”

“Wallander” premieres this summer – exact date TBD as of this writing – on PBS.