Conversation with a Reporter

I had a good conversation the past few days with Jill Vejnoska from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She is a TV critic in Atlanta, and is writing a story about the portrayal of Christians in some of the new shows this fall. She read some of my previous posts about this topic, and wanted to interview me for the story. We had a great dialogue...I'll tell you more about it in the coming days.

In that conversation, she told me the background of the Harriet Hayes character from Studio 60. Harriet is the character who is a Christian, but interestingly isn't portrayed as a goofball or dumb blonde. I googled the topic, and found out that series creator Aaron Sorkin based the character on Kristin Chenoweth, an actress who is known as a "conservative Christian in a godless industry."

Read the article here from the Pittsburg Post Gazette.

The most interesting quote from Aaron Sorkin was at the end of the article:

"I had seen [Kristin] in so many unusual situations in Hollywood that make her not only a minority, but a bit of a pariah," Sorkin said. "I want [Harriet] to be a heroine on this show and I want her to be loved by a guy who is the opposite of all that and let that be the test case to see if we can all get along."

This article also reports that in an upcoming episode, Harriet says: "You're just going to have to believe me that in other parts of the country that aren't New York or Los Angeles, the fact that I believe in God isn't noteworthy."