KEY POINTS:
I heard you're a little worried that no one knows about the show, so I'm here to assure you that it's on in New Zealand and had a big season premiere ...
Oh good! I was a little bit concerned because they're not promoting it here [in Sydney] yet. It hasn't started but then I heard that it's on tomorrow night and I was like "Oh God, no one's going to know that it's on". It's a weird show. You've got to get people to watch it. Is it on at a good time in New Zealand?
Yep, it's on Monday nights, which is good because everyone stays in and watches TV.
Oh, okay, good. So it's on a big channel at a good time? Good, I'm very happy about that.
It's quite an unusual show. Was that a deciding factor in taking the show on or did you just need/want a job?
No, I wasn't interested in doing TV this year. I've got a few movies coming out and I was in that whole world. You've got to sign these six-year contracts so it's a big deal to sign on to a TV show. And it's a lot of time to shoot the show.
It's hard to make the decision to do TV. But I'd worked with Bryan Fuller on a show called Wonderfalls a few years ago and I heard that he had a pilot, so I read it and called him to say "Congratulations, I think it's going to be great.
You're going to find someone great to do that part." And he said, "I wrote it with you in mind." I was just like "Ohh ... maybe I should read that again." So I did and I decided to do it because I thought the script was better than most of the movies I was reading.
It's a good show with a good heart and I think that's important.
I'd heard Bryan Fuller wrote the part expressly for you. What did you do to make such a good impression on him?
I don't know! Like I said, we worked on Wonderfalls and got along well. I don't know what it means that he wrote a character that makes pies and brings dead people back to life. I'm not sure what that has to do with me. But I'll take it.
Have you ever made a pie in real life?
I had to learn to make pies for the show. It's much more difficult than you would think. But in America we only really make pies out of fruit or custard stuff. Y'all make pies out of anything! Rabbit, fish ... It wouldn't really work for Ned if we were bringing fish pies back to life.
I have to ask, the chemistry between you and Anna Friel (Chuck) is incredible. Are you friends off-screen?
Good, good, good friends. Anna's really good for me. I'm a lot like Ned, I just want to hole up in my house with my dog and hike and have a very reclusive life.
Anna's really outgoing and she has a lot of friends so she gets me out doing stuff. We connected the minute we met. We shot the pilot and then I shot a movie in London where she lives. This is our first break from each other actually.
Do you feel like you're missing your other half?
Kind of. Yeah, I really do. Especially at these things [press junkets] because we usually do these things together. But she's great, she's a pleasure to fall in love with.
Also, because we can't touch, we can't count on the sex scene to sell the love story. We have to look into each other's eyes and really feel love for each other.
In terms of the characters and the show, isn't the whole forbidden love thing going to get old pretty quickly?
As far our relationship goes, a lot of this season you'll see they want to be together. They can't live without each other. But there's something about the show, it looks very fairytale and cheerful but it's also got a very dark thing to it.
Ned is a very complicated character, he's got a lot of turmoil going on. And Chuck is too. So there's other tension, other than that "I wish I could touch you" tension.
He killed her father. He had a huge impact on her life. It's complicated.
* Pushing Daisies, TV2, Mondays, 9.30pm
