Glee

Smash’s Ellis Tancharoen – played by Jaime Cepero – is fast becoming on of the most questionable characters on prime time television. He’s sassy with lyricist Julia Houston (Debra Messing), he’s adamant about claiming his role as the guy who conceived the idea of the Marilyn musical, and now – after eavesdropping on Julia’s confession to Tom Levitt (Christian Borle) that she had an extramarital affair with the workshop’s newly cast Joe DiMaggio: Michael Swift (Will Chase) – he’s got some ammunition to shift things around to his liking.

But is Ellis really the bad guy in this world of betrayal, manipulation, song and dance?

In part two of our exclusive interview with Jaime, Wetpaint Entertainment got more scoop on Marilyn: The Musical’s journey from workshop to Broadway, how Smash corresponds to real life, and when we’re going to see more of Ellis’ side of the story.  

Ellis’ girlfriend is introduced in episode three. What is the significance of her character?
You start to see his personal life unfold as the series goes on. I think she's his expression how frustrated he is with everything. Usually when you see them together, you see his side of the story and how he feels about what's going on with the show because when he's at work and he has to deal with Julia and Tom or anybody else, he has to bite his tongue. So I think she's kind of where he lets out his true feelings.

How does the musical evolve now that Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty) is cast as Marilyn?
Moving forward, it's the creation of the show. It’s based on a workshop, which is basically where they come up with a rough draft. Then they bring together an ensemble of actors, and you rehearse a loosely thrown together version of a show. And you invite producers and directors and investors to watch this workshop and hopefully get them to throw money at you so that you can move forward to the next step, which would be to do a try-out of the show. What you're going to see throughout the series is the creation of the show, and what it actually takes to get it from the page to the stage.

This is your world, in real life, right? Is this true to life?
Absolutely, yeah. As far as auditioning for a workshop, and moving forward from the workshop to another workshop, that's literally how it works. I've done several readings, just like you see in the first couple of episodes, and sometimes it doesn't move forward. People see it, and they don't like it. And then sometimes people see it, and they like it, but they want to cast somebody else or they want to cut something or they want to change the name of the show. They want to bring a new composer on, instead of the person that originally wrote it. It's very true. It's very shifty and you never know what's going to happen next, honestly.

So that's why we shouldn't expect Ivy to be Marilyn forever? When Uma Thurman is brought on, I assume she wants the role. Everybody wants this part.
It's Marilyn Monroe. Who wouldn't want to play her? If you're a girl and you're an actress, I'm sure you'd love to play Marilyn Monroe. [Ivy] basically books the part of Marilyn for the workshop. That just means the producers are impressed with her performance and impressed with the show as a whole and maybe it will move forward, but there has to be some tweaking done before it can move to the next step. So that's something to look forward to as the next couple of episodes go on.

Is that heartbreaking from your own perspective? To be part of something from inception and then see it on Broadway but with different people after it’s recast?
Absolutely. It's tough because that's the profession that we've chosen as actors. The first time you see something like that happen, it's a little jarring, but it also makes you put the mirror up to yourself. It shows you how replaceable you are really within the show. It can happen to anybody. And if it can happen to a major role or it can also happen to somebody in an ensemble. Maybe they just can't afford to keep around six dancers, so that means two need to get cut. It might not have anything to do with your talent. There's not a lot of security as an actor. That's kind of what you sign up for.

Was Smash a show you absolutely had to be part of?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I got the script and read it, I just really responded to it. I was like, “I have to do this.” I mean Steven Spielberg’s name was on it. They started announcing that Debra Messing had signed on. I was the last person cast, so I got to watch everybody else get cast before I actually got a call. It was just nerve wracking, and then I was even more excited every time I heard somebody else got cast. My agents would call me and be like, “Anjelica Huston just signed on,” and I'm still in callbacks for it. And I'm like, “Oh God. I hope I get this…” it was kind of crazy.

I have to ask about Katharine McPhee (Karen Cartwright). Were you an American Idol fan? What's your impression now?
I did watch Idol a little bit and I always thought she was really talented. But she's a very different girl than I think she was when she was on American Idol. She was really, really green and fresh there. The person I've met here on set is somebody who has really been inside the business for a little bit and knows how things work. And she's really smart, and she knows what she's doing. She's a super professional, but she's also very down‑to‑earth. She's always singing on set and doing riffs, and we riff together sometimes. She’s really cool. I was just very surprised at how smart she was as far as the business is concerned. We had some very interesting conversations about agents and contracts and things like that. I was really impressed when I met her.