‘Beast’ly series with Boston roots
When TV producer/ writer Clyde Phillips was growing up in Dorchester, his dad owned a meat market in the Haymarket on Blackstone Street.
“I learned a lot about sort of lurking danger,” Phillips told the Track. “I learned about vig and I developed an understanding of what it takes to get food to the table. It has its own weird beauty and its own brutality.”
All those lessons will find their way into Phillips’ new drama, AMC’s “Feed the Beast,” about a pair of down-on-their-luck New Yorkers who take one last shot at their dream of opening a high-end restaurant. In the Bronx.
“David Schwimmer plays an alcoholic sommelier whose wife was killed in a questionable hit-andrun,” he said. “His 10-yearold son witnessed it and turned mute. Jim Sturgess is a coke-addicted rockstar chef who just got out of prison for burning down his previous restaurant.”
What could possibly to wrong?
“They’re broke, so they go to the Bronx,” he continued. “The Bronx is kind of the final frontier in New York. Everything else is gentrified.”
Phillips, the executive producer and showrunner for the Showtime hits “Dexter” and “Nurse Jackie,” said his new show, premiering Sunday, is about “the five F’s.”
“Family, fatherhood, friendship, faith and food,” he said.
“In one way, it’s a food show. In another, it’s a fatherhood and family show. It’s also, if I may, a tragic farce. You know how in a farce, a door opens and someone says something funny? Then another door opens and someone says something funnier. In our show, a door opens and someone says, ‘I’m pregnant.’ Another door opens and someone says, ‘The mob’s here.’ Another door opens and it’s ‘The shipment didn’t arrive and I’m also pregnant!’”
Phillips said he’s stoked about doing the series for AMC, home of “The Walking Dead” and “Better Call Saul,” but he’s even more excited about getting in on the ground floor of “the David Schwimmer renaissance.” The former “Friends” star is just off a second career-making role as Robert Kardashian in FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.” “We’re catching the David Schwimmer wave,” Phillips said. “He inhabits the role. I can’t imagine anyone else in it. He’s a terrific dramatic actor and just a great guy to be around.” Phillips, who lives in L.A. but summers in Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard, has made 19 TV series or TV movies, but so far none of them in Boston. “Wouldn’t I love to,” he said. “That would be a dream come true, I have to tell you. I love the city. I go there all the time. I have a large family and friends there. It’s my favorite place. If I could get my wife to go, I’d move there in a second.” “Feed the Beast” premieres at 10 p.m. Sunday. File Under: Beast Mode.