Welcome to the Dollhouse

Speaking of birthday suits, it was recently announced in the
trades you're producing a biopic about iconic gay photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe -- tell us a little bit about what drew you
to that project.

Well, the screenplay was actually brought to my brother Nate
(also an actor), based on his relationship with the
screenwriter. We've had this project for a number of years and
we've been waiting for the right time and opportunity to get it
off the ground. I've always been interested in people who were
pioneers of controversial but relevant creative expression. Our
story is about the controversy of his work and his life and his
formative years -- how he got started, his relationship with
Patti Smith, how he came into the art scene and what led up to
the censorship trial in Cincinnati, where his exhibit was shut
down. We want to take his two-dimensional photographs and tell
the story of his life, you know, what he represented. He
noticed and photographed the differences in us before a lot of
other people recognized them. and today, we think of ourselves
as so advanced and liberal and open, but he was one of the
first people who paved the way for us to accept the variety of
different ways people live.

That sounds really cool. Quickly, back to
Dollhouse

-- any hints as to what the remaining episodes of season 1 hold
in store for Echo?

Joss and I have been very vocal about the fact that the show
really takes off for us in episodes six through 13. That's
where we really start to achieve what we set out to do -- which
is get deeper into this world, get deeper into this mystery of
who Echo really is and how she starts to form her own identity.
I've been getting e-mails and texts from Joss and the writers
-- they're editing the latter episodes right now and they're
pretty excited. We, of course, wanted everyone to come to the
party when we first debuted, but we want to reinforce that the
party gets better and better as it goes. We have the commitment
from Fox to let the show grow, and we hope people will join us
-- we're doing something different, something pretty
extraordinary, I'd say, in the humblest way possible [
laughs

].