The first episode of Halt and Catch Fire premiers on TV in 2 days and Lee’s been very busy doing press. In this interview with TVLINE he chats about the relationship Joe and Cameron have in the show, Steve Jobs and one of his biggest projects up to date, Pushing Daisies. Yes, you’re not the only one missing it.

TVLINE | This is your first regular TV series since Pushing Daisies, which was a decidedly different show. What has this experience been like for you? 
The piece maker could not be more different than the pie maker in a thousand, thousand ways. Everything about it is different — different network, different creators, different love story, different skill set. [Laughs] I hear Joe criticized as kind of an a–hole. But he doesn’t kill people.

TVLINE | I find it interesting that you said love story because in the pilot, it doesn’t seem like the most romantic connection between Joe and Cameron. How does that relationship develop?
I don’t want to say too much. I probably shouldn’t have even said love story. But she’s irresistible to him, absolutelyirresistible. Meeting her in that classroom is the reason he wants to make that computer. He wants to make the tool — and put it into her hands — that will change the world, because she needs it. If I can take this technology out of corporate America and put it into that girl’s hands, we live in a different time. That’s what Joe means [when he says], “It’s not about the thing. It’s the thing that gets us to the thing.” It’s culture that interests him.

TVLINE | This is a fictional show, but you’re talking about an object that is very real and a period in history that’s very real. How much do real events play into the first season, like the rise of Apple?

Joe’s aware of Steve Jobs. He knows that he’s working on something very cool on the West coast, and he wants to beat him. Joe believes in himself, believes that he has something to offer, this technology. … Sixty companies were trying to develop computers [at the time] with much more resources than Cardiff Electric. But Joe knows that it doesn’t matter. IBM’s resources, the leagues of white dudes in suits and corporate money and corporate interests – who cares? Who cares about any of that stuff? All we have to do is make the most awesome machine that we could make. And if we succeeded at that, people will want it. Then we’re in. And then we can build the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Then we’re bringing about the millennium. That’s innovation. That’s the whole spirit that drives Joe MacMillan. And when you know that you’ve got millions of people hungry for this technology that’s going to change their lives, why would I care if Gordon’s feelings are hurt? Why would I care if [Cardiff Electric boss] Bosworth is a little ticked off that I had taken over his company? [Laughs] There’s a bigger purpose. Now, some might say that’s sociopathic, but it all depends on whether or not Joe wins. If he wins, if he succeeds in what he set out to do, then he’s a risk-taker. He’s a pioneer. He’s someone who overcomes obstacles. If he fails, he’s an a–hole.

TVLINE | This might be a question for the producers, but is it just a coincidence that the word “Mac” is in his last name?
Yeah. Question for the producers. I didn’t choose the name. I love it. When I would write emails to them, I would refer to him as the Joe Mac. [Cameron is] Cam Dos.

TVLINE | There’s sort of a slick Don Draper salesman quality to him.
It’s a mask. When I say in the pilot episode, “I’m done doing business like that,” he means it. But that way of doing business is effective. So if I have to wear those shoes to get in the door and then start running this thing the way I want to run it, I’d better wear that mask for a while. But you tell me if you think he’s like Don Draper after Episode 3.

TVLINE | He’s a much darker character than Ned the pie maker. Was that really appealing to you to shed that image?
Like I said, he doesn’t kill people. It’s a different character. I’m so fortunate to have a diverse list of characters put in front of me. Gosh, whenever I’d get one of them, too, I’d think, “Oh, he’s going to be nothing like me.” The very first movie I did was called Soldier’s Girl. The transformation was so great in it that I thought, “I’m never going to recognize myself in that.” But I watch it and I do see myself. I see myself fall in love. I see so much more of myself than I ever expected to see. With Ned, who knows if it’s that the character imprints on you or if it draws things out of you that you didn’t know were there. But yes, I absolutely feel like Ned is me. And after doing a season of this show, I feel like, in a way, I have never been more revealed in a character. I never would have guessed that from reading the pilot. I never would have thought that this man would be so close to who I am, and it really, really turned out to be that. There were times that I thought those writers were in my head and I was like, “Guys, what’s going on? Are you reading my sleepless nights?” [Laughs]

TVLINE | People really connected with Pushing Daisies. They still love it. What do you think it is about the enduring appeal of that show?
I don’t know. I remember doing [press] forPushing Daisies, launching the show, and trying to explain what it was about. “Ned can touch dead people back to life, and if they lived for longer than a minute, then someone else would die. And if I touched them for a second time, then they would die. And I touch my child sweetheart back to life, then I can never touch her again.” It’s a such a only-out-of-the-mind-of-Bryan-Fuller kind of show. It’s one of those magical, odd things. I don’t know what it is. But I do know that I fell in love with Anna Friel, absolutely fell in love with her. I saw her in New York recently because she’s doing a new show this season [NBC’s Odyssey]. We had such high hopes for [Pushing Daisies]. We’re proud of it, made something special. And it means so much to me that people, even if they didn’t discover it at the time, are starting to discover it now because we worked hard on it.

Full interview here.

Lee talked to HitFix his Halt and Catch Fire character Joe MacMillian and his other recent work.

HitFix: Now, I guess my first question is one of sorta logistics. Where were you able to fit all of this in with “Guardians,” with “Hobbit,” you’ve just been rather busy for the past year…

Lee Pace: Man, I can’t even tell you how. I mean it’s been this past year living out of a suitcase. We shot the pilot in April, went from Atlanta to London, did the first tests for Ronan, the kind of costume and make up and all that stuff. Went from there to New Zealand, shot my pick-ups for the “Hobbit.” Went from there back to London, did that whole crazy, f***ing movie. I mean the craziest thing I think I’ve ever been a part of was that movie. And then basically went from that right into this. Wait. No! No, no, I went from that into Stephen Frears’ movie about Lance Armstrong. Why I thought I needed another movie in there, I don’t know. And then I just finished this about a month ago so I’m like home and finally get a chance to have a life.

HitFix: How much of it is sort of a compulsion to work? How much of it is projects that you just couldn’t turn down, et cetera?

Lee Pace: One hundred percent both. I mean I’m a big believer of when jobs are coming, grind it out. Do it! Because they don’t always come for actors, you depend on getting cast. I mean, God, just this incredibly cool stuff kind of fell into my lap. This has been just an incredible experience and “Guardians of the Galaxy” was just… I mean… did you see the trailer?

HitFix: I did!

Lee Pace: It’s pretty wicked isn’t it?

HitFix: Have you gone around and sort of looked at the people who have been screen grabbing Ronan and just sort of like, “Okay here’s our first look and let’s pick it to pieces!”

Lee Pace: Oh no. I haven’t. I try not to do that because I don’t want to…

HitFix: People are intrigued because I mean it’s only like two frames and some people have taken those frames and they’re like, “Okay can you see this? Can you see that??”

Lee Pace: Yeah, yeah. I’m really excited about this character. I mean he’s nuts. I mean I’ve never played anything like it and I’ve had such a good, it’s one of those things where you don’t know how to approach something like this. This is not Joe MacMillan. You can’t think, “Well, you know, this is my relationship with my father…” It’s not that. There’s none of that, you now, kind of “This is how I would go about dealing with these problems.” It’s a complete kind of act of imagination. But in the hands of James Gunn, I’m such a fan of his movies. So it’s very much a creation of his and I found my self being like, “Alright, let’s do it. You tell me what you’re into here.

HitFix: Is that an immediate feeling that you have where you can sort of turn yourself over to a director or do you have to sort of see other things and go, “Okay, I know you know what you doing?”

Lee Pace: I mean you sit down with him for 10 minutes and you know he knows what he’s doing. I mean he’s just making the movie that he wants to see. I mean that’s a filmmaker. And it’s just a privilege to work with someone like that. You know, Peter Jackson is the same way. He’s going to make the movie that he wants to see. And to be a small part in one of those is so cool. Because they have thousands of people work on these movies, thousands and there’s so many different layers. So my performance is just a small, small part of that puzzle. Creative and fun, working on these massive movies has just been so much more fun than I’ve ever dreamed it could be.

HitFix: Well, just in terms of sort of imagination and foreigness and in terms of out there in outlandishness… You know… “Hexadecimal code” and whatever the heck these motherboard things are doing, is that a language you speak?

Lee Pace: No, but it’s hardly a language Joe speaks either. Joe doesn’t know a lot. He knows, he understands the basics of this, but he doesn’t understand the cutting edge technology that he needs Gordon to create. It’s Gordon’s business, he just needs to push Gordon to do it, to make it. What Joe has in mind is an awesome computer, the computer that no one else has the balls to build. He doesn’t even know quite what that is. He knows it needs to be cheaper, it needs to be faster and it needs to be smaller. That’s what he knows. And that’s going to be tough to do. And he knows it’s going to be tough to do and he knows it is going to be even tougher to get people to buy it.

Full interview here.

From YahooTV:

AMC said goodbye to Breaking Bad last year, and they’re already prepping next year’s Mad Men swan song. With the loss of the two series that put them on the map for award-winning original programming, it’s time for a new series and a new star to shake things up on the network. Enter Halt and Catch Fire and its leading man Lee Pace, who’s not letting the media pressure get to him.

“I’m a huge fan of Mad Men,” Pace told Yahoo TV as we sat down with him to talk about his new ’80s-set drama about the dawn of personal computers. “I think that Jon Hamm and Matthew Weiner… it’s such an achievement that they made that show. It’s a very special fictional creation. But it’s nothing like this. Nothing.”

And while Pace gave props to his personal TV favorites like Breaking Bad and Netflix’s House of Cards, he didn’t take this new gig just to follow anti-hero suit: “Joe’s a character that I’ve never seen before on television,” he said, referring to Joe MacMillan, his renegade former IBM exec character who sets out to beat the computer pioneers at their own game. MacMillan decides to reverse-engineer the IBM PC with help from his ragtag team, engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) and prodigy Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis).

“I think he despises everything they stand for and the IBM corporate culture… you hear these crazy stories, which are true, of people in black or blue suits, modest coat and tie, white shirt, certain kind of haircut. It was the picture of corporate. I think he sees that and says, ‘That’s f—ed. It can be better than that, it can be more than that, and it needs to be. It has to be.’ That’s why he picked people like Gordon and Cameron to go on this journey with him because he’s not interested in doing it that way.

“I want there to be something inspiring about him. It’s not about the money. It’s never about the money. Money’s not interesting. Ideas are interesting, culture is interesting, and that’s what he’s hoping to be part of.

“He’s just risked everything to make this happen. This is the big moment of his life, this is the make-or-break, he’s got it all on the line. He’s taking this huge, huge risk, and he knows it will be transformative — he just doesn’t know how. He has an idea for how he’d like it to be transformative, but life is life, and Joe is not one of the guys on TV that always succeeds. There are those guys on TV that’ve got the gun, they know 12 languages, they always get the girl. Joe’s not that guy. Joe is a hustler.”

And Pace is at a similar point in his career, returning to TV after a five-year hiatus, taking a chance on a third television series, while his film and theater career are stronger than ever. He’s also treading into uncharted waters, creatively, considering his two previous shows, Pushing Daisies and Wonderfalls, were both created by the same man, Bryan Fuller.

Full article here.

The article came with a beautiful promotional high-quality shot, which has already been added to our gallery.

Halt and Catch Fire premieres Sunday, June 1 at 10 p.m. on AMC.

In his latest interview, Lee Pace talks to IMDB about technology and his upcoming show Half and Catch Fire. Read below what he has to tell.

IMDbTV: One of my first thoughts upon watching the premiere was that I can foresee people looking at this and saying, “It’s ‘80s Don Draper” – that is, at first blush. But moving deeper into the episode, one can see that your character has a much harder edge. What would you say to someone who might be tempted to compare Joe MacMillan to Don Draper?

Lee Pace: I would say, stick around until episode three, and then answer the question for yourself. I’m such a huge fan of that show [“Mad Men”]. It’s a true, true achievement of fiction. But with this, the subject matter is different and the man is fundamentally different. Yes, it’s a man in a suit in an office who is competent at what he does, and doesn’t necessarily get along with everyone that he’s working with. There are certain similarities.

And I felt the same way when I read [the script] the first time, when I read the pilot. But the more I investigated this guy, and the more I looked for influences not only in the tech world, but within that time, it’s very different. I was looking at not only some of the young hustlers who then became tech titans but, you know… some of those corporate raiders who defined the culture of the ‘80s. Get more. Make more money. Have more sex. Go harder. Go tougher. That’s kind of the path I started down with Joe McMillan.

IMDbTV: You were quite young during this era. … What was your earliest memory of interacting this kind of technology ?

Pace: …I remember video games…Video games play a really interesting part in the role of technology – not only because people our age were playing those video games, but it became such an integrated part of who we grew up, and how we thought. Then video games graduated to [computers] being in school.

…We’re a part of that generation of people that grew up as computers grew up, basically. In a way, those machines have been designed to make our lives happen. Whether it be learning, or playing, or connecting with one another. Our generation, in particular, has a very interesting insight into the world of personal technology, which is specifically what Joe is interested in. Somehow getting this technology into the hands of civilians, for lack of a better word. Out of business.

You have to understand, in the late ‘70s, computers were the size of refrigerators and they served massive companies where people would do their business at terminals that fed into these computers. This is a turning point, where the computers got smaller and smart innovators like Steve Jobs and many, many others…everyone was trying to figure out a personal computer.

That’s what Joe is interested in. Joe is trying to connect the dots between the video games, between Atari and the fact that people want these machines in their homes. Back at IBM, everyone is buying these things. Every year, millions more people are buying them.

In the pilot when I say the line, “The computer’s not the thing, it’s the thing that gets us to the thing”, what Joe is excited about is the change in the culture.

IMDbTV: It’s an interesting series both in terms of its content and, for lack of a better term, stylistically. It’s taking this era that’s seen as very sexy and at the forefront of what will become our modern technological age, and yet, all of these things that we take for granted now are seen at their very beginning, and actually very clunky looking. But Joe, he looks like he could live in the current era and not necessarily be a step behind.

Pace: Well, it’s not that distant a history, really. It’s in our lifetime. Joe McMillan is the same age my father was in 1983, which is the age I am right now. That’s an interesting opportunity, personally, for me to get to play. But here we are in a time when, because of innovators like Joe and his contemporaries, innovation has become one of the most exciting things that we live with. The people who create these technologies – Steve Jobs in particular, because he’s one of the most successful at it and the most exciting ideas came from that man – are rock stars. This little time, I actually found it to be a very unexplored dark zone in our recent history. I didn’t really know much about this turning point in our history, and it’s such a significant change.

IMDbTV: What was the most interesting thing that you learned about the corporate politics going on behind the scenes of this boom, when there was still room for other companies besides IBM and Apple to make their mark?

Pace: Oh God, it’s such a huge subject. But when I mentioned those corporate raiders, that’s something that is in Joe’s blood, that idea that you have to be the winner. That there’s only one winner, and it’s gotta be you. Because if it’s not you, it’s going to be someone else. And nobody really cares how you got there. If you are uncompromising, if you win, then people look back on your actions and judge you as a risk-taker, bold and ahead of your time. If you lose, you’re just an a–hole.

Joe knows that, and he comes ready to fight in every way. He’s ready to fight IBM, he’s ready to fight Gordon. He’s ready to push Gordon to make this machine what it needs to be. Because there’s only going to be one machine that makes it into the history books, and that’s the machine that Joe wants to make. This is before the Macintosh came out.

IMDbTV:  Is Joe going to be the kind of guy who people are going to, in some ways, aspire to be? You know how influential television characters can be, for better or for worse.

Pace:  I’ve learned a lot about Joe. I’ve learned a lot about myself, playing Joe. Some of the research I did was looking at leadership theory… And I think Joe, in his blood, has got some very good skills at being a leader and some very questionable skills. But the fact is, he is effective. He is going to reach his goals. He is going to complete the mission he set out to complete at any cost. That is the basic component of Joe. He’s that machine… He will remove obstacles, get around them and change the rules to make sure that the mission is complete. Because he believes in it. He believes in the mission more than he believes in anyone’s feelings. He’s not going to validate someone’s hurt feelings when he’s got a million people who need a computer that’s faster, cheaper and smaller.

…Some part of me responds to me by thinking, “Wow, that guy’s a winner. That guy’s a real leader.” And some part of me responds to him and thinks, “That guy is a sociopath.”

IMDbTV: Yes, there’s an element of Joe that is almost devilishly seductive, especially in his interactions with Gordon. He inspires him to do what he does best and to become the person that he wants to be. But you know that he’s only doing it as a means to an end, and he’s going to ditch him as soon as he can. That must be interesting to play.

Pace: It is. It’s simple. I always think about this computer that they’re endeavoring to make is Joe. He is … designed to add value to your life, just like a computer. He is designed to do the things that you need done to make you more money, to get it done quickly, to operate on all systems. Fully compatible. But there are bugs in that machine, and the program is still new and flawed. It’s in that zone that I believe we found the really interesting story of Joe.

IMDbTV: Let’s step back for a bit, even outside of the series, to talk about what’s been going on with you. You’ve had a really interesting couple of years, bouncing back and forth between some incredibly high profile movies. There was a time when all of the movies that you were in at that moment, that were released and in theaters, was in Top Five [of highest grossing movies at the domestic box office of the day].

Pace:  Oh yeah! That was, not last November but the November before that [2012].  I remember my mother taking a picture of IMDb’s Box Office [listing] and saying, “Lee, this is unbelievable!” I had Lincoln, The Hobbit [ An Unexpected Journey] and Twilight. Totally a moment when I was like, “Oh my god…I’m going to remember this.”

IMDbTV:  That’s great! So I have to ask, with that experience in movies and this – you’ve done a lot of television, like “Pushing Daisies” and “Wonderfalls”– which process do you enjoy more?

Pace:  I mean…I’ve also done theater. I’ve done a play, like, about every other year. The more I do this, the less difference I see between them all. It all becomes interesting in different ways, but it’s still always playing a character. All the characters are different, obviously. Joe is very different than the elven king, who is different than Ronan the Accuser. I mean, that’s really the fundamental difference.

The difference between TV and everything else is, and I find this fascinating, you’re still making it while everyone is watching it. Like, when you’re doing a play, you’ve got the performance, you’ve got control of the performance, and you’re in the same room with your audience. There’s the immediate kind of communication happening.

Full interview here.

AMC’s new drama Halt and Catch Fire premieres Sunday, June 1 at 10pm.

I added almost 30 high quality photos from Halt and Catch Fire premiere Lee attended in Los Angeles yesterday.

Gallery Links:
Appearances > 2014 > ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ premiere – May 21, 2014
Appearances > 2014 > ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ premiere after party – May 21, 2014

If this doesn’t get you excited, I’m not sure anything will.

The second full trailer finally here. It includes better looks at Rocket the Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), as well as Lee Pace’s intimidating, villainous Ronan the Accuser and a number of other characters and environments.

Coming to theaters August 1.