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Page 2 April 20 - 26, 2015 Happiness causes misery on Showtime's 'Happyish' By George Dickie © Zap2it The middle finger is Thom Payne's flag and he will have you saluting it by the end of the first epi- sode of the new Showtime comedy "Happyish." The half-hour series, which premieres Sunday, April 26, stars British actor Steve Coogan ("Philo- mena," "Alan Partridge") as Thom, a misanthropic 44-year-old New York advertising executive fed up with all things digital, branded and youth-ori - ented. After two decades of pursuing the Ameri- can dream, he hates the compromises he's had to make in business and in life and finds himself be - coming more expressive of his feelings, especially to his 25-year-old Swed- ish wunderkind boss (Nils Lawton, "Eye Candy") and his veteran co-worker and friend (Bradley Whit - ford, "The West Wing"). For Thom, the pursuit of happiness has become odious and unbearably oppressive and the rebel - lion is underway. Back home in upstate Woodstock, Thom's wife, Lee (Kathryn Hahn, "Rev - olutionary Road"), is ex- periencing a similar phe- nomenon. An artist and stay-at-home mom, she's not all that satisfied with life, either, and she strug - gles with the apparition of her estranged mother, a meddling, hypercritical matron with a flair for ad - ministering liberal doses of Jewish guilt. Otherwise, Thom and Lee seem a reasonably happy married couple raising their young son in a postcardlike setting. But working in a shal - low, morally ambiguous industry has taken its toll on Thom. "I think he's unhappy," Coogan says, "because he's living in a world he thinks is unjust and amoral and is full of com - promises that he hates himself for having to make, which most people do make without any com- punction to do otherwise. So I think he's a very im- portant character because he has a conscience and he wants a better world but he's angry at the world and angry ... at the corpo - ratization of America and about selling your soul, I guess — the Faustian pact that people make to have glittering careers." The pilot for the series was originally shot with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Thom, but was shelved with the role recast follow - ing his death last year. Executive producer and writer Shalom Auslander, a former New York ad exec and current resident of Woodstock who indi - cates the story is more personal to him than he'd like to admit, says the Paynes would probably be happy were it not for the outside world. "I think they'd be happy on planet Earth if it wasn't for the humans ...," he says with a laugh. "I think that they've got something good going but it's under constant attack, not just from the media or from the news, but from exis - tence, from life, illness, death, war, poverty, hav- ing to survive and those are the things we kind of struggle with." In or out of his Freddy Krueger guise, Robert Englund continues to help horror, just as horror continues to help him. The veteran actor remains very active in the genre that made him an icon via the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series, through feature films ("The Last Showing"), online and home-video releases ("Fear Clinic") and cable movies. Among the latter is Syfy's new Saturday, April 25, offering "Lake Placid vs. Anaconda," returning Englund to the role of Jim Bickerman, the poacher he first played in what now is the improperly titled "Lake Placid: The Final Chapter" (with Yancy Butler also reprising her part from it). "When you're a genre actor," the extremely friendly Englund muses, "sooner or later, you do your Giant Snake Movie, you do your Killer Bee Movie and you do your Giant Alligator Movie. Well, I've done all three!" In fact, huge crocodiles and anacondas clash in the new thriller, just in time for mayhem and carnage during – wouldn't you know it? – a sorority pledge weekend. "It's really kind of like a summer camp when we shoot these," Englund maintains. "We get to zoom around in these state of-the-art motorboats to our location, and we're all together in this funny chalet that's right on the water. In Bulgaria (where 'Lake Placid vs. Anaconda' was made), they've got deserts and rivers ... and this lake that looks like you're down the street from Stephen King in Maine." Projects designed to generate chills or scares have long been Englund's norm, and that's fine with him: "I'm just really grateful for the huge gift I got out of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and out of 'V,' the science-fiction series I did. They were international successes, so they opened doors for me. "I guess I've done 14 movies overseas now, and when you get to be my age, it's really fun to go off and chase some beautiful young actress around a castle in Italy or Spain. You take the wife, and it's a great gig." In recent years, Englund also has done guest turns on such series as CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" and "Criminal Minds," usually in roles that trade on his horror fame. "I just go where I'm wanted," he reasons. "And I seem to always be wanted, which is fun." 'Nightmare' man Robert Englund returns to 'Lake Placid' BY JAY BOBBIN Steve Coogan stars in "Happyish," premiering Sunday on Showtime.

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