Today's Entertainment

Page 2 July 6 - 12, 2015 An epic tennis match turns into 'Hell' in HBO mockumentary By George Dickie © Zap2it A 1990s Wimbledon tennis match drags on for a week, leaving its partic- ipants spent physically, mentally and emotionally in a hilarious HBO moc- kumentary debuting this week. In "7 Days in Hell," pre- miering Saturday, July 11, Andy Samberg ("Saturday Night Live," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine") and Kit Har- ington ("Game of Thrones," "Pompeii") star as the rivals in question, whose games and temperaments couldn't be more different. Samberg's Aaron Wil- liams is tennis' bad boy, an ill-tempered American who is a sort of cross between John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and a big-haired 1990s version of Andre Agassi. Harington's Charles Poole, meanwhile, is a simpleton, a Brit who can manage only "indubitably" as an answer to most interview questions. Together, they conspire to play tennis' longest match, one that everyone — players, broadcasters and fans — wished would just end, all told in fake documentary style. Tennis stars Serena Williams, John McEnroe and Chris Evert are among those weighing in. The idea for the story was inspired by a real-life 2010 Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut that lasted more than 11 hours and was played over three days, explains Samberg, also an executive producer on the film. "We had always talked about wanting to do some - thing with comedy and ten- nis," says Samberg of he and longtime friend Murray Miller, who wrote the story, "and then when that match was happening, we were watching it together in fact and one of us said, 'Man, somebody should make a movie where a match just would never end.' And I said, 'Well, that should be us. We should make that movie.' "But yeah, like we thought of the idea during the Isner/Mahut match and we were like, 'What if this match went even longer than three days?' And at one point we had it up to eight days. I think at one point ... it was even longer. But we settled on seven. It felt like the right length for this premise." As the match wears on, broadcasters get palpably exasperated by the dete - riorating state of play, es- pecially when one player's serve floats into the net at under 40 mph. The players look sweaty and exhausted and that feeling, accord - ing to both actors, wasn't difficult to summon in the 122-degree summer heat of Palm Springs, Calif., where the tennis scenes were filmed. "It gave me a healthy respect for tennis players," Harington says. "I could hit about three shots and then I had to go and sit in the shade and then go back out and hit another three shots. It was really tough. For a three-day shoot, it was one of the toughest shoots I've done." "It was very easy to act tired," Samberg adds. "... Basically we'd go for as long as we could in each take and then sprint off into the shade and try and recuperate and just pound Gatorade and water as much as we could. "But ... everyone left that shoot a little red." Penn & Teller are as surprised as they are pleased to still be making magic for The CW. Last summer, the network picked up the comedic illusionists' British 2011 series "Penn & Teller: Fool Us" for American television ... and its U.S. performance prompted The CW to order a second season of new episodes premiering Monday, July 6. Though the show is now produced stateside, original host Jonathan Ross has been brought over from England to continue that role, and Penn Jillette notes there's a bigger pool of American magicians available to try to stump him and his literal "silent partner" Teller on how the trickery is accomplished. "We love so much being beaten" on figuring that out, Jillette muses. "It's very rare to think of situations in life where the people who have been beaten enjoy it more than the people who are cheering for it to happen." However, Jillette is quick to add that viewers aren't being fooled in how "Fool Us" presents the magic: "The audience has grown to learn that magicians can, if not use camera tricks, certainly use editing tricks. And certainly use the best take. The nice thing about 'Fool Us' is that because the trick is being done for us, we automatically show the audience that it's being done live. The magicians who come out and work for us get one shot. Once they start, they have to finish, and there's no way around that." Guest talents who succeed in fooling Penn & Teller still win the opportunity to perform in the duo's Las Vegas act. "Although we say they're going to be opening for us, that's not really true," Jillette allows. "What really happens is that we open for them. We do our show and then explain, 'These are the people who fooled us,' then they come out and do about 10 minutes. And they absolutely kill. We've never had anybody on the bill with us who isn't really special." Though Penn & Teller have been involved in several other series, "Fool Us" is "both the easiest and the hardest" one they've done, Jillette maintains. "We're producers on the show, but we're not allowed to see the guest list, we're not allowed to see the trick list and we're not allowed to be at the rehearsals. It's a pretty odd position to be in. "If you put us together, Teller and I have done 100 years of preparation in 'man years' for this show, but there's none done specifically for it. It's like being thrown out of an airplane every episode." BY JAY BOBBIN Penn Jillette (left) and Teller Penn & Teller are primed to be fooled again Andy Samberg stars in "7 Days in Hell," premiering Saturday on HBO.

• Cover