Early Edition star Kyle Chandler revealed CBS announcement about a female-led reboot of the beloved series made him laugh. During an exclusive interview for Showtime’s Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber with Collider's Christina Radish, Chandler also pondered what the show taught him, and how Early Edition affected his career.
When asked if he was surprised with the female-led reboot of Early Edition, Chandler said a friend sent the news to him, and his first reaction was laughter. In Chandler's words, “He sent it to me and I started laughing. If anything was gonna show up on my phone, it wouldn't have been that. I start laughing. It's a strange world. It didn't really surprise me or anything.”
While the idea of a reboot is amusing to Chandler, the star has a special place in his heart for the show, as Early Edition taught him to get deeply involved in everything he does. As Chandler tells it, he had the freedom to help work his scripts in Early Edition, which made him feel like he was part of the whole process. As Chandler describes the experience:
“The biggest thing I learned from that show was, I used to take the script and they would allow me to make changes. I would fax those changes to L.A., and they would fax back, or let me know what was okay or not. In that way, it worked out very well because I was able to learn how to work scripts and work scenes. In my mind, I was directing, editing, writing and acting, and I had involvement. I was involved in the process, and I realized how important that is, to get everyone involved in the process together, so they have that ownership. That was a great show.”
Chandler also underlined how leading Early Edition from 1996 and 2000 was a lot of work, and that the series demanded a lot from the cast and crew. As Chandler puts it:
“I'll tell you what the show meant in my career. That was one of the first shows that we almost got to a hundred [episodes]. That was back when you were doing 22 episodes a year, and it was hard work, especially that show because it was wintertime. We were using all those bridges late at night. We'd do a lot of Fraturdays. In the business, that's when you work from Friday night until Saturday morning, but you're still going back to work Monday morning, early. My first daughter, Sydney, had just been born when I got that job, so that was huge for me, as a young man and as a family man. That was really important. And it was a great experience.”
Early Edition follows the story of a man named Gary (Chandler), who mysteriously starts to receive a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times one day in advance. Gifted with special knowledge about the future, Gary tries to use what he learns from the newspaper to prevent terrible events every day. The series ran for four seasons and 90 episodes. The series got a pilot order for a female-led reboot at the beginning of this month.
Chandler will be seen next on The Battle for Uber, the first season of an anthology series about the business deals that changed the world forever, for better or worse. The first season stars Chandler and Joseph Gordon-Levitt respectively as Travis Kalanick and Bill Gurley, as Uber’s co-creators.
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber premiere on Showtime on Sunday, February 27th at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Look for our full conversation with Chandler soon.