Swissvale native David Conrad stars in the Lifetime movie “12 Desperate Hours” (8 p.m. Saturday) but it’s his first filmed acting role in quite a while.
The usually busy actor, who maintains a residence in Braddock, hasn’t had a series regular role since “Ghost Whisperer,” which ended in 2010. A recurring role on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” wrapped in 2014.
Turns out, Conrad has largely been living in England with actress girlfriend Juliet Rylance (“Perry Mason”). Conrad has been teaching acting there and he’s been writing scripts with hopes for a development deal or production in the near future.
When a return to the U.S. last summer coincided with the filming of “12 Desperate Hours,” directed by director/actress Gina Gershon (“Showgirls”) in Fairmont, W. Va., Conrad said yes to the role.
“Gina Gershon is close friends with my girlfriend’s dad (actor Mark Rylance) and she was like, ‘I’m thinking about talking to this Conrad guy,’ and he was like, ‘Well, I know him,’ ” Conrad recalled. “It was a neat thing to play a regular dude, living in the hills and driving a truck and working on a construction site. … It was a short little shoot in West Virginia and it was like being home but not being home. It was lovely to be there, but I wasn’t driving down the street I grew up on.”
“12 Desperate Hours” stars Samantha Mathis as a wife and mother who’s going about her day, planning a date night with her husband (Conrad) when a wild-eyed stranger (Harrison Thomas, “Better Call Saul”) breaks into her home and takes her at gunpoint.
While the film has some expected Lifetime movie, women-in-peril trappings, “12 Desperate Hours” also breaks from genre conventions by humanizing the kidnapper and showing how and why he’s driven to extremes.
“That’s the key and the twist of the story is it’s these two people (the kidnapper and the kidnapped) who have to stare at each other and go, ‘I’m terrified of you’ or ‘I’m angry at you,’ but they become people who can deal with each other and she understands him to some extent,” Conrad said.
Another distinction: Gun violence is implied, its impacts shown, but no guns are fired.
“You can tell the story of cruelty and violence without having to show it,” Conrad said. “With so many films they’re like, ‘We’re depicting the horrors of war,’ and I’m like, no, you’re mostly just titillating people with horrible visions of violence. Sometimes the violence you don’t see is all the more effective.”
The film, produced by Morgantown, W.Va.-based Allegheny Image Factory (“Feast of the Seven Fishes”), is inspired by “Last Dance, Last Chance and Other True Cases” by Anne Rule. It’s a busy weekend for this production company, which also made Lifetime’s “A Rose for Her Grave: The Randy Roth Story,” which premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday. It’s also based on a Rule book, filmed in Fairmont and features WTAE-TV reporter Sheldon Ingram acting in a supporting role.
In 2021, Conrad filmed a part in Pittsburgh in the yet-to-be-released indie feature “Basic Psych,” directed by Melissa Martin (“The Bread, My Sweet”) and co-starring Michael Cerveris (“The Gilded Age”), who spent a few years living in Pittsburgh and recurring on “Mindhunter.”
Conrad’s ties to Pittsburgh continue through his girlfriend’s family. Juliet’s mother, Claire van Kampen, directed “Idaspe,” put on by Quantum Theatre and Chatham Baroque, last fall. Van Kampen and Juliet’s father, Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”), are writing a prospective limited series with Scott Frank (“The Queen’s Gambit”) about Henry Clay Frick and the Homestead steel strike for Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.
“The Rylance interest in Pittsburgh is getting deeper and deeper,” Conrad said.
‘True Lies’
It’s been 28 years since the movie “True Lies” debuted in theaters, so though my memory of specifics is fuzzy, I remember enjoying it as a fun and at times funny spectacle thanks in large part to stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.
They’re nowhere to be found in CBS’s disappointing adaptation (10 p.m. March 1, KDKA-TV) that stars Steve Howey (“Shameless”) and Ginger Gonzaga (“She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”) as the husband-and-wife spy team. (Beverly D’Angelo guests stars as their Omega Sector boss.)
But really this is “True Lies” in title only. The film’s concept has been reduced to a paint-by-number, light CBS procedural. If that’s the type of programming you enjoy, have at it. Just don’t expect anything more.
Of local note
Although CBS-owned CW affiliates, including Pittsburgh’s WPCW-TV, declined to carry coverage of LIV Golf, it will air locally anyway, shifting to Pittsburgh’s Sinclair-owned WPNT-TV, 1-6 p.m. Saturday.
Featured Local Businesses
A new 30-minute special, “Pittsburgh Black History Month 2023: Making it Happen,” hosted by Allegra Battle, features profiles of labor and civil rights leader Nate Smith, singer/actor/game show host Adam Wade and track and field champion Herbert P. Douglas Jr. The show will air at 8 p.m. Feb. 25 on PCTV and at 2 a.m. Feb. 26 on WPNT-TV.
Kept/canceled
Hearst’s Very Local Pittsburgh streaming channel renewed “Ed and Day in the ‘Burgh,” featuring comedians, podcasters and craft beer enthusiasts Ed Bailey and Day Bracey, for a second season that will stream March 16.
Peacock will bring back “Poker Face” for a second season.
Netflix renewed “Outer Banks” for a fourth season.
CBS renewed “NCIS,” “60 Minutes,” “48 Hours,” “CSI: Vegas,” “NCIS: Hawai’I,” “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” “Tough as Nails” and “Lingo” for the 2023-24 TV season.
“The People’s Court” and “Judge Mathis” will end their more than 20-year runs this spring, but Mathis already lined up a new daytime series for fall, “Mathis Court.”
Disney+ canceled “Big Shots” and “Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” after two seasons each.
HBO Max canceled “South Side” after three seasons.
Channel surfing
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” returns this weekend with guest host Woody Harrelson and musical guest Jack White; Travis Kelce hosts March 4 with Kelsea Ballerini and Jenna Ortega hosts March 11 with The 1975. … HBO Max’s “Love & Death,” a limited series about a true crime case in Texas starring Elizabeth Olsen (“WandaVision”), debuts April 27.
You can reach TV writer Rob Owen at rowen@triblive.com or 412-380-8559. Follow Rob on Twitter or Facebook. Ask TV questions by email or phone. Please include your first name and location.