Docuseries Sell It Like Serhant starts on Bravo Wednesday (April 11), showcasing Ryan Serhant, ace real-estate sales guy. Each episode sees Serhant jump into a protege’s world, “using every trick in the book to become their boot camp instructor, friend, teacher and even customer, to help them reach their full potential,” according to Bravo.
Serhant said his first sales gig was bundling up firewood with his brother on the family farm in Topsfield, Mass., when he was around 10. Years later, he arrived in New York to pursue a theater career and, like many aspiring thespians, got a retail job to pay the rent. The day job worked out better than the theater stuff.
Acting, he said, “taught me how to listen and have empathy for people.”
Serhant said he “learned an insane amount” from Sell It Like Serhant, which also happens to be the name of his book, described by him as “a playbook for sales people around the world.”
And it’s a new season of Bosch on Amazon, the gritty, Los Angeles-based cop drama showing the latest exploits of taciturn Detective Bosch. Titus Welliver, who plays Bosch, said it’s a fun character to play, despite his dark demeanor.
“He’s not an emotionally demonstrative guy … he’s a very internalized character,” Welliver said. “But I’m more inclined to have less to say, to depict him through silence.”
The fourth season sees Bosch dealing with the murder of his mother, and assigned a murder case involving an individual that many cops may have been happy to see taken down. His bosses “knew Bosch would not be influenced if the murder suspect is a cop,” Welliver noted.
As a producer, Welliver has seen every frame of the new season a ton of times. Yet he’s still eager to watch it with his family, which includes his son Quinn, who played Bosch as a boy on the series. He describes his clan as “a good barometer” for whether the new season works.
Finally, Elvis Presley: The Searcher debuts on HBO Saturday (April 14). The documentary is directed and produced by Thom Zimny, and shows Presley’s life from boyhood to the 1976 Jungle Room recording sessions. Priscilla Presley, an exec producer, describes it as “such an honest portrayal of who he was.”
Pundits in the film include Priscilla, Presley’s guitarist, Scotty Moore, and music journalist Warren Zanes.
Another producer is the music industry luminary Jon Landau, who describes The Searcher as “a tragic story but a beautiful story.” Landau added, “There’s no point in doing it if it’s not going to be the best thing made about Elvis, his music and his life.”
