Ed Burns’ Bridge & Tunnel steps back into The American Dream.

Words: Dio Anthony January 24th, 2021

Bridge & Tunnel makes its way into 2021 with a familiar virtual-touch, focusing on the stories of would-be-manhattanites and the tightly-held tugs of their childhood homes. American Studies takes an additional stroll back in time with the series’ leads Caitlin Stasey and newcomer Sam Vartholomeos for a 10-minute history briefing.

On Their favorite decades:

Caitlin Stasey: The seventies is kind of my favorite stylistic period? There was this wave of consciousness changing and shifting particularly in America. Right? You’re faced with a lot of different things— you've got the Vietnam War, you've got women's lib, right? You've got all this amazing music. You've got all this art, you've got, probably my favorite era of film. It was so messy and chaotic and very personal and luxurious. It felt like an era where you had so much time and so much money. I would love to go and see all the cities that I've seen as an adult, but in the seventies. I would love to have gone to Vegas in the seventies and have a real Ginger in Casino moment.

Sam Vartholomeos: The seventies is definitely up there. But, I guess to be different, and I know it was a complicated time, but—the fifties.I would love to be like in LA in that time and to have been apart of that car culture.  Who doesn't love a good drive-in or a good diner, you know? Just you, your cholesterol, a burger, some fries and a shake. The lines back then were so much curvier. You know what I mean?

Caitlin Stasey: Right? Stylistically, post-war, post-World War II America is very of that moment. It was when America became the superpower that it is.  Also, maybe Paris ofter World War II, you know, when they were going through their film phase of movies with these beautiful young pixie, French women. I'd probably go there too.

On The First Major News-Story You Remember Growing Up:

Caitlin Stasey: Probably my first  news stories that I remember as a kid, and this is really dark–– was about a kidnapping.There were these two little girls who went missing in the UK and I forget the names, but I remember David Beckham was a part of that conversation because, he was helping out. I remember a lot of Missing children’s stories actually. Which as you know, that hasn't really changed. We’re still so obsessed with true crime, and cases like Madeleine McCann.

Sam Vartholoemos: I remember seeing that on at night a lot, and that phrase.. It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are? That scared living hell out of me, because, really, where were all these missing children?

Dio Anthony: I actually listened to a podcast the other day and found out where that originated. Children were going missing in Atlanta. Attributed to what they called him at the time The Atlanta Monster. A local Atlanta newswoman started saying this and it became a popular phrase in news. It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

Caitlin Stasey: But that's the thing too. It was always about instilling fear in white parents about their children, when they were not the targets of whatever they were talking about..

Someone From The Past Who’s Influenced You? 

Caitlin Stasey: Carl Sagan. I sound really pretentious saying that, but I really think he had a brilliant mind and great philosophy, and it was rooted in science. He spoke about collective humanity, which I think is a very important principle that we sort of don't have as much anymore. We don't really have giants in science, the way that we used to. We have, you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye, the science guy. But there’s people like David Attenborough and Carl Sagan, these very popular, pop-culture icons, who also have these scientific roots. I like the whole voyage thing. I think it's a beautiful, like, love-letter from humanity to the cosmos. Okay, I’m done being that person. Sam? 

Sam Vartholomeos: I hope I don't sound like––whatever. Since I was a kid, I was always obsessed with Frank Sinatra, with him as a person, his songs. I was in fifth grade in elementary school and one day they gathered the fifth graders together in the auditorium and told us we all had to learn his song My Way. But I already knew it. I knew all his songs. The kids in my class would make fun of the lyrics and I’d be like—you're a child, why are you disrespecting Frank Sinatra like this? I admired him as an Italian-American growing up in Jersey. He was outspoken during the civil rights which must have been difficult for him, given the strife with his community and black Americans. It think was the epitome of what a man should be.