Information Diet: Mark Feuerstein

Age 40 Accomplishments Stars as Dr. Henry “Hank” Lawson on USA’s Royal Pains (Season 4 premieres on June 6); will star in the movie In Your Eyes, out later this year Base Los Angeles and New York What’s the first information you consume in the morning? To use a word I never thought I’d apply to myself, I’ve sort of become a Luddite with regard to information. Where everyone else is getting their Twitter feeds from The New York Times and their Huffington Post emails, I live in a little bit of a bubble. So I’ve begun to rely on the headlines of the New York Posts I see strewn around the hallway of my apartment building every morning. I only get the most shocking news as you can imagine. What do you read or watch or listen to at the breakfast table? I love to listen to Howard Stern with the guy who drives me. So yet again, I wouldn’t say the most sophisticated source of news, but definitely the most entertaining. Are you a TV junkie and if so, what do you watch? I watch very specific TV. I can break it down to two shows: Survivor and Girls. And there’s the occasional Mad Men thrown in. I’m obsessed with Girls. Many people consider themselves “the voice of a generation” but are really just the voice of their own narcissism, and while Lena Dunham is certainly absorbed in her own existence, I find it absolutely captivating, honest and brave. Before bed, do you bite into a novel, graze on Twitter or fast until morning? I’ve been reading a really random book about Old Hollywood by a director named Garson Kanin. It’s so interesting to read about the way that the studio system worked, and the fact that Hollywood, at the end of the day, is run by a bunch of people who are waiting for the next vision, the next person with a unique point of view, like a Lena Dunham. It’s kind of great. Give us the skinny on your favorite app. I just recently joined Twitter. It’s very positive—I love all the accolades. If my ego is hurting, I can just open my Twitter account and see “Oh, I love you! I love the show!” and it’s great. I’m trying to find the balance between trying to be funny, being honest and just being a promoter as the guy on Royal Pains. What’s your biggest digital indulgence? It’s my camera, my Canon 5D Mark II, and all my lenses and my little weird steady cam rig that I bought to film my home movies with my children. I just got way into it—perhaps too into it. With such a bloated media universe, how do you cut out the fat? It’s a challenge. At the end of the day, none of us really have time to put up with more information than we need, so you do gravitate to the things you respond to. But I’m always wondering: Have all these time-saving devices actually saved us any time, or have they just created a million fetishes and obsessions that keep us from the quiet half hour we should be taking to sit and do nothing every day?

Convergent TV

Information Diet: Mark Feuerstein

The 'Royal Pains' star tries to keep it real on Twitter, but when his ego needs a boost from fans, he happily takes it all in

Emma Bazilian

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Emma Bazilian