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Beauty and the Bench
Canadian TV Guide - February 26, 2000
By Phil Parma
Amy Brenneman is sitting in her trailer on the Paramount lot, between scenes on her hit drama Judging Amy, and
romance is in the air. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration or some pathetic wishful thinking, but, on this
afternoon, Brenneman says enthusiastically, "I have my first scene with my new love interest. I'm really
excited about that - something different for me."
Indeed. Brenneman stars as Amy Gray, a Connecticut judge who makes rulings on other families' messy lives even when
her own is in mild disarray. She's separated from her husband and has returned to live with her mother, Maxine (Tyne
Daly), who seems to delight in tromping all over the lives of Amy and her brother, Vincent (Dan Futterman).
But loneliness and Amy Gray are compeers no longer. "I was really struck by the fact that I didn't have a love
interest," Brenneman admits, "and you know, part of me is so used to, as most women are in Hollywood,
playing the girlfriend, being attached to a guy. I almost got confused, like, 'Well, where's my guy?'
"And then I realized, 'Oh, I am the guy in this series for now,"' she continues. But Brenneman checked out
her competition early in the season - "I was thinking of Once and Again, I know that that's the thrust in that
relationship and I thought, 'Here I am, this big loser-girl, I don't get one."'
So when Barbara Hall, executive producer and head writer on Judging Amy, told Brenneman over a lunch that she was
writing in a romantic interest for her - played by Gregory Harrison, of the recently cancelled family drama Safe
Harbor - the actress says, "that was a big mind blow for me."
Hall, herself a former single mother - she has since remarried - concedes that since audiences fell in love with
Amy, it was a little more difficult to create a boyfriend for her.
"In the early days, it was hard to know who Amy should be with because the character was so new," Hall
recalls, sitting behind her desk in her office, a photo of a billboard proudly proclaiming Amy's status as the
season's most popular new drama on the wall behind her. "But we used that to our advantage. I've been divorced
and when I started dating, my motto was, 'All new mistakes,' you know?
"And so she's starting over in terms of who she should be dating, and now we're just trying to establish that
Amy knows a little bit more about who she is and what she's looking for," Hall continues. "And in typical
fashion, I think that this love interest comes at a time when she's not looking, and there are huge complications
related to her work. And so we're just trying to match her with someone who is her equal. We're leaving it open in
terms of how far we'll take it because we don't want to look too far ahead. We really want it to evolve organically
the way relationships do, and we want to complicate it the way relationships really are."
Never mind that we're discussing a boyfriend for Amy Gray - a lot of people didn't expect her and her series to be
around at this point. Even Brenneman assumed the show would go "13 [episodes] and out." Instead, Judging
Amy - based loosely on Brenneman's own mother's career - emerged as one of the biggest hits of the new fall season,
easily beating the more highly touted Once and Again on ABC. Now, even though NYPD Blue, Brenneman's former series,
is besting it in the ratings, Amy has maintained its sizable audience.
"Well, our success has been like kismet, let's be honest," Brenneman says. "You know, you can come up
with a good idea, but then I met Barbara Hall, who totally got it and then completely nailed the pilot script. Then,
add in the actors and it really is kismet, because there's a certain understanding of these people. I hoped the show
would do well, but I've been involved with a lot of projects that I thought were great that didn't fly."
Tyne Daly says that the show carries intrinsically rich potential for drama. "The opportunity for us is talking
about grown-up women and their mothers," Daly says. "I said to Barbara, 'I don't think it's going to be
hard to find the conflict. But what's more interesting to me is where they are actually useful to each other
anymore.' Maxine can't change her diapers and slap her on her wrist, she has to help her in other ways."
Hall observes, "The most surprising thing about this season is that many of the dramas have done well. Another
thing about our show is that it has no gimmick. Everyone else seems to have a gimmick - talking to the camera,
whatever - but you really have to say that this show is doing well because of the writing and the acting."
Amy, like other hit shows such as Providence, Everybody Loves Raymond and 7th Heaven, seems to strike a chord with
audiences due to the fact that it portrays either multiple generations or a large nuclear family under one roof or
in very close proximity. "I think people are starting to figure out that families don't all have to look the
same, and some are figuring out that when the ideal married situation does not work out, that doesn't mean that
family life is over," Hall says. "This family's really struggling a lot of the time, but they are very
committed to one another," Brenneman adds. "That's the way it may be idealized, that it's a
through-thick-and-thin kind of situation."
What else is coming up this season for Amy? "Well, by the end of the season, the divorce is
done-done-done," Brenneman declares emphatically.
"And I will have met his girlfriend." Her struggling-writer brother tries his hand at journalism, and,
Brenneman teases, "There's some really great, very happy surprises with other people on the show."
In the meantime, Brenneman is appearing alongside Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart and
Kathy Baker in the independent film Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, which debuted at the Sundance Film
Festival and is due in theatres in April. "I read it last spring and I thought it was intriguing; I didn't
really get it," Brenneman admits. Then she heard who else was in the cast, and, "I was like, 'Okay, I'll
do it.' Like, 'Oh, what do I know? I'll come to that party!'"
Amy's biggest test was when it squared off against Brenneman's old show, NYPD Blue, and her former boss, Steven
Bochco - or, as she calls it, "The Pillsbury Bakeoff." The competition "feels fine," Brenneman
says. "He's a great guy with an amazing show who's given me more than I probably even know."
In November, Brenneman attended a Eurythmics concert in Los Angeles with her husband, film director Brad Silberling,
whom she had met when they were both working on NYPD Blue. Just down the row from her, she noticed, was Bochco.
"And I immediately almost bought the media rap of, 'Oh my God, it's so awkward, oh my God,' and then I thought,
'Wait a minute, Steven's like our godfather, Steven brought us together. I have so much love for Steven Bochco.' And
I thought, 'Well this is sort of awkward,' but I climbed over all these people and I sat in his lap. I said, 'Well,
I guess there's room in network television for both of us."'
Bochco and Brenneman laughed. And they're probably still laughing today.
Copyright © 2000 TV Guide. All rights reserved.
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