'Mom Told Me Stories...'

Parade Magazine - May 14, 2000

BY TOM SELIGSON

Amy Brenneman plays Judge Gray, a character based on her own mother, on a popular weekly CBS drama.

As a kid, Amy Brenneman thought being a judge was "the coolest thing a woman could be." Now she's living out her childhood dream on TV. Her CBS series, Judging Amy, is based on the career of her mother, Frederica Brenneman, 73, a Superior Court judge in Connecticut. The actress—previously known for her work on NYPD Blue and in films such as Casper and Heat—stars as Judge Amy Gray, who, like her mother, handles juvenile-court cases. Brenneman helped create the highly rated series and is an executive producer. Her mother is the show's technical adviser.

I wondered how Brenneman felt about playing her mother and what she had learned about herself and her mother. We met on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles where Judging Amy is produced. She explained how her mother inspired her show. Brenneman, 35, grew up in Glastonbury, Conn., with her mother and father, Russell, a lawyer, and two older brothers. Her parents met at Harvard. "My mother was a real trailblazer," Brenneman said. "She was in the first class of women at Harvard Law and the second woman appointed a judge in Connecticut."

Though law was discussed at home, Brenneman found her true calling at 11. "I was part of a youth center that put on plays," she said. After high school, she majored in comparative religion at Harvard and acted in school productions. When she graduated in 1987, Brenneman formed an acting troupe. Several years later, she moved to New York to try to make it on her own.

Within six months,the actress was cast in the short-lived series Middle Ages. In her next role, as Officer Janice Licalsi on NYPD Blue, Brenneman proved to be as much of a trailblazer in TV as her mother was in law: In the first episode, Brenneman appeared nude. "It's a weird way to come out of the gate," she noted. Brenneman left NYPD Blue in its second season to pursue a film career, but eventually she grew frustrated with films. "I wanted to explore a character I could get into a lot deeper," she said.

Brenneman chose to explore her mother. Armed with childhood memories and a birthday video she had made for her mother with interviews from people she worked with, such as probation officers and social workers, Brenneman pitched her series idea to CBS. "I realized there were all these stories here," she said. "I'd been hearing them all my life from my mother."

"When I'm on the bench [in Judging Amy], that is totally my mother's style," added Brenneman, "although she says I'm a little meaner than she is." As for her mother, she said: "She loves the attention, but she's most happy for me and the employees of the Connecticut court system, because they too are getting recognized."


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