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Second Season In Session Amy Brenneman, the star of CBS's hit drama "Judging Amy" doesn't really have a trailer - at least not the kind of cramped, air-conditioned quarters with a small fridge, a tiny couch, a desk maybe and a Greyhound bus-size bathroom. No standard-issue, function-first furniture with the world's most durable and abrasive fabric.
No, Brenneman's private digs on the Paramount lot, not far from the faux Hartford courthouse down the street, can't be called a trailer. It's more like a split-level studio apartment on wheels.
Her couch - draped in exotic fabrics, some of which she picked up in the south of France - could easily accommodate four or five visitors. There's a stereo system with speakers big enough to blow the steel doors off the joint. A step or two to the right, there's a shower, and up and beyond that is a dressing room where the lights of a sizable makeup mirror are glowing.
That's what a hit show and executive-producer status - not to mention an Emmy nomination - can get you.
"Judging Amy" was the highest rated new drama of last season, but Brenneman, who at this moment is rocking girlishly on the hind legs of a chair, didn't capture the Emmy.
"I thought I'd lose to Edie Falco [of HBO's 'The Sopranos'], actually," says Brenneman.
She touches base with the obligatory "it's great to be nominated" line, but there is an honest hint of disappointment.
"I was expecting to lose," she says, "but I lost to another person." (Sela Ward of "Once and Again," the highly regarded ABC drama about life and love after divorce, got the award for outstanding actress in a drama series.)
Emmy weekend was intense all around, she recalls. The day before the ceremony, she was on the other side of the country, in East Hampton, at the wedding of one of her closest friends.
She boarded a plane at 4 a.m. to make it back to Los Angeles in time for the awards.
"It was like the 2nd Airborne planning that weekend," she says. "And I was happy to be in my seat, because I thought there was a fairly large possibility that something could happen [at the Emmys] and I wouldn't be there."
She relished the thought of spending the evening with her talented colleagues and friends, but when it was all over Brenneman felt like she had an Emmy hangover.
"The idea of picking out who is the best is so antithetical," she says, comparing the nominations to a party where everybody gets a gift, but one person's is better.
When her husband, Brad Silberling (who directed the "Judging Amy" pilot), asked whether she wanted to go to the after-show parties, she replied, "Do I have to?" So they headed home, where she felt like Cinderella after the ball.
"I see my husband while I'm in my gown and diamonds," she says, laughing, "going through the mail and looking at the bills."
No matter. "All ambivalence aside," she says with giggle, "I expect to be there next year."
In the meantime, Brenneman has an ongoing celebration - her first pregnancy, which she confirmed just a day or two before the Emmys in September.
Beaming but not yet showing, Brenneman has kept the due date a secret to keep the tabloids at bay. But she can barely contain her enthusiasm.
Fortunately, her role as Judge Amy Gray will keep her covered behind the bench and in those long, black robes much of the time.
At this point, she says, no firm decisions have been made as to whether her character will be in the family way as well.
It seems unlikely, taking Judge Gray's all-but-nonexistent romantic life into account. Brenneman, who helped create the show, says she will leave that decision in the hands of executive producer Barbara Hall.
Hall developed the show, originally based on Brenneman's mother (a Connecticut judge), and then infused it with her own experiences as a single mom.
With one child already in the series from Judge Gray's failed marriage, a child conceived out of wedlock would undoubtedly be risky business.
"That's what the writers are pondering," says Brenneman. "You know - at what point is it great and trailblazing and interesting, and at what point are you throwing away some integrity? She's already different enough."
The pregnancy also made a previously announced trip to Hartford with the cast and crew less than appealing to Brenneman, though she says it was not by any means the sole reason for its cancellation.
There are still plans to film sites in and around Hartford, but Brenneman is not likely to make the trip, even though the location shoot was the Glastonbury native's idea.
"It was never a terribly efficient use of our time," Brenneman says. "However, it was something I pushed for. I shamed Fox, actually, into giving us money. So it was always iffy in terms of the usefulness of time."
The reason, other than a Connecticut pride, was: "We all worry about the show getting too interior."
She's also a little sick of the leaf-strewn look that seems to say it's fall 365 days a year.
"We're always in our woollies [when filming] and it's 95 degrees," she says.
For now, Brenneman's thoughts are on her baby - on the set as well as off. She's grateful that, because she doubles as a producer, she has enough power to be allowed a family life off-set.
"What can they say?" she says with a laugh. "But also, the whole culture of the show is very different. Listen, man, if I had to tell Steven Bochco at 'NYPD Blue,' I'm sure he'd be nice, but children are not part of that."
Since her pregnancy has an impact on so many co-workers and a multimillion-dollar television investment, she was interested in the reaction of cast and crew.
Most people offered congratulations, though she says there were differences along gender lines.
"To the person," she says, "the women were so knocked out and so excited. And the men were real excited and then said, 'OK, what about the schedule?'"
She thinks back to something her mother once told her.
"It was one of the most poignant conversations I had with her," she says. "I was an adult, and she said, 'Look, I could be a better judge if I wasn't a mom. I could be a better mom if I wasn't a judge.' And when people asked her, 'How do you do it all?,' she'd answer, 'Not very well.'"
That real-life tug-of-war, says Brenneman, "is quite literally what this show is about."
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