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Amy Brenneman
Cosmopolitan - March 1, 1995
When Amy Brenneman signed the "nudity clause" in her contract for the TV series NYPD Blue, she had no
inkling that producer Stephen Bochco (L.A. Law) would exercise his option immediately. "On my second day of
work, I had to kill two people. And on the third day, I [along with costar David Caruso] got naked," says the
Emmy-nominated actress who portrayed the sexy but tough Officer Janice Licalsi.
The attention that the duo's bare bottoms received helped propel them to instant fame. But instead of settling in
for a run, Caruso opted out of the series for a film career. And Brenneman was informed that her character would
also be dropped: "They told me Janice was a real firebrand - not television material. They had problems
maintaining her. I was upset and scared."
Brenneman needn't have worried. Her exposure, as it were, on a major hit series grabbed Hollywood's attention. And
now, a year after leaving NYPD Blue, she's working nonstop in movies. As for any concerns about being typecast, she
hasn't played a single tough cookie in her three back-to-back films.
The first, Bye Bye Love, which was just released, ftnds her as Matthew Modine's ex-wife interfacing with his best
friend, played by Paul Reiser. In May, she'll be seen as an angel in a live- action film version of the animated TV
series Casper the Friendly Ghost. And she's just finished shooting a thriller, No Fear, opposite Reese Witherspoon
and Mark Wahlberg (aka Marky Mark), the script for which she hated on sight and is now glad she was talked into:
"Thrillers are not my thing. But the director [James Foley] won me over. In rewrites, it kept getting better
and better." What's more, the fire under Brenneman' s career just now got even hotter when she signed on as the
female lead playing Robert De Niro's love interest in Heat, which reunites the actor with his Godfather II costar Al
Pacino.
Brunching in one of Beverly Hills' best delis, Nate 'N Al, Brenneman reminds me of my childhood buddy's pretty older
sister - accessible if not quite attainable. She has dark, gently curled hair, a sensual smile, and large, oval eyes
that never waver as she meets every question head-on. Which makes it all the more curious that she's so evasive when
asked her age. Even after she's been coaxed into admitting that she recently celebrated "a big birthday,"
she sidesteps actually uttering the word thirty.
Born and raised in Connecticut, the youngest of three children and the only girl, Brenneman was "the
achiever" in the family, the one who went to Harvard. But it was her more rebellious brothers who hooked onto
the button-down career track, while she spent eight months in Paris, a year in Nepal studying religion, and almost
six years on the road with the Cornerstone Theater Company, an itinerant repertory group that adapted classical
plays to whatever small American town they were performing in. Her eyes crinkle with happiness as she recalls the
years spent making herself a home anyplace she happened to be. "I'd take on the character of wherever I
was," she says.
But eventually, the security of living in a communal environment with her fellow actors, whom she'd known since
college, was offset by frequent bouts of loneliness and the constant prospect of being uprooted. In 1990, she
decided to make a break and move to New York City. She was a bit intimidated at first, she admits. But having eamed
only eighty dollars a week for several years, she was not exactly unfamiliar with struggle.
Suddenly everything happened - fast. Theater work. A failed but highly praised TV series, The Middle Ages. And NYPD
Blue. Then, as if to ice the cake, Steven Spielberg's production company purchased the feature-film rights to the
story of the Cornerstone Theater Company. And while she wasn't looking, she even found love - in the person of Brad
Silberling, a director on NYPD Blue (and more recently, Casper). The attraction between them was immediate, she
says, but, not wanting to get involved with someone from work, she resisted.
Then one day, her father was visiting the set and also struck up an instant rapport with Silberling:
"Afterward, my dad said to me, `That Brad seems like a nice guy.' So naturally, I rejected him a while
longer." She laughs. But Brenneman finally "broke down and told Brad how I felt about him, and he said he
was finishing up a relationship with someone. Still, we went out the next day - and he came on to me." Though
wedding bells are likely to tinkle somewhere down the road, matrimony is still in the talking stages. "We're
just enjoying every stage of the relationship," she says.
If studying Eastern religions and meditating has taught Brenneman anything, it's to go with the flow: "I'm
happier now than I thought I'd be at this age. I guess I didn't realize that if you keep going, things get better.
You get to be who you are a little more every day."
Copyright © 1995 Hearst Corporation. All rights reserved.
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