|
|
Amy Brenneman's new show takes its cue from Connecticut childhood
Connecticut Post - October 10, 1999
By JOANNE KABAK
Correspondent
Judge provides TV star daughter with ROLE MODEL
Pioneer Judge Frederica S. Brenneman never envisioned she'd have something in common professionally with her actress daughter. Until now.
One of this season's hot new dramatic series, "Judging Amy," not only stars her daughter Amy, but is also about a female superior court judge, a career Frederica Brenneman had for 30
years. She was the second female judge appointed in Connecticut in 1967.
"Back then, it was a freaky thing," said Amy Brenneman, 35. "I knew of no other mother who was a judge." Growing up with that experience provides plenty of fodder for the show
that is set in Hartford and airs on Tuesday nights on CBS. Brenneman was born in New London and raised in Glastonbury.
Her mother's career helped her create a character who is "a woman in charge, who has to really think on her feet, to walk the walk while you're still scrambling to figure out what's going
on."
It also allows her to follow her mother's dictum to "do something for humanity." Amy's contention, her mother said, is that long after other institutions have disappeared, art remains.
In this case, television enables "Judging Amy" to highlight the complexities of life in a mid-sized city, the problems of adolescents who may fall through the cracks and the mystery of
personal relationships.
Both realize that TV programming is also about "selling soap," and for a series to succeed, it has to capture an audience. So far, so good on that score. This past Tuesday, "Judging
Amy" posted an 11.2 Nielsen rating and a 19 share, according to David Poltrack executive vice president of planning and research for CBS.
That means 11.2 percent of people with televisions in their homes were watching it, and the 19 represents the percentage of viewers watching TV at that time. The show surpassed "Once and
Again," the other new drama that airs at 10 p.m.
" 'Judging Amy' is clearly on track to be a major hit," Poltrack said, adding: "On Tuesday, 15,695,000 people were watching the show and the remarkable thing about that is that the
week before, in its premiere episode, 13,499,000 watched, so the audience increased 16 percent from its first to second week. Historically, new programs go down."
Poltrack mentioned that "N.Y.P.D. Blue" will be back in the 10 p.m. time slot in another four weeks, when "Once and Again" takes a break. He thinks a few male audience members
may be lost to the popular police drama, but that "Judging Amy" will retain its female audience and pick up some "Once and Again" fans. Ironically, Brenneman played police
officer Janice Licalsi on that show before her part was written out.
Judge Brenneman, who lives in Westport, clearly enjoys the intersection of her life with Amy's as she introduces her daughter to other females on the bench, and serves as a quasi-consultant who
reads scripts and advises on the technical aspects of Connecticut courtrooms.
In the series, Judge Amy's marriage has broken up and she leaves her high-powered job as an attorney in New York City to take a judgeship in Hartford. With her 6-year-old daughter in tow, she
moves in with her strong-minded mother, a social worker played by Tyne Daly.
Watching the show evolve and Amy perform in it, "I'm in awe of her professionalism," said Judge Brenneman. In addition to scenes in the courtroom, the series highlights mother-daughter
relationships at home.
Judge Brenneman realizes she can slip into mother-speak every now and then. As she was complaining to Amy about her character's interaction with her TV mother, Amy stopped her in her tracks and
said, "Mom, now you sound just like Tyne."
"I've always been interested in strong mothers, and in what it's like to be the daughter of a trailblazer," Brenneman said. In many other ways, the series is unlike her own life. She
enjoyed the stability of growing up in a two-parent household, but little else was routine.
She graduated Harvard in 1987, having majored in comparative religion. While there, she performed in classical dramas and was one of the masterminds behind Cornerstone, a troupe that makes theater
relevant to contemporary audiences through local color and native talent. Cornerstone will be performing in New Haven this April.
In the early 1990s, Brenneman became known to a wider public in a decidedly unclassical setting, as David Caruso's girlfriend on "NYPD Blue." "She wasn't funny," Brenneman
said, "she was bad." By the time the role was written out, Brenneman had already started acting in movies - and had met her husband on the show, writer/director Brad Silberling whose
movie credits include "City of Angels" and "Casper."
The new series, which has been scheduled for at least 13 weeks, is Brenneman's first show of her own. She is the star and one of four executive producers, three of whom are women and one of whom
is head writer Barbara Hall.
"When I looked around at what was considered women's programming, I found myself feeling offended," Brenneman said. "It was soft, feminine, emotional. People didn't actually have
jobs, careers or passions. And I kept thinking that the women in my life have all these things. They have wit, they have anger - and they have softness. So I'm interested in incorporating a lot of
these qualities in the show."
Brenneman said she didn't consider acting as a career until her mid-twenties, but Chris Gullotta of Glastonbury remembers her showing considerable acting skills early on. "Amy was Captain
Hook, she was Pinocchio," said Gullotta, coordinator of "Creative Experiences," a 25-year-old-program in which Brenneman participated for several years. It uses acting to enhance a
sense of personal worth and to encourage goal-setting and teamwork.
"She was amazing. Even at age 12, she had the ability to interpret a script. She had us all in tears with Pinocchio's speech about being real. She found a little piece of herself in each
character."
Gullotta especially noted Brenneman's drive to make theater relevant and to use it as a way to make a difference in the lives of the performers and of the audience.
If "Judging Amy" gets a commitment for an additional nine weeks, Brenneman said she hopes the camera crew will travel to Hartford to include actual shots of the city. Right now, most of
the exteriors are filmed in places like Pasadena, "with really artful greens and fake autumn leaves." She said she'd like to return to the city and give the other producers a feel for
it. "I've been obsessed about bringing in Hartford. I'm really interested in the plight of the city and its people, in its complexity, its problems and the richness of its culture," she
said.
"Judging Amy" isn't Brenneman's only creative effort at the moment. She has a movie coming out in October, "The Suburbans" with Will Ferrell, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ben
Stiller. "It was a joy to do," she said.
As she progresses through a demanding career, Brenneman points to her mother as a role model. She notes that her mother was in the first graduating class at Harvard Law School to admit women in
1953. She calls her "a warm bunny," someone who "passed along a great amount of integrity, both in terms of what you're willing to do, and what you're willing to walk away
from."
As she balances a two-career marriage in Hollywood, movies, a television series and chairmanship of the Cornerstone theatrical group, Brenneman looks at her life and thinks, "scary, but
true."
Show airs at 10 p.m. Tuesdays on CBS.
Copyright © 1999 Connecticut Post. All rights reserved.
|
