Here's what I learned about my new best friend Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco) from watching Monday's premiere of Nurse Jackie:
Jackie has a bad back — and a prescription-drug problem. "What do you call a nurse with a bad back?" Jackie asks. "Unemployed." As such, she's a highly functioning pill-popper who'll take whatever she can get her hands on. Literally take.
Jackie is dedicated. From the get-go, it's clear that Jackie owns the ER. She hits all the right notes with doctors, other nurses, cops and patients. She's knowledgeable, courteous, but not exactly what you'd call nice. Read on to see what we thought of Edie Falco's new show...
read more
You're Edie Falco. You've got a rec room full of shiny acting awards. Everyone in town wants to work with you. What do you do next? For Falco, the answer is Nurse Jackie (premiering Monday, 10:30 pm/ET, Showtime), a dark dramedy about Jackie Peyton, an unconventional nurse at a New York City hospital who works unauthorized double shifts, robs from the rich to give to the poor and uses sex to get what she wants. Oh, she's also a highly functioning pill-popper.
read more
In Nurse Jackie, Edie Falco said she had much more input into her character than she did while starring as Carmella Soprano.
It wasn't that The Sopranos writers didn't welcome her ideas: "They were totally open to input, but I didn't have any," Falco told TVGuide.com. "Partially because I wasn't used to looking at it that way, but also because we were all so in-sync. Every line that they wrote for her was right on."
read more
Breaking news! Edie Falco is an awesome actress. This reporter learned this — definitely not exclusively — when he saw a sneak peek at Falco's new half-hour Showtime dramedy (tentatively titled Nurse Jackie) on Friday. Falco plays a complicated nurse in an inner-city hospital. "What do you call a nurse with a back problem?" she asks in the preview. (Pause.) "Unemployed." As a result, the wisecracking, potty-mouthed, maybe-promiscuous Nurse Jackie also has a bit of a painkiller problem. It looks very promising.Ditto for Toni Collette, who plays a suburban mom who suffers from multiple-personality disorder on United States of Tara. Here's what makes this show interesting to me: Tara's family (including husband John Corbett) is aware of her illness, tolerates it and even knows and has relationships with each of her personalities. Weird, right? Wait until you meet them. My particular favorite is "T," and I'm guessing she'll be yours too.Neither show has a solid premiere date y...
read more
The secret to 30 Rock's guest-casting success? Reversing the formula employed at Saturday Night Live. "With the exception of Jerry Seinfeld, who volunteered [to guest-star] and we leapt at it, every other time we have written the part first and then [cast it]," Tina Fey tells TVGuide.com. "Then it's coming organically from the stories. Doing the reverse of SNL — where you say, 'We have this person. What can we do with them?' — has worked well for us."What sort of guest stars does the Rock have lined up for Season 2's return on April 10? "Will Arnett is back," Fey confirms, "and Dean Winters will be back.... And I hope Edie Falco will be back," as Jack Donaghy's uberliberal ex-lover. It was then that I suggested that 30 Rock pull Ashley Dupré out of hiding and engage in some stunt-casting that would put Britney-on-Mother to utter shame. "We should get her!" Fey laughed, before sharing: "Small world — one of our writers used to live in the same apartment building a...
read more
