This Soap Star's Been Committed
Three-time Daytime Emmy winner Jennifer Finnigan is best known for romancing her half brother (who was also her stepfather) on The Bold and the Beautiful. Well, technically speaking, they weren't biological siblings. But still, ew, right? Anyway, she did a post-soap stint on NBC's Crossing Jordan and now stars in Committed, the Peacock's new mid-season comedy debuting tonight at 9:30/pm ET. Here, we quiz the 26-year-old beauty about jumping from daytime to prime time.
TV Guide Online: Your Bold story was icky. Your character, Bridget, fell for her mother Brooke's true love, Ridge, even though they were sorta related.
Jennifer Finnigan: First, he thought he was my dad. Then, he thought he was my brother. Then, he was my lover.
TVGO: Wow. Just to refresh our memory, why did he think he was your dad?
Finnigan: (Laughs) Because my mom was a ho. Brooke had basically slept with every male character on the show — except for her son, which I wouldn't put past her at this point! I wish that story line could be forgotten. That incest thing is really not how I want to be remembered.
TVGO: But we'll never forget. Anyway, your sitcom's original title was Crazy for You. Why the change?
Finnigan: It did change awfully late in the game, which was tough on us because we'd gotten attached to the title and I'd been shouting it from the rooftops. The reason it changed is that
Crazy for You sounds too close to
Mad About You; we didn't want to be associated with another romantic comedy.
Crazy for You is also a
Gershwin musical. And one-title names are often the catchiest.
Committed has a fun double entendre to it.
TVGO: But first the title was Crazy and now it's Committed. Is the show about mental illness?
Finnigan: [Laughs] No, there's no one with a mental illness, although the two leads are borderline insane. Crazy wacky, in a neurotic sense. My character is a pathologically optimistic free spirit with a childlike innocence.
Josh Cooke's character is obsessive-compulsive and extremely paranoid that people are out to get him.
TVGO: Was he beaten as a child?
Finnigan: I don't know about
that! I don't know if that's gonna make it into the show.
[Giggles] Maybe for sweeps.
TVGO: Yeah! You could cast Mimi from The Drew Carey Show as his mom who touched him wrong.
Finnigan: She gave him sponge baths until he was 16!
TVGO: OK, let's get back to the actual show. Why was the debut delayed from fall 2004 to mid-season 2005? Did something go wrong?
Finnigan: Things happened — nothing interesting — and we were just sort of put on hold until mid-season. What's great about that is we were able to do our 13 episodes in our own little bubble. We didn't have to come to work after bad ratings and put on a happy face or be under the scrutiny of critics. That's creatively liberating. I'm just praying people like it.
TVGO: If Committed doesn't last, might you return to Crossing Jordan?
Finnigan: I died in a fiery plane crash, but maybe I could come back from the dead like on soaps! It was a gruesome farewell, but a good one. I wouldn't mind going back. It's a good show. It was daunting to go from daytime to this hit prime-time show, and they were very embracing.
Jill Hennessy is a Canadian girl like me, so we bonded.
