Angie Harmon Reveals Why She Joined the Murder Club

With her new hit Women's Murder Club(Fridays, 9 pm/ET, ABC), Angie Harmon proves she's still arresting. TV Guide talked with the sultry homicide detective about doing her stunts, an upcoming romance story arc, and how she balances motherhood and acting.

It's another 14-hour day on the set of Women's Murder Club, ABC's new hit based on James Patterson's phenomenally popular mystery novels. But today is particularly rewarding for star Angie Harmon. To convince a certain actor to take on a guest role, she jokes that she "put on a really sexy outfit and begged." It's OK, the actor in question is hubby Jason Sehorn, the ex-NFL star who famously proposed to Harmon on The Tonight Show. "I thought it'd be cool [if he took the part]," says Harmon, 36, "and he went, 'But that's the day I play golf!'"

Harmon won the scrimmage. "He was a really, really good sport," she says of the episode that airs this week. Their scenes are peppered with inside jokes. Harmon's unlucky-in-love homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer doesn't know a pass from a sack, and when she first eyes Sehorn — who plays a football player called in for questioning after his team­mate turns up dead — she plaintively asks, "Why can't I go on a blind date with him?" The answer: "He's married."

It was marriage and motherhood (the couple have two children: Finley, 4, and Avery, 2) that almost kept the husky-voiced actress from starring in her first successful series since leaving Law & Orderin 2001. "It was a difficult decision," admits Harmon. "I did a lot of praying about it and a lot of talking to Jason. I would love to be a stay-at-home mom, but I can't do it. Just because you get married and have children, it doesn't mean that your dreams die off." The kids visit the set frequently, and her trailer's filled with balloons, streamers and toys. "I am ex­hausted, but as Jason told me: 'Honey, I've never seen you this tired but I've never seen you this happy.'"

The self-described Texas tomboy feels overjoyed that she gets to play with guns and do her own stunts. "I'm a tough chick, a very physical girl," explains Harmon. "The first thing I want to do after seven hours in a morgue is go outside, run around and shoot somebody."

No wonder Harmon was the top choice to play Lindsay, impressing ABC president Steve McPherson and execu­tive producer Patterson from the start. "She is so vivacious and charismatic and witty and down-to-earth," says execu­tive producer Elizabeth Craft. "We knew she would be perfect."

Filling out the Club are Paula New­some as married medical examiner Claire, Laura Harris as commitment-phobe assistant district attorney Jill, and Aubrey Dollar as persistent reporter Cindy. And despite the usual rumors of catfights on a set full of women, "super­-fun" seems to be the operative phrase for life on the Murder scene. "We've had a blast so far," confirms Rob Estes, who plays Lindsay's ex-husband and current boss, Lt. Tom Hogan. "I call Angie the atomic energy source because she never stops. One day she had made a sign that said, 'Sorry I made y'all wait, I was late.' I wore that sign almost the whole day!" Says Harmon, "Rob and I just so enjoy publicly humiliating each other. He's like the brother I never had."

Although the characters don't stray far from Patterson's books, the stories are new. The heart of the series, how­ever, remains the relationships among the four women and bonding over shared experiences like checking out a murder victim's bikini wax. "The show is 50 percent procedural and 50 percent character," Craft says. "We call it a characteral." It also blends grisly crime drama and chick-friendly romance. In one upcoming arc, for example, Lindsay's obsessive search for a serial killer happens to bring a new guy into her life.

"You just pull for Lindsay so hard to get it together and tell Tom how she feels," Harmon says. "She's such a good egg. We were watching these scenes one night and I was like, 'Y'all, do you love Lindsay as much as I do or am I just some weird egomaniac?'" With nearly 10 million viewers tuning in, it looks like she may have her answer.

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