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Edie Falco may already have enough awards to fill an oversized trophy case from her six seasons on "The Sopranos," but the 45-year-old New Yorker may want to clear off some room on her shelves for the accolades she'll be receiving as Jackie Peyton, the titular character on her new Showtime series, "Nurse Jackie," a half-hour black comedy about a flawed but brilliant emergency room nurse juggling a career, a family and multiple addictions. We sat down with Falco to get the scoop on her new series, about leaving HBO for Showtime and about the bevy of nurse shows that will soon fill up the TV schedule.
MSN TV: Did you intentionally set out to take a role that was dramatically different from Carmela Soprano, or did you just read the part and think you had to do it?
Edie Falco: I never intellectually set out to take something that was so different from Carmela. You just read stuff and you wait to see what's going to excite you next. And I got a lot of scripts with suburban wives and Italian women that didn't excite me much because I'd been there so much for such a long period of time. So the next thing that excited me was somebody who turned out to be very different from Carmela. So it makes sense; although that wasn't my intellectual plan, that is the way it worked out.
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And how is it to be the show's star? "The Sopranos" was such an ensemble, but in this series you're in just about every scene.
I actually do think this is an ensemble as well, and the most fun I have is working with these other great actors that have been cast in the other lead roles. But I like to work hard. I like to be there every day. I like long hours. It all suits me, so I'm thrilled that I get to do a lot on this thing.
Does it feel different, though, to play the title character or to see yourself in all the marketing materials?
All that stuff can be a little daunting -- and in a celebrity place it makes me unhappy -- but the fact that I'm actually able to be on the set from the minute the day starts to the minute the day ends, I love. I love being with everybody as they're working hard and when things happen on the set. I really feel very intrinsically connected to this show in a way that I haven't felt before because I am there a lot.
Can you talk a little about Jackie's sense of morality? She's pretty flawed herself but seems to have a pretty clear sense of what she feels is right and wrong.
Well, I think that's it exactly. She has a very clear sense of what's right and wrong. She's not terribly open to hearing other versions of it, and she's certainly not open to letting people get in the way of getting her work done. But that causes some problems and that's what the season is about basically -- about how she maneuvers her way through this world.
Do you think that you're drawn to characters with a large internal struggle?
In my life I'm drawn to people like that (laughs), so I haven't met a lot of people who don't have that. The size of the internal struggle notwithstanding, most of the people I know have conflict. And that's what makes people lovable, is how they manage all that. And I think that television is more open to having these people portrayed. So I think I'm entering into the scene of being on television in a very exciting time.
Was finding a show that shoots in New York important to you?
It is important to me. I've lived here forever and my family is here and I'm not as interested as I once was at picking up and traveling someplace. I'm afraid I've always been a homebody, so this couldn't be more ideal.
You are the second big HBO star to leave for Showtime, after Michael C. Hall began "Dexter." Should the network take it personally?
No, of course they shouldn't. Actors are mercenaries. They've got to go where the work is. And good scripts are so hard to come by, so if you find a good script you grab a hold of it and go wherever it takes you. From my vantage point, that's my journey.
Were you aware there was going to be a bunch of other nurse shows on TV this season, between "HawthoRNe" on TNT and "Mercy" coming up on NBC?
I only found out about this recently, so no. That seems to happen, though. Even when we were shooting "The Sopranos," they were shooting "Analzye This," so things tend to sort of come in waves. Apparently there are a bunch of nurse shows now, but it's just happenstance.
I know you battled with alcohol early in your career -- does playing Jackie bring any of that stuff back up to the surface?
I'm a sober person, and a lot of people that I know and love are sober people. I mean it does help in a way because you know and understand the nature of addiction. If you talk to someone who doesn't understand it, you forget that it really is a mindset that is very specific. Like someone who says, "Oh, he had his whole life in front of him, why would he mess it up by drinking?" clearly doesn't understand what it means to be addicted. So to understand it is definitely helpful in the portrayal of that character, but it's just another person's life and not incredibly fascinating, I'm afraid.
"Nurse Jackie" airs Mondays at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.
