Smart plays it straight in Undue Influence
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See the article in its original context from September 1996.
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©TVData Features Syndicate She's generally regarded as one of the most versatile actresses working today, having played a lesbian serial killer, an exhausted Depression-era mother, a naive Southern belle and an over-the-top, pill-popping romance novelist.
So what's Jean Smart doing in what she calls "the straightest role I've ever played"?
The actress plays glamorous, high-powered federal prosecutor Dana Colby, the love interest of Brian Dennehy's character. ter, in Undue Influence, a four-hour adaptation of Steve Martini's best-selling mystery. It airs Sunday and Tuesday, Sept. 15 and 17, on CBS.
"'Hmmm,' I'm thinking, 'I shouldn't say what one REALLY thinks about when accepting a job,'" Smart says, laughing conspiratorially.
"The main reason I wanted to do it is that I've always wanted to work with Brian. I just think he's fabulous. But also, I've always been more of a character actress, and I thought it would be very good for me to play a character that was so straight. It's a lot harder than it looks, let me tell you!"
The movie casts Dennehy as attorney Paul Madriani, who promises his dying wife that he will help her sister. Laurel (Patricia Richardson. Home Improvement), win a custody battle against her ex-husband. Jack Vega (Richard Masur).
That promise becomes a little more complicated when Vega's new bride is found shot to death, execution-style, in her bathtub and Laurel flees.
Paul's acquaintance with Dana (Smart) is rekindled after she apparently stumbles upon the murder scene while running, although Paul wonders whether the meeting was contrived. As they begin to explore their relationship. Paul finds himself being drawn deeper and deeper into a web of infidelity and homicide.
With the help of associate Harry Hinds (Alan Rosenberg, Cybill), Paul soon uncovers a wealth of skeletons in the Vega family closet along with a dark and enigmatic side of Laurel that begins to move her into the No. 1 suspect slot. While her old Hartford Stage colleague Richardson was getting scene after juicy scene to play, Smart good-naturedly was resigning herself to the restrictions of adapting a complex narrative into a four-hour movie (minus commercials).
"I was kidding the producer," she says dryly, "You should never let an actor read the book before starting the job, because they always go. 'But what about that wonderful subplot I had?' That was sort of the way I felt, a little bit.
"(Dana) is extremely ambitious and is actually about to be given a judgeship (in the book) and has a real rivalry with this other female attorney (Rosemary Dunsmore) that Brian's character happens to be going up against.
"Unfortunately, that's something that I could have in my head. but wasn't really in the script."
Still, Smart says Martini knows how to spin a taut tale. and she has no regrets whatsoever about the Dennehy Experience.
"It was actually a great deal of fun." she confesses. "And Brian's a good kisser so, you know, what can I say?"
