Hello From Hollywood!
Nurse Jackie,” starring Emmy Award-winner Edie Falco. The series’ second season premiered on Monday, March 22, and the audience was treated to a sneak preview of the season opener. I hadn’t seen much from the first season, so I wasn’t a fan of the show about a hospital nurse with a drug addiction. However, my curiosity was piqued driving around Los Angeles with the attention-grabbing billboard announcing the second season’s arrival. It shows Nurse Jackie with a halo of colorful pills, her right hand’s fingers raised and wrapped around a bottle with the tagline “Holy Shift.” The billboard evokes an iconic image of Jesus and has been considered offensive. Would this treatment fly with other religions whose leaders have put a bulls’-eye on the head of those they deemed blasphemous? This is Hollywood, the issue never came up during the two-hour presentation that also did not invite questions from the near-sold out audience.
If you haven’t tuned in, and you should for various reasons, the series picks up with the demise of Jackie’s extramarital affair with the hospital’s pharmacist who used to sneak her pain pills under the counter. Jackie forgot to mention she was married and had kids. Their affair and his career may be over, but problems are only beginning. Her family and drug supply are threatened in ways Jackie never imagined.
The cast is comprised of some of the best actors on television. The creators credit their success with the ensemble to hiring to mainly theatre actors, including hospital staffers played by Anne Deavere Smith and Eve Best. When Eddie Walzer (Jackie’s ex-lover) auditioned for a series known as the “Untitled Edie Falco Project,” he reacted,
This has to be good.” While Falco is mostly known for her role in “The Sopranos” as Carmela Soprano, she trained as a theatre actress and has done some very daring and unapologetic work on the stage.
Falco commented that when she was approached she wanted her name to be above the title. She added, “Not for vanity reasons, but because I liked to be involved and experience it all.” As Carmela, she felt like a supporting player, missing a lot of bonding with other actors while they shot scenes without her. She jokingly whined that she felt envious when they told stories of things that happened when she wasn’t around. Now it’s a different game.
The actors also discussed the rapid shooting schedule for the season’s 12 episodes
filmed in 12 weeks with the same director for most of them. Half of the scripts were ready before the 1st episode began photography and the others were written along the way. It’s grueling but gratifying, and the actors can easily work in film too. Shot in New York, the creators have the benefit of casting other NY-based stage actors legends like Eli Wallach - who rarely get a phone call from Hollywood.
As for the storylines filled with all the moral ambiguity one can handle in a half-hour “comedy,” the writers pull from the real stories of working nurses who serve as consultants on the series. After a story comes up, the head writes take it to the writers’ room where they flesh it out. The writers also pull from their own lives as recovering addicts and today’s headlines, including America’s healthcare crisis. As Jackie’s hospital faces competition, management literally takes its sales pitch to the streets by marketing its Jackie-chasing, attractive Dr. Cooper (Peter Facinelli) on bus ads with the tagline “If looks could cure.” Another crisis adverted. Almost. Storylines are rarely tied up in pretty bows in this compelling comedy with drama.
“Nurse Jackie” airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on Showtime.
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