Jean Smart Talks “Harry’s Law”: MyFoxLA.com

The Orange County/Long Beach/ Palm Springs Human Rights Campaign Steering Committee will be presenting Smart with the award.

The 12th annual HRC Palm Springs Garden Party will be from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday at the Old Las Palmas Estate of Federal Club members Doug Hudson and Erich Burkhart, official said.

The event will feature the awards ceremony, hors d’oeuvres, an open bar and a silent auction.

Tickets cost $50 for Federal Club members or $75 for general admission.

(Source)

“I would have loved to talk to Camilla,” says Jean Smart, who plays the former Camilla Parker-Bowles – now officially known as the duchess of Cornwall – in the television movie William & Catherine: A Royal Romance. “But the movie is not about her and Charles.” The movie, which recounts the circumstances leading to the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton this past April, is scheduled to air on the Hallmark Channel on August 27.

“From what I could glean,” the 61-year old Smart says, “Camilla seems like she has a great sense of humour.

She’s an outdoorsy kind of person and maybe not entirely comfortable in the limelight. It was difficult to find interviewswith her. I think she’s a little camera shy. She was a little beat up by the media and the British public for a while.” Is she an admirer of the duchess? “As an actor I have to go with the person in the script,” Smart says, “and I liked that person very much. This film treats Camilla very sympathetically.” “Despite everything that happened, (she and Prince Charles) obviously loved each other for 40 years,” Smart says. “No matter how you feel about everything else, you’ve got to root for the fact that they’ve stuck it out and put up with a lot of abuse. Not that they didn’t make mistakes,perhaps,but they decided, ‘This is who we are and this is what we want. We’re happy, and please be happy for us.”’ Smart, who completed the film earlier this year, is speaking by telephone from the set of the NBC series Harry’s Law.She will appear with series star Kathy Bates in this season’s first three episodes, and her role may become a recurring character.

In the course of her three-decade career, Smart has moved effortlessly from sweet to madcap to tough to villainous.

Audiences may first have noticed her as naive office manager Charlene Frazier Stillfield on Designing Women (1986- 1991) or as the female serial killer in Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story (1992). Fans of 24’’ (2006-2007) will recogniseher as semi-nutty Martha Logan, the wife of the nefarious President Logan (Gregory Itzin).

While filming William & Catherine: A Royal Romance, Smart had only one concern.“ I hope Camilla didn’t mind my playing her,” she says. “But we’re not seeing her in situations where she has to deal with painful things.” Princess Diana (Lesley Harcourt) is seen only in flashback. Instead the film focuses on Prince William’s college years, when he met his bride-to-be at St Andrew’s University.

“It helped a lot that William sort of accepted Camilla,” says writer/producer/ director Linda Yellen, who also wrote and produced The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) and met with Princess Diana three times, in a separate interview.

“I think maybe the tragedy between Charles and Diana was that they thought they could marry and each would make the other into something else,” Yellen says.

“It was never going to work.” It’s tricky, of course, to make a movie about currently living people that recounts recent events that happened in the absence of movie cameras.

The film is not about the relationship between Charles and Camilla, but inevitably that relationship is a part of the story.

Yellen has a generally favourable view of the often-controversialCamilla.

“She is a maligned person in the press,” the filmmaker says. ‘But if you watch her progression since she’s been back with Charles, recognising her place next to him, she also has gotten more conventionally styled and attractive, although she doesn’t care about those things.

Although Smart insists that she has never paid especial attention to the British royal family, she understands that such is not the case with many of her compatriots.

“Americans have a little bit of royalty envy,” the actress says. “We all want people to look up to, as much as we tear them down.” Smart, who has been married to actor Richard Gilliland for 24 years, has a son, Connor 21 and her daughter Bonnie is 3. Smart and Gilliland adopted her in 2009.

“We’d been talking about adopting for years and years,” Smart said. “We put off the paperwork, but finally decided to do it. It was worth the wait. It’s been a wonderful experience. Every weekend I take my little girl to garage sales. I’m training her early. I give her a dollar, and she picks out a little stuffed animal.”

Smart made such films as The Brady Bunch Movie (1995), Snow Day (2000), Sweet Home Alabama (2002) and Garden State (2004) while raising her son, but she spent much of those years working in television.

“Sitcoms have the best schedule,” she says. “You’re home every night.” It didn’t hurt that she was good at them, earning two Emmy Awards as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for Frasier(2000-2001) and a third as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Samantha Who? (2008).

“Dramas like Harry’s Law are 12-hour days,” Smart says. “But, if you’re not the star of the show you don’t work every day.

You can still have a life.” “Theatre is the hardest,” she adds.

“You’re not home at dinnertime or story time. Yet that’s myfirst love.” Smart grew up in Seattle and started out in regional Theatre. She reports that she hopes to return to the stage later this year.

“I’ve just been offered a play in Los Angeles,” she says, “and I’m being considered for one in New York.” Also on deck is a supporting role in Great Hope Springs, a film comedy starring Meryl Streep. “I play Meryl’s best friend,” Smart says. “She’s doing the film with TommyLee Jones.” Some have said that there are more roles for 50-plus women these days, as the baby boomers age. Smart doesn’t see it, though.

“Not really,” the actress says. “No, unfortunately.” Nonetheless, she lives in hope of better things. “Maybe advertisers will realise that we baby boomers have a lot of money,” Smart says, “and that they no longer have to go after the teenage dollar. I never had any money when I was a teenager.”
(Source)

AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, holds its biennial convention in Seattle this week.

Among likely topics are the ongoing discussions with the Screen Actors Guild about a possible merger. Committees are working this year on a draft merger agreement and national constitution that each union’s boards will review by January.

Formally on the agenda is election of new national officers: president, first vice president, second vice president, treasurer, recording secretary and seven “unnumbered” vice presidents. There also will be resolutions to be voted on, state of the union reports from President Roberta Reardon, National Treasurer Matthew Kimbrough and National Executive Director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth and other biz.

Hedgpeth said in a release: “Technology is changing how, and indeed, if professional union performers and broadcasters can sustain their careers. As union members increasingly come under attack from corporations who are solely interested in their bottom line, the AFTRA convention is a powerful organizing opportunity and a vivid example of how AFTRA members’ diversity gives them collective strength for the future.”

Speakers at the convention will include actress Jean Smart, actor and Screen Actors Guild President Ken Howard and Rep. Jim McDermott. (Source)

Harry’s Law is adding more legal power to its team.

The NBC drama has added Human Target star Mark Valley as a series regular and Jean Smart as a recurring guest star for the upcoming second season, EW reports.

Alfred Molina jumps to Harry’s Law

Valley will play a slick attorney and joins the recently cast Karen Olivo as another of Harry Korn’s new legal team. Also, in the wake of getting replaced as governor on Hawaii Five-0, Smart comes on to play a prosecutor in the case of a man (Alfred Molina) accused of murdering his wife.

Harry’s Law will return for its second season on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 9/8c on NBC. (Source)

Additional Info from TV Line:

Also on the docket for Harry’s Law: Emmy-winning 24 alum (and former governor of Hawaii) Jean Smart has been booked for a three-episode arc as Roseanna Remmick, the D.A. prosecuting the high-profile murder trial featuring guest star Alfred Molina (Law & Order: LA) as the accused aka Harry’s client. (Source)

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Not moving forward are comedy pilots “Brave New World,” “Help Wanted,” “I Hate That I Love You,” “Lovelives” and “My Life as an Experiment” while the fate of “Family Practice” is pending.
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HALLMARK CHANNEL ANNOUNCES START OF PRODUCTION IN BUCHAREST FOR “WILLIAM & CATHERINE: A ROYAL ROMANCE,” A HALLMARK CHANNEL ORIGINAL MOVIE STARRING JANE ALEXANDER, VICTOR GARBER, JEAN SMART, ALICE ST. CLAIR AND DAN ARMBOYER PREMIERING AUGUST 27

Emmy(R) Award-Winner Linda Yellen and Emmy(R) Award Nominee Brad Krevoy Executive Produce

Hallmark Channel, Emmy(R) Award-winning producer Linda Yellen (“Playing for Time”) and Emmy(R) Award nominee Brad Krevoy (“Taking Chance”) announce an all-star cast has been assembled in Bucharest and will commence production of “William & Catherine: A Royal Romance,” a Hallmark Channel Original Movie, which will have its World Premiere exclusively on the network, Saturday, August 27 (9 p.m. ET/PT, 8C). In starring roles are four-time Oscar(R) nominee, 8-time Emmy(R) Award nominee (two wins, including “Playing for Time” with Executive Producer Linda Yellen) and three-time Golden Globe nominee Jane Alexander as QUEEN ELIZABETH, 6-time Emmy nominee and Broadway star Victor Garber (“Alias,” “Will & Grace”) as CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES, three-time Emmy(R) Award winner Jean Smart (“Samantha Who?,” “Frasier,”) as the DUCHESS OF CORNWALL CAMILLA PARKER BOWLES, 23-year old English rose Alice St. Clair as CATHERINE MIDDLETON and newcomer Dan Armboyer (“Body of Proof”) as PRINCE WILLIAM OF WALES.

The outstanding cast will be led by two Executive Producers of equal patina: Emmy(R) Award winner Linda Yellen (“Playing for Time), whose previous credits include “The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana,” one of the most popular TV movies of all time, and Emmy(R) nominee Brad Krevoy, producer of more than 100 feature films and the Emmy(R) nominated TV movie, “Taking Chance.”

The Royal Wedding of Prince William of Wales to his sweetheart of eight years Catherine Middleton on April 29 showcased the best of Great Britain, becoming the most watched live event in history. For all its pomp, circumstance, pageantry, and great historical relevance, the union of William and Catherine is a love story that captivates the world. (Source)