Edie Falco takes a shot at dramedy in ‘Nurse Jackie’
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The premise of “Nurse Jackie,” an original series on Showtime that premieres Monday, sounds inherently dark: Edie Falco plays a pill-popping emergency room nurse wearily combating the dysfunction of a chaotic big-city hospital.
But there was little somberness in evidence on a cold winter day in February as Falco shot a short scene with costars Peter Facinelli and Merritt Wever on a soundstage in Queens. As the actors recited the brief dialogue, the producers and crew tried in vain to stifle their laughter.
The chuckling began as Facinelli, as the love-struck young Dr. Fitch Cooper, approached the nurses’ station and silently presented Falco’s Jackie Peyton with an offering of pink roses and a pack of gum.
“No,” Jackie said exasperatedly. “Don’t.”
Then Wever, who portrays the wide-eyed novice nurse Zoey Barkow, did a double-take as a patient was wheeled past the nurses’ station.
“Oooh, it’s the movie critic from ‘Good Morning New York,’ ” she squealed, bouncing up and down so vigorously that her long brown hair came loose from its braid. Guffaws filled the room.
“I can’t wait to see that on TV,” executive producer John Melfi said with a grin, peering at the scene on a monitor.
As the latest television series to embrace the dramedy genre, “Nurse Jackie” balances the crises that Jackie confronts with bursts of drollness. The character shares some of the dark humor and steeliness of Carmela, the mob wife Falco played on HBO‘s “The Sopranos,” a part that garnered her three Emmys and made her a sought-after lead once the drama finished its long-lauded run in 2007. But the comedy required in the role represented a new foray.
(Photo courtesy Showtime)