Ivey’s New League : JUDITH IVEY TRIES TV WITH NBC’S ‘DOWN HOME’

Judith Ivey has always been the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Not that she hasn’t had ample opportunities at stardom. The Texas-native has two Tony Awards for her supporting roles in “Steaming” and “Hurlyburly” and garnered crackerjack reviews for her supporting performances in such films as “Compromising Positions,” “Hello Again” and “In Country.”

But those films didn’t burn up the box office. “People don’t read movie reviews,” said Ivey. “If a movie wasn’t a hit, they don’t care what your part was.”

Even when she did land a starring role in the 1985 NBC miniseries, “The Long Hot Summer,” she was overshadowed by her popular co-stars, Don Johnson and Cybill Shepherd.

Ivey, 38, hopes her luck will change with her first TV series, “Down Home,” in a limited run Saturdays at 10:30 p.m. on NBC. The situation comedy deals with a successful New York career woman who returns to the small Texas fishing village where she was reared to help save the family business, a cafe and bait shop. “Cheers” star Ted Danson, Barton Dean and Dan Fauci are the executive producers of the limited, six-week series.

“To be very businesslike, it seems TV is where you get noticed,” said Ivey, relaxing in the living room of her Hollywood Hills home. “The movie industry is not into discovering people. They want a bona fide star playing the good parts and that’s understandable. Since I am not a bona fide celebrity star, I don’t get a crack at the good parts.”

Ivey decided four years ago to “open the door” to TV series offers. Though the scripts quickly started arriving, she said, “There are starving people in the world who deserved the money more than these projects.”

While Ivey was making the ABC TV-movie “We Are the Children” in Africa with Danson, the actor and his producing partner Fauci discussed the possibility of creating a series for her. “They put me with the writer who watched a bunch of my movies, and he came up with the premise.”

The actress thought doing a sitcom would be a piece of cake. That hasn’t been the case. “Compared to a theatrical or stage production schedule-all the films I have shot have been on location where you work six days out of the week and long hours-it seemed like it was going to be highway robbery,” said Ivey. “But doing a series requires 10 times as much concentration, because of the rapid-fire changes. You have to be on your toes every second. When they give you a week off, all I want to do is lie down and sleep.”

Ivey, though, doesn’t get much sleep these days. She’s also playing the temporary role of single parent to 5-month-old daughter Margaret Elizabeth. Ivey stipulated in her contract that “Down Home” will be shot in New York if it’s picked up for a full season but agreed to do the first six episodes in Los Angeles. “My husband works for HBO in New York,” she said. “He’s not here for four days out of the week. When baby cries, there’s nobody here to pick her up but me. It’s kind of like having two jobs.”

Before joining “Down Home,” Ivey worked for eight days on Woody Allen’s latest untitled project due for release this fall. The experience was no laughing matter. “He’s very serious,” she said. “You feel kind of stupid expecting him to be funny.”

Ivey admitted that she doesn’t even know who she plays or what the film is about.

“It’s interesting,” she said. “You don’t know what significance your words have or if you literally are revealing a plot point. It was difficult at first. But I just kept listening to him, and I must have gotten it right, because after a day, he didn’t say much more to me.”