Focus : The ‘Heart’ Part : CAROL BURNETT TAKES ON A ROLE THAT DEFIES HER OWN INSTINCTS

Carol Burnett describes her latest TV movie, “Seasons of the Heart,” as atypical fare for the small screen. “It’s not the woman in jeopardy,” says the five-time Emmy Award winner. “It’s not the disease of the week. Also, it doesn’t tie up in a nice, neat little bow at the end.”

According to director Lee Grant (“Nobody’s Child”), the drama, premiering Sunday on NBC, originally was written as a feature. “The chance to do features on television is something that I feel really strongly about because it’s adult fare,” says Grant, who as an actress won an Oscar for “Shampoo.” “I’m so appreciative when it comes into my living room. There are no pat answers (in this movie). You don’t expect what is going to happen.”

In “Seasons,” produced by Grant’s husband, Joseph Feury, Burnett plays Vivian Levinson, a wealthy and successful publisher who recently married her longtime lover, Ezra Goldstine (George Segal). The two had carried on their affair for 25 years, during his five marriages and her one marriage to an alcoholic husband. Levinson also had an affair with Alfred McGinnis (Malcolm McDowell), a famous writer with a severe drinking problem, who views Levinson and Goldstine’s marriage with sarcasm.

Into their structured, if unusual, world comes 7-year-old David (Eric Lloyd), Levinson’s grandson who has been abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, whom Levinson had practically abandoned herself.

Becoming a real parent for the first time in her life puts a strain on her marriage to Goldstine, who, Levinson discovers, is having an affair with another woman. But for the first time in her life, Levinson learns to take responsibility for someone else.

“This was a woman who had wanted what she wanted,” Grant says. “She is a woman who made choices, who took what she wanted and was paying for it with a lot of style. She knew what she was buying and she knew what she was losing. This kid is not an immediate appealing little tyke. That is a real problem in her life and she had real choices to make. Just the step of taking responsibility for someone opens you up to growing up yourself.”

The last thing Levinson wants to be is a grandparent. “She was in the throes of a very romantic passion with one of those guys you can’t have, which we all want,” Grant explains. “We always want the guys we can’t have and when she has him, she doesn’t have him.”

Burnett, the mother of three daughters now grown, believes Levinson is a woman bereft of maternal instinct. “She has put a wall up and she doesn’t know how to handle him,” she says. “She doesn’t know how to talk to (her grandson) nor does she want to. She really doesn’t want this. She has got her career and she is a newlywed.”

At first, Burnett acknowledges, she wasn’t fond of Levinson. But her feelings changed when she became better acquainted with her.

“She seemed like she had it all together,” Burnett says. “Then as you peel away the layers of what she has been through, with the alcoholic husband, with the drug-addicted daughter ... she was looking for happiness. You kind of started to understand a little more about her and see how insecure she was about Ezra. I think they are going to make it, but I think they are going to have their problems.”

Segal, who has known and admired Burnett for years, jumped at the chance to play the slick, charming Goldstine. “It’s a meaty role,” says the star of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “‘Blume in Love.” ’It’s so rare something like this comes along.”

Unlike Burnett, Segal immediately liked Ezra. “He is me in this situation,” Segal explains. “Lee J. Cobb told me the acting stuff and the techniques you learn in class are all for when you are in trouble. But most of the time, you just pretend to be the guy you are supposed to be.”

Before production began, Grant held a week of rehearsals. “That’s just absolutely necessary for the actors so they know each other before they are intimate on camera,” she says.

“This way we had lunch together,” Segal adds. “That’s so important--you become family. If you have a week’s rehearsal, it’s like a team. All the ground is fairly familiar and everybody feels comfortable. It bonds you together.”

Burnett, though, says she didn’t get a fix on her character until she got on the set. “It’s nice to get to know everybody (in rehearsals), but it was kind of funny,” she says. “I am one who has to get into the outfits. I don’t like to examine things too deeply. I work from the outside in and Lee works from the inside out, and, yet, we worked great together because I wanted to learn what she meant by certain things or (to) reach into whatever place and call up something and make it work.”

Grant can’t say enough about Burnett as a person or an actress. “This is a very interesting facet for her to go for,” Grant says. “It is not her warm, outgoing ‘love me’ place. She had to go to an entirely different place in herself. Every once in a while I would have to say, ‘Carol. It has a little too much Carol in it.’ She knew immediately what I was talking about. This is a woman who has a lot of secrets and operated from a careerist point of view and still does. Carol had no hesitation about people liking her or not liking her. She just wanted to explore that part.”

“Seasons of the Heart” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC.