Love and Murder on the French Riviera

When French Stewart read the script to the lighthearted mystery thriller “Murder at the Cannes Film Festival,” airing Sunday on E! Entertainment Television, he thought it would be a perfect “couples” movie--one that he and his wife, actress Katherine LaNasa, could both star in.

“She hadn’t been acting much anymore,” says Stewart, who plays the dimwitted but lovable alien Harry Solomon on NBC’s “3rd Rock From the Sun.”

“She had dropped out for a while because when you play your 11,000th TV hooker--after a while that is [a bit] much. She decided to bail out of the business.”

But he thought “Murder” could lure her back. “I thought it would be really good for her and it would be fun,” he says. “It would be good for me too, because on a low budget you want as many good actors in small parts as possible. She is 10 times better than I am. So I set up a meeting, she met with producers and they loved her.”

Executive produced by Merv Griffin, who makes a cameo appearance, “Murder” finds Stewart playing Nathan Booth, a struggling actor who arrives at the Cannes to find his small role in a movie, “Hemingway Loved Me,” has been cut. Broke and without a place to stay, he agrees to become a seat-filler at the film’s premiere.

When Nathan finds himself sitting next to the dead body of the film’s star (Bo Derek), he is considered by the beautiful police chief (Karina Lombard) as the prime suspect. Nathan, who once played a detective on a TV series, starts playing shamus himself to solve the crime.

LaNasa plays Kaki Lamb, the bright, sarcastic and harried assistant to the film’s obnoxious producers (Michael Lerner, Jay Brazeau).

“We work really well together,” says LaNasa, currently filming NBC’s new midseason comedy series “Three Sisters,” in which she plays the Martha Stewart-esque eldest sibling. ‘I think French will push me sometimes to make choices that are a bit more out there.”

The couple met in 1996 when LaNasa played Harry’s first sexual experience on “3rd Rock.” “I met her about eight episodes [into the filming],” Stewart recalls. “The show hadn’t aired at all yet. We have been together ever since.”

Since their marriage, Stewart and LaNasa sang and danced together on FX’s short-lived variety series “Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.”

LaNasa, a former dancer who has a 10-year-old son by first husband Dennis Hopper, enjoys playing character parts like Kaki. “I kind of started off [acting] being 25 and classical looking, but no way was I going to get a part on ‘Baywatch,’ ” she says.

“I was just too strange [a personality]. I had to go a different route to get work. I cut off my hair, started smoking and was sort of a Jennifer Jason Leigh of TV movies. I have kind of worked my way back to myself a little bit with the role in ‘Three Sisters.’ ”

“Murder” offered Stewart the opportunity to break free of his Harry persona and play a romantic lead. “It’s great,” he admits. “You get to put on big-boy pants and have normal hair and sort of play things a little more straight. My summer projects give me an opportunity to be able to mix it up a little bit. The fact that we got to go France [for the movie] was a bonus.”

Stewart’s wonderfully silly, slapstick turn as Harry has made him one of the clown princes of the small screen. So it comes as a surprise when he acknowledges comedy is a challenge for him.

“Drama comes difficult,” he adds. “It all just comes difficult. I just feel like I have to work 10 times harder than anyone else to kind of get anyplace.”

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“Murder at the Cannes Film Festival” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on E! Entertainment Television. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children, with advisories for sex and violence).