On ‘ER,’ a Doctor Who Doesn’t Court Viewers’ Sympathy

In television, likability matters. A lot. The screen sits inside our homes, and its continuing characters live with us over the course of months, years or even decades. We love Lucy. We root for Raymond. Hoss and Little Joe were part of the family. Now, Ally, Scully and Sipowicz are.

And Sipowicz pretty much proves the likability rule. When “NYPD Blue” premiered in 1993, Dennis Franz’s character was a nasty, racist loser who played counterpoint to heroic leading man David Caruso. But as Franz softened Andy’s rough edges, he soon became a loving husband, devoted daddy and all-around good egg. Network TV (unlike premium cable, which makes room for Tony Soprano) likes its leading characters nice, indeed.

That’s what makes actress Laura Innes such a continual surprise and delight as “ER” martinet Kerry Weaver. She arrived at County General Hospital in the NBC series’ second season as dragon lady supervisor to all those doctors and nurses we loved. Weaver was efficient, ambitious and unsympathetic. She was also a skilled doctor and administrator. But she sure wasn’t nice. Although we might see her personally soften a bit, Weaver’s professional side would inevitably harden. This fall, she was AWOL from the ER when a misdiagnosed patient died under the care of Drs. Malucci and Chen. In the face of a hospital investigation, Weaver threw first the screw-up Malucci and then the dedicated Chen overboard to keep her own career afloat.

“She’s always been somebody who is certainly not easy with other people, and certainly not easy or familiar with intimacy,” Innes observes. “What’s fueled her over the years is the politics of the hospital. Kerry is very ambitious and very focused, with the goal of being successful and being a leader in the hospital.”

Those aren’t usually the goals of female TV leads. Home and emotion tend to be their concerns, even when they’re professionals on “Providence” or “Judging Amy.” But Weaver doesn’t worry what people think of her, or what would make everybody’s life easier. That’s why, Innes explains in a wide-ranging phone conversation, Weaver remains such a thrill to play.

“What I’ve always loved about the character is that she’s so extreme,” she says in a warm, chatty manner quite unlike Weaver’s coiled chippiness, “either extreme in her control or extreme in her rage. And also extreme in just being passionate about medicine and her advocacy for the underdog at times.

“Last year and this year, they’ve made available to me story lines that allow me to keep seeing different sides of her. That sexual-orientation arc [when the divorced Weaver was drawn to a female colleague last season] was a great arc for me to play, to take a woman so controlling and so private and show these sides of her you couldn’t show any other way.”

It’s a breakout role in a series that has been full of them. Although the 45-year-old Michigan native has been acting for 20 years, she subsisted on TV guest shots before joining “ER” in 1995. She’s since risen to the top of the credits. Innes also has taken up “ER” on the chance to direct. After breaking in on her own show, she was able to work on “The West Wing” (also run by “ER” producer John Wells), for which she earned an Emmy nomination last season.

The job’s behind-the-camera complexity echoes her intricate on-screen work as Weaver. The abrasive character was a guest star in the series’ second season, when, Innes notes, “it was good for the show to have a character who was uncool, who had a cutting nature, in a world populated by these cool, heroic doctors.”

Even when Weaver became a regular, she remained distant and cryptic. What makes her such a taskmaster? Why does she limp with a cane? (Innes walks fine off-screen.)

“One thing about series television, you have a lot of time to give information. Sometimes it’s a mistake to tell too much too soon,” the actress says. “I like that the character’s enigmatic. Where’s she from? What’s motivating her?”

Weaver can be ruthless, then suddenly compassionate and even vulnerable. “I think the way the character has evolved, and the way people actually change in real life is very incrementally. You change, and then you fall back into your old habits, your old patterns.... I never want to lose that energy of the character, and the series, that essence that you have characters with different voices and rhythms. They all create this kind of symphony.”

Innes now occasionally plays conductor. She hadn’t considered directing until she joined “ER” and “started getting more and more interested in how the other side of it worked, initially as just survival curiosity--what’s going on--to sink my teeth into the acting as much as possible.”

Anthony Edwards, who had directed several “ER” episodes, wondered aloud if she might want to try it too. “I was sort of flying under the radar,” Innes says, “because it’s sort of a cliche that ‘what I really want to do is direct.’” She was “also very concerned whether I’d have any ability to do it.”

Innes tried taking the reins on the May 1999 “Power” episode, dominated by electrical outages. More crucial episodes followed: February 2000’s “Be Still My Heart,” in which Kellie Martin’s character was stabbed; the Sally Field road trip “Sailing Away” last April; and last month’s busy “If I Should Fall From Grace,” with the arrival of the new medical student.

She branched out to “The West Wing” with the first-season episode, “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet,” dealing with homosexuals in the military, and last fall’s Thanksgiving hour, “Shibboleth” (her Emmy submission), in which the president decided the fate of a ship full of Chinese stowaways.

Innes rarely acts in the episodes she directs. “You’re essentially using a different side of your brain. It’s all about being an observer of everything, all the departments, what’s going on in sound, lighting. It’s a very multifaceted way of thinking. When you’re acting, hopefully you’re kind of inside the character in the moment and responding to the other characters authentically.”

Her work before the camera also has been broadening. The recent “Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain” was action-oriented, with a pregnant woman trapped in an ambulance during a torrential storm--showcasing Weaver at her heroic medical best on the heels of her backstabbing personal worst.

“I’ve been an actor for a long time, and I want to keep doing it.... Directing unfolded in such a kind of organic way that it’s been really enjoyable to me. It’s not filled with the same kind of angst and tension and kind of aggressive pursuit that acting has been.”

In the meantime, Innes doesn’t want Weaver to suddenly change. “You can get tempted to soften her or make her nice, things that would make it less interesting.” Besides, she notes, “For women, it’s culturally kind of a mistake to want to be liked all the time.”

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Werts is a reporter for Newsday, a Tribune Co. newspaper.