EDIE FOR THE DEFENSE
‘Nurse Jackie’ trades in her scrubs for a legal power suit
LAW & ORDER TRUE CRIME: THE MENENDEZ MURDERS Tuesday, 10 p.m., NBC
‘LAW & ORDER” franchise impresario Dick Wolf launches his true crime series, delving into the infamous 1989 double murders committed by the Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents and are serving life sentences without parole. The eight-week series stars Edie Falco as Leslie Abramson, the criminal defense attorney who argued that Lyle (Miles Gaston Villanueva) and Erik (Gus Halper) were driven to their deeds by a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their parents, Kitty (Lolita Davidovitch) and Jose (Carlos Gómez). Falco spoke to The Post while attending the Television Critics Association conference at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Leslie Abramson lost the case. Did that deter you from playing the part?
No. Not at all. She really tried to win. She really did her best against odds she had no control over. And the environment in Los Angeles at the time. How do you describe the environment?
Well, [the District Attorney’s office] had just lost the O.J. [Simpson] case. The DA [Gil Garcetti] was looking very bad. They made it very clear that [the Menendez case] was not another one they could lose. I’m an actress. I’m not a lawyer. I’m naive enough to think, “Wait a second. You can’t do that.” Did you meet Leslie Abramson? No. She wants no part of this. It was made clear to me early on. Will we see Leslie in her private life as we did Marcia Clark in the O.J. series? Yes. There is a fair amount of information about her home, her children, her husband. You’ve played a nurse,se, a housewife, and now, a lawyer. That means a lot of mono- logues this time. What was that like?
It’s a lot of monologues in a language I don’t speak. It was very challenging. I had to look up a lot of words and figure out what that meant to me as a regular person. The same way you learn every line. It’s different because it’s not an emotionally based thing. Did you pass on a lot of things between “Nurse Jackie” and this project?
For years [after “The Sopranos”] I got all the mob wives. Then Jackie came along and now it’s a lot of drug addicts and a lot of nurses. I understand that, so you wait until a more creative casting person comes along and says, “Maybe she’d like to do this.” Then Leslie came along. I have no doubt I’ll be offered a lot of attorneys for a while. Have you served jury duty in New York?
They wouldn’t let me because I’d played Carmela [Soprano]. [Laughs] Isn’t that funny? “Yeah, you’re dismissed.” I was so happy.