Connie Britton answers ‘9-1-1’ call from Ryan Murphy
Connie Britton’s role in the new Fox series “9-1-1” presents a complicated acting challenge. She plays Abby Clark, a 911 operator who must remain calm as she deals with potentially deadly situations. But playing a role where there’s not a wide range of emotions to convey doesn’t give an actor much room to work.
“It is a tough balance, but very interesting,” Britton says. “But, with every role I play, I want to feel like I am doing something that I haven’t done before. I always look for what the challenge is going to be and what the risk is going to be.
“Manyofthe911 operators I talked to said that they don’t get emotionally involved. As an actor to walk the line between being completely focused and doing your job in the best possible way while at the same time being human is the truth of who these people are. I love to explore the truth of characters.”
“9-1-1” (9 p.m. Wednesdays on Fox) came along just after Britton had wrapped up a long run on the series “Nashville.” Toss in her work on the Showtime series “SMILF,” and the 50-year-old was at a point where she was thinking about a little rest. It would take someone she really trusted to get her back into another series so quickly.
That person was Ryan Murphy. The man behind programs such as “Glee” and “American Horror
Story” was putting together a procedural, and he wanted Britton to be a part of it.
“He left it very flexible in terms of where we were going,” Britton says. “That is something I have always appreciated about the things he does. He is about the immediacy of the creation of something. At the beginning of one of Ryan’s projects, it just crackles with life. The vitality he brings to it grabs you.”
She learned about working with Murphy while starring in the first season of “American Horror Story.” Britton and Dylan Mcdermott played a couple who move into a mysterious Los Angeles mansion with a history of murders.
The one similarity between all the roles
Britton has played is once she has established how the character will think and react, she will fight to maintain a consistency with her performance.
She knows some viewers may wonder how anyone can keep calm when “9-11” features big emotional events ranging from a potential suicide to a group of riders stuck upside down on a roller coaster. But Britton says she heard even stranger calls when she sat with real 911 operators.
“Some of the stuff I heard still haunts me,” Britton says. “It was fascinating to watch how they could takeacall,dealwithitand then move on to the next call. Often, they don’t even know when help is going to arrive.
“It’s an interesting human dynamic to have to do a job like that. I’m kind of anemotionalgirl,soitisa challenge for me.”