INTERVIEW: Kellie Martin Enters New Territory

Kellie Martin as Capt. Nicole Galassin
(Photo courtesy Lifetime Television/
Army Wives)

Hot on the heels of the news that Lifetime Television has renewed the groundbreaking series “Army Wives” for a seventh season, I spoke with series co-star Kellie Martin, who played a pivotal and game-changing role this season. Kellie plays Capt. Nicole Galassin, and although we last saw Capt. Galassin flying to Afghanistan and hitting some bad turbulence, I wouldn’t count her out just yet. And neither would Kellie.

Daytime Dial: Your role on “Army Wives” is definitely one your fans haven’t seen you play yet. How did the whole thing come about?

Kellie Martin: A friend of mine, a writer friend from “ER,” called me up and said: “Would you be open to playing a lesbian military intelligence officer? We’re going to explore the world after Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” And I thought: “Yeah! That sounds really interesting.” I have never played anyone in the military; I’ve never played a lesbian. That’s rare for me to say, since I’ve been doing this 30 years — I’ve played everything. But that is something I’ve never played.

I didn’t know that it was going to be as much of a story line as it turned out to be. I did eight episodes. I really feel like they hit the highlights of this woman’s life and how fast this couple’s world changed after the repeal. The way all of a sudden they were able to have more friends, they got married, they got a baby — it really hit all the high points.

DD: You sound like you really enjoyed playing this character.

KM: Oh yes, I was honored to play this woman. I thought she was so brave and so smart, yet in her personal life, she had to hide. It was really fun to play someone who comes out. And then to have Patti LuPone play my mom again was awesome. That’s the third time Patti’s played my mom on television. And it was just an honor.

I have so many people who tweet at me or who just come up to me and say, “You don’t know how this story line has changed my life.” Or, “This is me. This is exactly me. And I’ve been in the closet for years, and I’m in the Navy.” It’s nice to make people feel like they are not alone in this often-challenging world. I feel like Capt. Galassin is the girl next door. Everybody knows someone like her. I’m just very proud of “Army Wives” and Lifetime for following through with the story line like they did.

DD: Like with “ER,” you came onto an established show with established actors in place; did it make you a little nervous? How is the “Army Wives” cast to work with?

KM: It’s funny, because they’re both pretty big ensembles. I found on “ER” and on “Army Wives,” if you weren’t a part of someone else’s story line, you never saw them. The cast was very welcoming, and I was super nervous the first day. I had a ton of things to say. I had to put that uniform on for the first time, and I just fell into the character the second I put it on. So, that was a really big help to me. But the cast is lovely. I had a really, really good time. It wasn’t easy for me to be away on location so much. I was flying way more than I care to mention, because I don’t like to fly, but it was a really good experience.

DD: Do you think Nicole will be back for the seventh season?

KM: I don’t know if Nicole’s back. She was on a plane to Afghanistan at the end of the season, and there was a lot of turbulence …

DD: Yes, but turbulence can go away, and planes can go back the other way, too …

KM: Absolutely! I had a great time, and I never, ever know where my career’s going to head, so it’s always interesting for me to see what happens.

Kellie as Jordan
(Photo: Copyright 2011 Crown Media Holdings, Inc./
Photographer: Alexx Henry)

DD: You are in the new Hallmark Channel original movie called “I Married Who?” playing an uptight real estate agent, Jordan Grady, who goes to Las Vegas for her bachelorette party and wakes up after a night of celebrating to find she’s married to movie star Matt Swift (played by Ethan Erickson). Let’s just say that romantic comedy ensues. (“I Married Who?” premieres on the Hallmark Channel on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 9/8c.) You’ve done quite a few movies for the Hallmark Channel; what keeps you coming back?

KM: I’ve been working with them since 2003 or 2004, and I’ve really just gotten to love the people over there. I knew the CEO when he wasn’t the CEO, and all the publicity people who’ve been there since I started working with them. It’s really the people who keep me coming back. They just are very good to me, and they let me have a bit of input into the work we do, which I really appreciate.

I really have liked doing romantic comedies — the past two movies that I’ve done for them have been really fun, upbeat and, best of all, I don’t have to cry. I love that, because I’ve spent so much time doing drama that this is a really nice way to lighten things up for me.

DD: What was it about this particular movie, especially the character of Jordan, that caught your attention?

KM: I love the arc she goes through. Jordan starts out as a very tightly wound real estate agent about to get married to a very tightly wound attorney. She has to face who she really is beyond being type A and totally under control. She unravels a bit, and it was really fun to play a character who was unraveling.

DD: How are you and Jordan alike?

KM: Well, unlike Jordan I like to drink. Jordan doesn’t drink. I’m Irish, and I do enjoy a good drink. I did marry an attorney, but unlike Peter (in the movie), my husband is a recovering attorney. Eight months after our daughter was born, he said: “You know what? I don’t think I want to do this anymore. I don’t really like this.” I do like to be in control. I like to know what’s going on. I like routines, especially having a child. I love the ritual, routine nature of a day, because my daughter has a very strict schedule. We have a very rigid schedule, and that’s very much like Jordan.

DD: You had great chemistry with your co-stars, but I especially loved your scenes with Adrienne Frantz. Her character is hilarious, and she did such a great job!

KM: Can you tell we had fun? She’s so much fun.

L to R: Daphnee Duplaix, Adrienne Frantz and Kellie Martin (Photo: Copyright 2011 Crown Media
Holdings, Inc./Photographer: Alexx Henry)

DD: How did you get through takes without laughing through them?

KM: I frequently didn’t. There’s one scene I could see how they had to cut around our giggling. When we’re eating pizza, and Adrianne and I are hysterically laughing, and they had to find the little moments where we weren’t laughing because we were total goofballs. But it’s so nice to work with someone like her because she is a pro. She’s so much a pro that she can let loose, and you can allow for those little surprises to happen. It’s just lovely to be in a scene with someone who’s so good at what they do that we know we are going to say our lines and hit our marks, but we’re going to have fun and allow surprises to happen. And that’s what we did. I would love to do a series with that girl. We would have so much fun.

DD: What do you hope viewers take away from the movie after watching it?

KM: I really think it’s good to shake up your life every once in a while. I’m not saying to marry someone who’s not your fiance, but I think it’s good to step back every once in a while and get perspective on your life. Maybe step back and say: “You know what? Let’s do something crazy. Let’s go to Paris next summer,” or “Let’s take off school today and go to the park.

Just shake up your life every once in a while and realize you only live once.

Interview (Army Wives): Brigid Brannagh: "I'm a Little Geeky"

From left: Wendy Davis, Brigid Brannagh, Kim Delaney, Sally Pressman, Catherine Bell

Lifetime Television’s record-breaking drama “Army Wives,” will be back March 4th (in a two-hour event) for its sixth (and some speculate, final) season. The years have brought the wives joy and sorrow, happiness and pain, and millions of viewers have been along for the ride. I spoke with series star Brigid Brannagh, who plays Pamela Moran, about her tenure on the show, and about special moments and lifelong friends.

Daytime Dial: I can’t believe it’s almost time for the sixth season of “Army Wives” to premiere. I can remember the day I received the press screener for pilot, and I knew right away that you had something special there.

Brigid Brannagh: I know, it’s crazy to me. Time flies! It feels like yesterday to me, and it also feels like a million years ago.

DD: Last season was especially heart wrenching, with Frank and Denise losing their son Jeremy. The scenes dealing with that — especially the funeral — must have been torture to film.

BB: Oh my God, we were all like, “Make this episode stop.” It was bad. I’ve been to enough funerals where “Taps” was played and the song is, just hearing it, it just evokes so many things. It’s impossible not to feel completely consumed with melancholy when “Taps” comes on, let alone that it’s playing over and over [for filming the scenes]. We’ve been surrounded by this world, by this military army life, for all of these years that you just think about a soldier that you love being gone, and you know he’s done his best for his country, and he’s gone, and he’s just a boy. It tore all of us up. Watching Terry Serpico (who plays Frank) walk in and trying not to cry.

It was so exhausting that I didn’t watch that episode for a few weeks, because I didn’t feel like crying again. I was like, “Enough.” And we certainly didn’t go light on it. It was kind of relentless to shoot it, but we all really appreciated what it was. It was just a long day of shooting.

DD: Tell me about working with Jeremy Davidson, who plays your husband, Chase.

BB: We work really hard on trying to get things right, working with the writers and trying to really dig into some of the things that have gone on for Pamela and Chase, and the arc of what our characters have done. We’re very much alike; we’re both a little geeky. Everybody has a different way of rehearsing. Some people think that if they work on something too much it takes away spontaneity. I disagree. For me, I think if you work on something so much, it becomes second nature. So, he and I do that together. There are so many things in our story lines that I’m proud of. Right now I’m just thinking of the divorce, which also killed me. That was heart wrenching. But when you’re working with somebody who you work well with, it’s like a dance. It just flies and it’s amazing.

DD: What’s it like on the “Army Wives” set?

BB: Everybody’s a decent person — there’s no drama about trailers or anything like that. Nobody cares about that sort of stuff, which is nice, because I hear horror stories about other shows. Everybody’s a decent person. Just starting with that is a pretty big deal. I spend a lot of time with Sally Pressman (Roxy) on screen, and she and I have a really easy working relationship. And I always feel humor working with Sally. Everything she does has a wink in it. And then Kim (Delaney, who plays Claudia) is really an emoter. Like when you’re doing an emotional scene and you’re watching Kim do her thing first, you’ll start crying just because she’s so good. She just always has that emotion right there at the ready.

Catherine (Bell, who plays Denise), we’re always cracking up, because Catherine has her phone in one hand and a sandwich in the other, and is totally doing her job. It’s very funny. I’m like, “Are you doing a love scene and you’ve got a turkey sandwich in your right hand?” It’s hilarious. And then Sterling (Brown, who plays Roland) is just standing back, kind of looking at everything. He’s such a good and decent person — although he likes to cause a little trouble. We have a good time.

Interview: Brigid Brannagh Has A Crush on You

Brigid Brannagh took a break from being an Army wife and developed a crush on Sean Patrick Flanery in the Hallmark original movie “A Crush on You,” which premieres June 11 at 9/8c. Brigid plays Charley, an overworked single mom who soon develops a flirtatious email exchange with a “secret admirer.” This admirer (Flanery), as it turns out, meant for the email to reach Charley’s co-worker, Chloe, who herself is a slightly vacuous yet gorgeous man-eater. I spoke with Brigid recently about the experience of playing someone other than her “Army Wives” character, Pamela.

Daytime Dial: What was it about this movie and the role of Charley that made you want to be a part of it?

Brigid Brannagh: One of the things that I really liked about it is that she’s really sort of forgotten herself; she’s in the background of her own life in a way. It actually happens to a lot of women, a lot of mothers, I should say. I also liked that there was the opportunity to kind of be really natural, messy. I think it’s one of the things I’m willing to do that a lot of people aren’t. I like playing people who are a little undone and honest. I have a harder time with people who are so together it’s impossible. In fact, I don’t even know how to play them.

DD: Charley really is the “everywoman” — in her professional life and her personal life.

BB: I really like the everywoman roles, because there are just so many roles that have nothing to do with what women really are. Most women, a big part of their lives is being a daughter, a wife, a girlfriend, a best friend and a mother, and I think that women tend to associate ourselves by the people we surround ourselves with. Our work ethic, our loyalty and all that are intertwined.

DD: What was it like to work with Sean Patrick Flanery?

BB: He is a joker, very playful. I can be kind of nerdy; I don’t want to mess up. I’ve done this for 25 years, and still, my heart will palpitate if I am not sure that I really have a handle on what I am shooting or that I might mess up. I’m so super focused, and I can get a little OCD like that. But not Sean. He’s more casual in terms of like, let’s just work a little with this line; let’s make it work. He’s joking around, and I’m like: “OK, time to go. What are you doing?”

You’d be amazed at how much people try to make me laugh and it’s not going to happen. I’m terrible. I’m never on a gag reel, because I’ll joke before and I’ll joke after. The money’s being spent. I’m one of nine Irish kids, so I have that work ethic. I’m not wasting a dime.

DD: You also got to work with Michael Clarke Duncan …

BB: Oh, he was a lovely man. What a delightful human being. Literally, he is. He is a very grateful, sweet, bright human being.

DD: What message do you hope viewers take away after watching this movie?

BB: I hope that people realize that yeah, I count too. I can have things; I can have joy, and I can remember that I’m special. I hope it just kind of nudges people a little bit, especially women, to realize that there’s a lot more there. And it’s literally right there in front of you.

Season Finale of Lifetime's "Army Wives"

Lifetime network's highest-rated series in its 23-year history is the new nighttime soap "Army Wives." It stars former "All My Children" actress Kim Delaney, who played Jenny, one-half of 1980s supercouple Greg & Jenny. Delaney went on to star in "NYPD Blue" and has landed another hit show in "Army Wives," where she plays Claudia Holden, who is married to a colonel.

The season finale airs Sunday, Aug. 26 at 10 p.m. EST. In the episode, "Goodbye Stranger," the army post is put on high alert due to a suspected terrorist threat, and Roland, Pamela, Denise, Roxy and Claudia discover their lives may be in jeopardy. And like all good soapy season finales, there will be a cliffhanger!

(NOTE FROM CINDY: Last night I watched the preview copy of the finale that Lifetime sent over, and I can tell you personally that this episode is one you cannot miss!)

"Army Wives" will return in 2008 with 18 new episodes.