She has played a prison guard, the moxie wife of a Mafia boss and now a tough-as-nails nurse, so where does the gentle actress Edie Falco dredge up all those contenders?
''Being alive, you see people like this everywhere. . . . There is also something deeply intriguing to me about people like that,'' she says.
''They know how to go and get what they need. And they're not as concerned about how they appear or if they're hurting somebody's feelings. They just get done what they need to get done. I'm so NOT like that in my real life, so I'm in awe of that. So the opportunity to play people like that is very exciting to me,'' says Falco.
Though she'd done theater, people first noticed her as the no-nonsense correction officer in Oz, and then she fascinated viewers as the staunch Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos. Now she's forsaken Carmela's designer suits for hospital scrubs in Showtime's Nurse Jackie, which premieres June 8.
CAUTIOUS ABOUT ROLE
Falco was very cautious about what she chose to do after The Sopranos. ``I just loved the script (of Nurse Jackie). I just knew when I read the right one, I would know. I read a lot of stuff and not only did (Nurse Jackie) feel right, it felt right for this period in my life.''
Growing up wasn't easy for Falco. Her parents divorced when she was in junior high. ``I think at the time not as many people were divorced so it was kind of a big deal that it was happening to my family. It's hugely traumatic for kids.''
Though she studied drama at SUNY Purchase, getting a job afterward was another question. ''When it comes to having to pay bills it's an impossibly difficult career,'' says Falco, who's dressed in an elegant black dress with short sleeves and black patent pumps.
''The first bunch of years you really spend a lot of time wondering what the hell you were thinking. The teachers, when you're at school, are all very supportive and excited that you want to do this, but nobody can prepare you for the realization that it's almost impossible to support yourself,'' she says, shaking her shorn blond head.
'Most of my life I've been worried about money. You're living in an apartment and you're wondering, `Can I afford to stay here for another month?' I didn't really have a place to go get money. I don't have it in my family, none of my friends had money, hard times. So it really came down to: can I get more waitressing shifts to get more money to pay the rent?
''Literally it was so scary -- a lot of years of being really frightened,'' she says. 'Just the essentials like food and shelter and stuff. I forget about it now but there were a lot of very scary years. You start wondering, `What the hell am I thinking that I can do this and support myself?' People are rejecting you and, unkindly no less, they're not really polite about it a lot of times. It's crazy.''
But if The Sopranos answered her career ambitions, adopting her first child, a son, answered her life's dream. ''I've since adopted a little girl, but the first time realizing I'm actually a mother is just huge. Even when I say it now all these years later it's still comes over me like a wave. Huge! I had no idea how hard it would be, not knowing what you're doing,'' she says.
SCREAMING THING
'You can't believe you're being left alone with this infant. `Don't they know I don't know what I'm doing?' Losing sleep. Up to that point it had been all about me, 'Oh, I'll get another massage.' And all of a sudden there's this screaming thing in your house and that's what your whole life is. That was huge. Here it is four years later, my son turned 4, and I'm so in love with my children I just can't explain it,'' she smiles.
'It made me realize that I can show up for the responsibility. Because in the beginning I thought, `I don't know what the hell I've done. And there's no way I can follow through on this.' Meanwhile I got up every morning and I changed his diaper and I fed him his bottle, took him to his doctor's appointments.
``Then a year into it I realized he needs a sibling and I want another kid, so I started the process again. And you start with the diapers and formula and you're back at it again.''
Her little girl is 14 months old.
Falco is a single mom and has no desire to marry. ``The idea of being with somebody for a long time and raising kids is lovely and it all sounds fantastic. I just haven't seen it often enough to really aim for that.''
