Movieline reconnected with the twice Emmy-nominated Innes recently to discuss the most suspenseful aspect of acting in The Event, her personal differences with Kerry Weaver and Megan Mullally's parody of her ER character.
Congratulations on The Event being picked up for a full season.
Thanks!
How much do you know about the trajectory of the back half of the season at this point?
I don't know a lot. We've had a couple of conversations about what potentially might happen. After we finish shooting episode ten, we are taking a hiatus for a couple of weeks and the writers will keep working and flesh everything out.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, do you have any idea when we will find out what The Event is?
Originally when I signed up for the show the producers were thinking that it would be a long-term secret that would not be exposed until year three. But when [24 executive producer] Evan Katz, who had such great experience maintaining suspense on television, came on, he said, "No, no, you can't make people wait that long." So at this point, I think everyone is thinking the end of this year or the beginning of next.
Your character has such an important role on the show yet as a viewer, we don't know much about her. Is it difficult to play that kind of part without giving too much away?
She's an interesting character to play because she is very much stuck between a rock and a hard place in that she cannot divulge the information she has if she wants to achieve her goal. At first it was frustrating and felt limiting to play Sophia and now it feels like I can approach this any way I want and that gives me a certain power as an actress. I am trying to find longevity in creating that tension between what the audience knows and what they imagine. But in the next few weeks, there will be a lot revealed about Sophia so she will slowly move out of this very very restrained situation.
You've played such serious, complex characters. How desperate are you to take a really broad, relaxed role in a comedy?
You know, I lived in New York for ten years and when I first moved out here, I did more sitcoms and funny little comedies and I certainly do miss that. I am enjoying Sophia but both of the characters I am known for are very intense. Yes, it would be a lot of fun to play someone who doesn't feel all of this angst in life, definitely.
After ER, were you offered roles mostly similar to Kerry Weaver?
I got offered a lot of roles that were not very interesting, kind of generic authority figures like the captain of the police department or the head lawyer. They all just seemed like the most boring parts of Kerry Weaver. And with Sophia, there is still some overlap with Kerry but the experience of making The Event is very different and the experience of playing in this genre is different so I'm having fun with that.
Have you seen Megan Mullally's Kerry Weaver tribute character on Children's Hospital?
I haven't seen a lot of it but I've seen some of it because Megan is a friend of mine. I went to school with her and I know [her husband] Nick [Offerman] and she actually told me about it before filming because she wanted to make sure that I did not think that it was offensive. Oh my god though, I think it is fantastic. It's very funny and she is hilarious on it.
How much do you consider your legacy as an actress?
I don't think about it at all. It does seem that The Event is gaining some momentum and I think more people are connecting to it but honestly, I don't think about it because as an actress, I feel like I am doing the same thing now as I did when I worked on Broadway for no money.
Which of the characters you've portrayed has been the least like you in real life?
Strangely enough, Kerry Weaver was more of a stretch for me than Sophia. Sophia has an underlying motivation that I really connect with but Kerry had so much restraint and she was so tightly wound and I just don't think of myself as that way and other people don't see me as that way. People would say, "That doesn't seem anything like you," which I would of course take as a compliment. She was a very tight internal person and that was definitely challenging for me to play but she was the kind of character that if you ever tried to break her out of that at all, it wasn't interesting.
It seems like the more restrained people in life sometimes have the most dangerous emotions bottled up inside of them. When you played a character that restrained, did you feel like you had to release all of that aggression that Kerry Weaver had pent up?
I think earlier in my career I would have said no, that kind of thing does not carry over. But as I get older, I do feel like when you act -- even if your brain knows that what you are doing is not real -- on some level, your body doesn't. Because you walk around all day with that sense of heightened restraint and self-consciousness. I loved playing her but I did internalize her a little. At the end of the day, you just have to have a drink and a laugh. A massage helps too.