Edie Falco has already portrayed one indelible character — mob wife Carmela Soprano. And she may be on her way to creating another — the title character in "Nurse Jackie."
While she's not trying to run away from the character for which she won three Emmys and two Golden Globes, Falco does look considerably different as Jackie Peyton, the dedicated nurse who's also addicted to pain killers.
"I very much wanted to cut my hair," she told TV critics back in January. "I just wanted my hair back."
But it wasn't a big plan to differentiate Carmela and "Nurse Jackie" (which debuts tonight at 11:30 p.m. on Showtime).
"I said to (the producers), 'Is it OK if I cut my hair and we just have her have short hair for personal reasons?' And they said, 'Sure,' " Falco said. "I think that's as much as we thought about it, actually."
But, on the other hand, there is a weird connection between the two roles.
"The funniest thing in the world is my Aunt Carmela is a nurse. ... I just realized that the other day," Falco said. "It's crazy."
Speaking of craziness, that's what swirls around Jackie Peyton. She's a highly competent, seemingly stable emergency room nurse who's smarter than the doctors she "assists."
"I think you're a saint — just so you know," a student nurse tells her.
Yeah, well, maybe not. If you ever find yourself in the hospital, you couldn't be in better hands than Jackie's. But she's no saint — she's got more than a few major character flaws that are revealed throughout the course of the half-hour pilot.
And her flaws all stem from her addiction to pain killers — the result of a back injury that continually plagues her.
"What do you call a nurse with a bad back?" Jackie asks. "Unemployed."
Unlike most medical shows, this one is definitely told from the point of view of the nurses.
"Every medical show out there is about the doctors and the intrigue and how fascinating doctors' lives are and how heavy is the head that wears the crown if you're a doctor," said executive producer Liz Brixius. "We realize that the great stories come from the nurses, and ultimately they're more relatable for us as writers because they're the ones who are behind the scenes. They're not the stars. They're the ones holding the hands of the loved ones and breaking the news and doing the heavy lifting."
And in the first episode, it's Jackie who has to try to pick up the pieces when a doctor's error kills a patient.
Both Brixius and executive producer Linda Wallem are themselves recovering addicts, and addiction is a big part of the "Nurse Jackie" story that isn't going away anytime soon.
"I didn't end up in (the) Betty Ford (Center) until I hit bottom, and that was after 10 great years of drinking," Wallem said. "I think we're going to take a long journey with her about (how) you struggle, you say, 'I'm going to give this up. No, I'm not.'
"Hopefully ... it will be five years, seven, 12 years of this show to figure out what she's going to do."
The fact that the story plays out in an arena where life and death are everyday issues heightens the drama, and there's a good deal of medical procedure (along with some of the accompanying gore).
But this is a show about characters, not about medical procedures.
"I spent time in emergency rooms before we started shooting until I found out I wasn't sure, actually, how relevant that was to the work I had to do in a weird sort of way," Falco said. "Because it's not a show about an emergency room. ... It's a show about a woman who happens to be a nurse.
And I actually felt, as an aside, very obtrusive wandering through an emergency room. ... I felt like this is the most awful day in the lives of these people, and I'm sort of hanging around, trying to see how they do an IV It was just messed up. I felt terrible about it. That's why I left."
"Nurse Jackie" is definitely not a show for the entire family (any more than "The Sopranos" was). It is on Showtime, so, yes, you can expect R-rated language and sexual situations.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com