PASADENA, Calif — The title character in Showtime's "Nurse Jackie" is a great nurse who's also a drug addict. She's a wife and mother who's also had an affair.
And the woman who plays her — three-time Emmy winner Edie Falco — says she's learned something from Jackie Peyton. Not that she would be friends with her or anything.
"No, I wouldn't go anywhere near her, to be honest with you," said Falco. "But the fun factor is very large for me. I would have to say the main reason is that she spends no time concerned with the ramifications of the things that she says and does."
Not that Jackie is mean or cruel. She's just determined.
"She has one goal in mind, and I think that's, for the most part, to help people. Certainly in her job," said Falco, who won those three Emmys (and was nominated four other times) for her role as Carmela in "The Sopranos."
And, while Jackie is flawed — very flawed — she does try to do the right thing. Most of the time. And she's pretty much immune to what other people think about what she's doing.
"I think she wants to be a good person," Falco said. "She spends really very little time trying to figure out what other people will think about what she does, what she says.
"I spend entirely too much time (doing that), and it feels lovely to just imagine what that would be like — to just go from that place and let the chips fall where they may."
Although Falco said she's getting to be more like Jackie as the years pass.
"I think it's also part of getting older — that you realize it's OK to just say things as they are," she said. "And it just happens to be coinciding with this character I'm playing who does it naturally.
"And that could also be partially why I chose this role. Maybe I'm hoping in my real life to be more honestly present in the moment or whatever. ... But I think in my real life, it gets a little easier to just kind of say it as it is. Which may be a part of playing this part."
TWO DOCTORS: Weirdly enough, Peter Facinelli has been playing two doctors at once. Literally.
On "Nurse Jackie," he co-stars as the marginally competent (at best) Dr. Fitch Cooper. And he's one of the co-stars of the "Twilight" movies, playing Dr. Carlisle Cullen.
"I have had a very crazy schedule," Facinelli said. "There was a whole month where I was shooting 'Eclipse' and 'Nurse Jackie' at the same time. ... So there were times where I'd get off an airplane from a red-eye and have, like, three hours' sleep and then go straight to work."
Not that he's complaining. For one thing, he had what every actor wants — work.
"I actually enjoyed it because I enjoy what I do. ... And it was actually really fun for me to do such contrasting roles because Carlisle is such a calming force," Facinelli said. "And he's a rock. And he's a foundation of this family. And Coop is none of that.
"I mean, he runs around like he's had four cans of Red Bull. "
Cooper — aka Coop — isn't exactly the best doctor in the hospital. But he might not be the worst, either.
"Is he a good doctor? I say it depends on what day of the week it is," Facinelli said. "He could cure you of some crazy disease that no other doctor could, or he might kill you with an ear infection. You just never know what you're going to get with him. That's part of the fun in playing him."
IN THE BACK: Facinelli suffered an on-the-job injury that gave him some sympathy for Jackie, whose pain-killer problem is, in part, because of her bad back.
"We had an extra that was a little heavy, and I remember lifting him off the gurney and my back went out," he said. "And I could understand how, when nurses have to take these people and carry them off the gurney and put them onto the beds every day, a couple times a day — that was the first time I realized where those back problems came from.
"So I started taking Vicodin," he joked.
e-mail: pierce@desnews.com