Q People seem to either love or hate "Saving Grace," but even negative critics find things to like. Other than the relentless promos, what made the show catch on so strongly?
A Grace is a woman who lives in extremity and who feels extraordinarily alive in very dark places and in very light places. I think people want fiction, even though they aren't getting a lot of it on TV these days. They want to watch someone living a fantastical life from the inside out.
Q Where does Grace rank in terms of the difficulty of roles you've played?
A I feel endlessly challenged by her. It's a tightrope walk that requires agility and acuity. It's very demanding day to day. The nature of her physical expressiveness is one of the reasons I wanted to play her. I'm 50, and I was accustomed to reading more sedate characters, people who are settled down, with more of an acceptance of their place and their lives. Grace has a wildness in her, a force of life normally associated with youth. But certainly people who are 50 years old are also capable of this.
Q There is a lot of physical derring-do to this character, and I don't mean just the sex scenes. Have you gotten banged up at all during shoots?
A I get a massage once a week to recover. Every time, I have to explain some bruise or other to my masseuse. I don't think she believes me.
Q Some viewers find the angel Earl thing too shticky -- like a little of him goes a long way. Is he going to play as big a role in season two as he did in season one?
A Earl is part of the genesis. We wanted to have a conversation about organized religion in our culture and even more about faith, what it means now to be a spiritual person living in the world. Not a certain set of Presbyterian or other Christian, but world faith. And faith specifically geared toward Grace.
