'Nurse Jackie': The show's creators talk about her husband, her boyfriend & what's to come

The sixth episode of Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," starring Edie Falco, airs tonight and with each passing week, its characters continue to grow more interesting.

Our building obsession with them led to a lovely chat with show creators Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem...

It is fascinating how you've created a female character who is cheating on her fantastic husband and managed to make her sympathetic. We like Jackie, despite her double life. Why did you decide to give her two love interests and what is it that she is getting from each guy?
Liz Brixius: The appeal that Eddie has -- aside from being the pharmacist -- is that when you're an emergency room nurse -- Linda and I talked to a lot of nurses -- nobody understands what you go through, except for fellow people in the ER. It's like a tour of duty. [Eddie is] like a foxhole buddy. He is somebody who understands. No matter how great Jackie's marriage is, she can't go home to her husband and say, three people died and a woman came in with a knife in her back, but we pulled it out and she's alive, and have him understand what it is she actually went through.

Linda Wallem: You know, Lizzie and I are both many years sober and what was so fun for us with this [project] was that we got to go back to the 80s when we were both a mess. I know from my own experience that people were like drugs for me. One is good, another one is even better. Part of being an addict is not only are you addicted to drugs, you're addicted to drama, and you can be with two people at once. And the messed up part, but the intriguing part, in why Edie is so fascinating, watching her on this tightrope, on this wire, is that you truly love both people.

Yeah, I find that part of her so very interesting, but I know that there are some viewers who are put off by it. How do you feel about that?
L.W.: It's so funny to see people freak out about it, because men have been doing this on TV for years! And to see a woman [with two men in her life], all of a sudden it's like, oh my God! And it still surprises me how people are so shocked by it. I guess that I'm delighted that they're shocked, but I'm kind of surprised. This is just a woman who has a huge appetite, you know? And it's fun to see. I think most actors couldn't pull it off, but with Edie, you just want to load her plate and see how she deals with it. 

L.B.: I think part of the reason we're able to tell this story is because Edie has accumulated so much good will over the years. She's such a magnificent actress that we can take her to darker places with having affairs and having a drug addiction, and the audience is going to go with her because she's so good at what she does. People respect her and they're going to give her the benefit of the doubt. It's a great gift, as storytellers, to have Edie be our protagonist.

You know, I've watched every "Nurse Jackie" episode so far and not once has Carmela Soprano entered my mind. I just realized that. I think that is a great testament to her talent.
L.W.: Wow. You know, I watched a rerun over the weekend and it was season one of "The Sopranos" and it was almost like, oh my God, Edie's in drag! She used to joke about the hair and the nails. She loved that show and she loves that character, but it's thrilling for her now not to have to sit for hours in hair and makeup. And it's just really fun to see her stripped down, it shows just how magnificent Edie Falco is.

L.B.: It's Edie Falco unplugged.

L.W.: Yeah, exactly. It's so funny you say that, Lizzie, because I was going to say she's like one of those great rock stars who can literally do something acoustic.

Now, we have to know, is the fact that Jackie has a husband and a boyfriend supposed to be something we just accept or will there be some development with that storyline before the season ends?
L.B.: Yes, there is development on that front.

L.W.: Yes, because it's dangerous. It is tricky and dangerous what she's doing. We just started breaking season two and it's quite a rollercoaster she's set up for herself. [Having two men in her life] is part of who she is, but the reality is, there are consequences for being who you are. And there will be repercussions.

We have to talk about your supporting characters.
L.W.: We love our cast, we think they're amazing.

There isn't a weak link in the bunch. But so far, while we know a bit about their personal lives, their main purpose has been to populate Jackie's world. I assume that as time goes on, we'll be delving deeper into those characters though?
L.B.: Yes, we designed the first season this way, because Linda and I, whenever we would watch "Sopranos," we would always think, Tony is the center of the universe and everything orbits around him, and then slowly other people's stories got metered out. And in getting Edie, what we wanted to do was make her the center of the universe. Then, as the season goes on, you learn a little bit more about each person. But we were so excited to get Edie, we wrote her into every scene and focused on her. We'll be able to do more with [the supporting characters] in season two.

But there's still quite a bit coming up even this season. We know from previews that Coop has two mommies -- played by Blythe Danner and Swoosie Kurtz -- and we're going to meet them tonight!
L.W.: Yes, Dr. Coop has two mommies. That's the lead story and we just love that he has lesbian moms. And the fact that we got those two actors -- who are best friends, by the way, in real life -- we were just over the moon. They've played many things, but they've never been lesbian mommies. We were just thrilled to have them, they're wonderful. And I think Peter Facinelli is so good in this episode. If you love him already, you're going to love him even more after this episode.

Do we get a little more of a window into why his character is the way he is?
L.B.: Yes.

L.W.: It's not because he has lesbian moms, it's because he has a lot going on. He's complicated. What we love about Coop is that at first glance, he looks like a handsome "Grey's Anatomy" doctor, but there's so much more there. He's like a nerdy, ugly kid, in this gorgeous man's body, who has struggled with a lot of stuff. We just love Dr. Cooper so much, he is not one-dimensional. There's so much stuff you're going to learn about him, which is just great.

L.B.: When Linda and I pitched him to the network, we said he's like Hubbell from "The Way We Were." You look at him and you think, everything comes easy for him. And then you realize, as you get to know him, hardly anything comes easy to him.

How about Dr. O'Hara? Love her.
L.B.: When we were writing the character, we actually saw O'Hara as this tall, blonde California gal. All of a sudden, Eve Best comes in and just blew our heads off. She was so amazing and we were so lucky to have her because she is a top-notch theater actor. It was just a beautiful example of someone coming in and just taking a part by hostage. It was like, okay, it's hers. Period. And it's beautiful because I love [Jackie and O'Hara's] friendship, because you don't usually see doctor-nurse friendships like this. I just love these two people from different sides of the track who totally respect each other.

And how great is Zoey?
L.B.: Zoey is so much fun. We knew we were going to have a protégée, but what was so beautiful about Merritt [Wever] was she just walked in and she had this absolute depth and insecurity and eagerness, and she was such a great fit with Edie that we just fell apart when we saw her. One of the most beautiful things about that relationship is that Jackie knows what Zoey's future holds for her, you know? I think that's part of why she keeps a little distance and protection there, because at one point, Jackie was a Zoey. And I think she knows that this system, this health care system, this grind, is going to wear her down, but she doesn't want to dampen her enthusiasm. But she can also kind of not tolerate her enthusiasm at the same time.

L.W.: We think Merritt is just absolutely a gift from heaven because she is such a genius comedian with such surprising turns. We just stand there at the monitor so excited because we don't know what she's going to do. And there are times when she does something, and she'll go aww, that was too big, and we'll go, no, no, no, bigger! She's just such a delight. We still don't understand how Edie keeps a straight face half the time, but she always does. Edie never breaks until it's cut and then she just dies. Merritt is just full of surprises and she's just a joy. She's one of our favorite toys.

What's funny is that, though your supporting characters are not the show's focus right now, they already have layers and some backstory. The interest that Mo-Mo took in the twin brothers that came in, because he had lost his own twin at one-years-old, it was just heartbreaking. Where do you pull these stories from? Are they sometimes personal to you?:
L.W.: Yes, that's my story because I was born a twin but I lost her when I was about a year old. I always wanted to tell that feeling, being a surviving twin, so it was really one of those beautiful things that opened up, let's make Mo-Mo a twin. And Haaz [Sleiman] did a gorgeous job with that episode. And Haaz used to sing to us on the set, so we went whoa, let's have him sing in this, you know? I'm really happy with how it came out. It was beautiful.

L.B.: Yeah, a lot of it is personal. For example, in the pilot, when O'Hara says, when I was a little girl, I cut open a bunny rabbit to see how it works? That's my mother. My mother actually did that. And in the pilot when Jackie says, make me good, God, but not yet? My father said that to me. He said, I learned that from Saint Augustine. And I went to a convent high school and there really was a Sister Jane who said to me, the people with the greatest capacity for good are the people with the greatest capacity for evil. Linda and I draw on our own lives everywhere that we possibly can. And I think that's what people are relating to. Because we're not out there inventing crazy, arbitrary things. We're bringing our own stuff to it and that's why it's heartfelt. We don't sit there and say, wow, wouldn't it be heartbreaking if Mo-Mo had a twin? It's like, Linda looked at me when we were breaking the story and she said, I think I'd like to give Mo-Mo my twin story. We have a very generous writers room. One of our writers actually has two lesbian moms, and he said, I think I'd like to give Coop my story of having two lesbian moms. In that spirit of being giving, and being generous with our past, our scripts end up with real life stories in them. It's not ripped from the headlines. We don't do great giant stories, we do these small intimate things, and all of our writers are that generous with their own stories of emergency rooms, families, surgeries, whatever it is. We have a great room and everything in there is really funny and really sacred. It's like, what goes on in here, stays in here. It's like group therapy.

L.W.: I think there's also a bit of wish fulfillment with some of Jackie's rage, when she goes vigilante, the part of her that says fuck you into an ear and then flushes it. The one thing Lizzie and I can relate to, as far as nurses go, is we've been women in Hollywood for years. It's such a boys club and it's so frustrating, so I find myself at times going, I remember once wanting to do that to that person! Let's just do it through the guise of a nurse. So it is very therapeutic to take some of this stuff and put it in the show. It is a human show, it's not necessarily a medical show. Honestly, sometimes Lizzie and I look at each other and go, oh my God, we're doing a medical show? We're both obsessed with medical shows on TV. Lizzie does the smart stuff like "Code Blue." I watched every episode of "ER". But we start from human stories first and then add the medical.

L.B.: [The medical stuff], it's kind of just the background for the Jackie show.

L.W.: We like to call it the show of little earthquakes. There's not going to be bank explosions or helicopters crashing into the hospital. These are little earthquakes for every day people. In their lives, these things are huge, and so that's kind of where we start. We think smaller, but in Edie's hands and in this cast's hands, it's spectacular.

L.W.: It's like [a dying patient] coming in with his wife and chicken soup. Eli Wallach just wants chicken soup and to be left alone. Small. Perfect.

Yes, please keep doing that.
L.B.: Try and stop us.

L.W.: We can't wait for you to see the finale, because there is a moment that Edie Falco has -- and you'll know it when you see it -- that will equal any explosion, plane crash, anything that you're going to see on TV. And it's literally just an emotional moment that she has with another character. We're really proud of it.

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