On top of the friendship heap with 'Ed'

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On top of the friendship heap with 'Ed'

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

By JOHN LEVESQUE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER TELEVISION CRITIC

Over the years, Jana Marie Hupp has always been a friend. On "Friends," she was Rachel's former best friend, the one who ended up marrying Rachel's ex-fiance. On "Providence," she was Joanie's best friend from high school. On "Seinfeld," she was one of George Costanza's girlfriends. On "The Drew Carey Show," she was Drew's date at his ex-girlfriend's wedding.

And now she's a friend of Ed Stevens, which in TV circles right now is cooler than having a closetful of mock-croc fashions. For actors who live to ply their craft but constantly wait to be canceled like a stamp, hanging with Ed Stevens is pretty much a guarantee of a paycheck well into next year.

Stevens is the title character in "Ed," the quirky series that recently won the People's Choice Award as best new comedy. It also has won NBC's loyalty, an ephemeral thing, with a firm promise of renewal through the 2001-02 season.

Jana Marie Hupp.
NBC photo

Not unlike the characters in "Ally McBeal," another hourlong show that tries to keep one foot in comedy and one in light drama, the people of "Ed" tend to be brittle caricatures with a tenuous grasp of whazzzzzzup. Except for Nancy Burton. Nancy is the wife of Mike Burton, Ed's best friend from high school. Trying to balance motherhood, wifehood and jobhood, Nancy is the wellspring to which the show's writers return whenever "Ed" needs a splash of the real world.

Hupp gives Nancy the kind of comfortable reliability missing from most of the "Ed" cast, who claim to live in Stuckeyville, Ohio, but spend most of their time in a parallel universe where they look as if they're thirtysomething but behave as if they're something else altogether.

Being the grounded, responsible one in this ensemble may sound ho-hum, but Nancy is actually the show's most refreshing character, probably because she's three-dimensional. Hupp, who was born in Spokane and raised in Bellevue, says she brings a little of herself to the role. But one of her best friends believes Nancy Burton is a mere shadow of the real Jana Marie Hupp.

"Jana is a little bit Sandra Bernhard, a little bit Madonna," says C.R. Douglas, political analyst for KCPQ/13 and host of "Northwest Week" on KBTC/28. "These are people who drink different water. They're extremely energetic, funny and eccentric."

Douglas met Hupp when she was dating his older brother, Doyle. Hupp and Doyle were in high school; C.R. was in junior high. When C.R. got to Bellevue High, he joined theater groups in which Hupp was already active and they have remained good friends for 20 years. When he was at Stanford in the '80s, he would visit Hupp in Los Angeles. She moved there after getting a speaking part in the 1985 film "Vision Quest."

Hupp, who studied opera at North Carolina School of the Arts and literature and theater at Western Washington University, has been working steadily in television and films ever since. But nothing quite matches the "Ed" experience, which she describes as "adult camp without sex."

The saga goes back nearly two years, when David Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, cast the show and shot a pilot for CBS. "We all met in New York," Hupp recalls, "and spent every night playing guitar and getting into food fights. We all felt part of something that couldn't die."

But CBS passed on "Ed" for the fall of 1999, hinting that it might be picked up for midseason. It wasn't.

"It didn't seem possible," Hupp says. "It was over. We were such good friends at that point."

CBS allowed Letterman's people to pitch the show to NBC, however, and, as often happens in this business, one executive's reject became another's hot commodity. Or at least a lukewarm commodity.

"Ed" barely cracks the top 40 in the weekly Nielsen ratings, routinely getting waxed by "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." But NBC saw it as a smart show from the start, and quickly moved it from Sundays to Wednesdays (at 8 p.m., KING/5) to create an attractive package of smart programming with "The West Wing" and "Law & Order." The recent announcement of renewal through next season is rare evidence of the network's desire to let a promising series find its audience.

Even before the renewal, Hupp, who doesn't share the traditional reticence of a Hollywood actor, sensed the network's support.

"NBC had a rough time with 'Freaks and Geeks,'" she said. "They got such crap (for canceling it). If they pull something of quality and put on something not very good they make themselves look not as intelligent."

Aside from the difficult gestation period that "Ed" experienced, Hupp says the wildest thing about the show is shooting it in New York. Or northern New Jersey, to be accurate. Though she has worked in New York off and on, she has never lived there for any length of time. But now she's renting a studio apartment in Manhattan "for a godawful sum" and "becoming good friends with the subway system." One of her dogs, a pug, is still in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, Billy Tencza, a New Yorker who wants to be an actor. Another dog, a Chihuahua, is with her mom, Mona, in Bellevue.

A veteran of countless half-hour comedies, including the short-lived "Wild Oats" and "Public Morals," Hupplearned to enjoy the saner pacing of single-camera dramas when she had a recurring role on Steven Bochco's dark drama, "Brooklyn South."

"Sitcoms are ruthless, much more nerve-racking," she says, even after arriving home from work at 1:45 a.m. because of a night shoot. "Hourlongs are similar to a film."

Hupp, who played a NASA scientist in the film "Independence Day," also likes working with a large ensemble. Of Tom Cavanagh, the dimpled, aw-shucks star of "Ed," Hupp says he's "shockingly perfect."

"It's weird," she says. "He doesn't drink, he doesn't do anything bad. But I got him to say dirty words the other day."

Hupp says Julie Bowen, who plays Carol Vessey, the object of Ed's high-school-style obsession, is a "reformed wild child."

All the women in the cast are free spirits, she says, while the men are "sweet and Christian and kind."

On "Ed," Hupp keeps her irreverent streak under wraps, though the writers do let Nancy get in a zinger at Mike's expense now and then. Hupp likes that, since it makes her relationship with Josh Randall, who plays Mike Burton, more real, more comfortable.

Still, no matter how at-ease she feels in her current situation, Hupp knows an actor's career is shakier than cafeteria Jell-O.

"You're always on the edge," she says. "It never goes away. You're constantly having to prove yourself. Nothing is secure."

So, like Nancy Burton, Hupp, who will be 37 in April, stays grounded with family -- she has a brother in Kirkland and a sister on Bainbridge Island -- and friends and the enjoyment of the moment.

"I'm very blessed that I'm in the position I'm in," she admits. "If it ends tomorrow, it's been an amazing ride."

John Levesque is the P-I's television critic. Call him at 206-448-8330 or send e-mail to tvguy@seattle-pi.com.

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