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September
/ october 2006:
Fall
TV: Jennifer WEstfeldt
by Gerri Miller
Series Premiere: Notes from the Underbelly on ABC, Oct. 5 @ 8:30 pm
Best known as the titular heroine of the indie hit Kissing Jessica Stein, Jennifer Westfeldt takes on first-time pregnancy with more than a little trepidation in the ABC comedy Notes from the Underbelly. “Lauren, this character, is, I hope, not as neurotic as Jessica Stein. I think she’s a little more grounded. But there are some quirks that are mine that come to whatever part I do,” muses Westfeldt. “I am a little like Lauren in that I’m totally not ready to have a child so I can totally identify with the prospect of getting fat and having a hard time and going through pain and then having a lifetime commitment.”
Westfeldt notes the opportune timing of taking on this role as her friends are becoming mothers. “I’ve absolutely been peppering them with questions and I have seen what they’ve gone through,” she says.
Meanwhile, she’s been nurturing another sort of baby, a film she wrote, produced and stars in called Ira and Abby, the L.A. Film Festival Audience Award winner that has been her labor of love for the last year. “It’s a comedy about family and marriage and divorce and infidelity and therapy. I have an impulsive marriage with this guy and we end up getting married and divorced several times,” describes Westfeldt, who plays the Irish Abby to Chris Messina’s Jewish Ira.
While being an indie filmmaker is rewarding, Westfeldt is glad to collect a nice paycheck and let someone else run the show on the series. “Right now,” she says, “it feels like a real gift to not be in charge of everything.”
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