USA Weekend online

Issue date: Oct 24, 1999
In this article:

Actress Andrea Thompson loves New York. She was just 16 when she arrived there to model; she took voice training and studied at the acclaimed Actors Studio as well. Now she lives in her favorite city only on TV - she's NYPD Blue's Det. Jill Kirkendall. Her real life takes place in L.A. Fans remember her from Falcon Crest, Babylon 5 and JAG  as well as the movies Wall Street and Delirious. Here, Who's News puts some investigative questions to TV's sexiest detective:

WN: NYPD Blue deals with such heavy issues. Is it a fun set to work on?
AT: We goof off constantly, and a lot of that is in reaction to the dark material. What's really disturbing about it is we know it's all based on reality ... especially when it is story lines dealing with children. We're just starting an episode that involves my ex-husband. The guy's no good, never has been. Like a lot of women, Kirkendall loves her husband and hopes he's going to pull it together, but it's not going to happen.

WN: Last season was such a season of loss on the show, with the death of Jimmy Smits' character, just for starters.
AT: My only disappointment from last season is that Jimmy didn't share [the acclaim]. We didn't have to work at acting it. We were all bereft and devastated.

WN: What happened to that flirtation with Rick Schroder's character?
AT: [Producer] David Milch had talked about that shory line, but it would have been out of character for Detective Kirkendall. There was something about it that didn't fit well with me. They tried him off Kim [Delaney], too, but that's all kind of finished.

WN: Sounds like the writers and producers are very open to your ideas.
AT: If we're having trouble with a line, David Milch will come around and rewrite and... they're very respectful that way, and very sensitive. Most jobs are not like this. It's "who cares what you think?"

WN: Tell me about the movie you did this past summer.
AT: Rockets Red Glare is an independent feature about two brothers who return from Vietnam. One brother has come back with grievous physical damage; the other brother's damage is internal. I'm a psychiatrist at the VA. I end up becoming close with both men. It's about post-traumatic stress disorder -- for them, the war never ended.

WN: Phew, some summer vacation. Do you ever long for lighter, sillier roles?
AT: Not really. I get enough silliness. I'm lucky that I'm one of the top female voice-over artists in the country. I'm pursuing a future in journalism, trying to get my writing chops together. I'd like to be a broadcast journalist after the Hollywood career is over. I like to have a five-year plan. It keeps things stimulating for me. It gives me a sense of control over my destiny. I've always been a huge news junkie and a big fan of Dan Rather -- so many of the big moments of my life were defined by Dan Rather. I really want to learn it from the bottom up. I'm working with a guy at Stanford. I shot two of my own news pieces, researched them, pulled my pieces, blocked it, edited it. We're sending them around for critiques. I'm going to attend a couple of (journalism) conferences this year. I've got this year and next on Blue, that's for certain.

WN: This is a busy year for you.
AT: I work 14-hour days during the week on NYPD. On Saturday, I do voice-overs, and Sunday, I do my journalism and fax it off to them. I'm sort of packing it in this year. My son [Alec] is turning 7. He's got a lot of friends, a busy and active social life. He spends a lot of time with his grandmother. With my mother helping out, he wins, I win and she's very happy also. I'm a very lucky person on many levels. I've got a very tight, close family. This year, I said to my mother, you raised four kids on your own, you're only 60. Let me handle the day-to-day and you follow your bliss. She said, "I couldn't be doing anything more important than raising Alec." I had gotten into a place of despair. I was in nanny hell. I was spending $50,000 a year on child care. I would have spent $100,000. Our child-rearing philosophies are the same. We live together and travel around a lot. Whenever I go on location, I bring them both along. We've always been vagabonds -- as long as we've got a toothbrush. It's only a house when it's filled with people you love.

WN: You sound like you are ready to leave Hollywood.
AT: I'm going to see what comes up. I don't want to jump into journalism and have people say, ugh, this actress. If a wonderful [acting] project came on that spoke to my heart, I'd be torn. News is a lot like that. I fall in love with stories. So much of what I do [on NYPD Blue] is the same way I feel about the news. It's stories about people.

WN: You started on the stage as a ballet dancer. How do you stay fit?
AT: My mother was a dancer. She got me into the obligatory ballet classes and I fell in love with it and was cast in the school play. I live in a four-story house, so it's a home and Stairmaster built into one! I ride. I scuba dive. I play soccer with my son.

WN: You are a certified diver. Do you have favorite diving spots?
AT: Off the coast of Santa Barbara, [a place called] Inside Boilers, a big reef. You swim into a huge cave, the cave gets narrower and narrower, you come to a small room lined with lobsters waving their tentacles.

WN: You have a wonderful, distinctive voice. Would we recognize your voice from commercials or movies?
AT: Runs in the family, even my kid's got it. I guess we all got good chords. I don't sing. Every once in a while I can be induced to do Marlene Dietrich. I do loads of stuff for Disney for the holidays. I did all the Madeline videos. I have a recurring role on the Wild Thornberrys, Vita the elephant. Corporate accounts, International Coffees, Cadillac, Mercedes Benz, Dayton Hudson. My biggest job is this huge mall concern. They're keeping me extremely busy on Saturday. It's great -- no makeup, jeans and a T-shirt and an insane amount of money. I was able to take a hiatus from acting for his first three years of Alec's life.

WN: What's ahead for you after NYPD Blue?
AT: I would love to have another child. Who knows? Maybe that will happen. Maybe after this show is over, stop and smell the roses. Life itself goes by too quickly. I become more and more aware of it. I think there's a poem by Emerson, if you turn a small plot of land or raise a child, then you were a success, as opposed to who am I compared to Sharon Stone. With all these blessings, I try to be in that same place, to just be really happy to be around. To relish getting older, not just your 20s and 30s. I hope to be having the same amount of fun.

-- With Patty Rhule