"Tough medicine"
The Detroit News
December 14, 1995
By Curt Schleier
Dr. Kerry Weaver steamrolls through the emergency room of TV's hottest show, giving orders like General Patton.
Nurses quake as she rushes by, leaning heavily on her crutch; doctors drop their eyes as she chastises them. To patients, she unleashes the bedside manner of Dr. Frankenstein.
Now that's a star.
Weaver, the severe new chief resident on NBC's ER, is played by Pontiac-born Laura Innes. And she has raised the energy of the fast-paced hit medical drama to an even higher level while catching the attention of critics.
"I do get that from a lot of people -- that there's a mellowness to the show and that she (Dr. Weaver) brings a contrary energy to it," says Innes in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
"It's a new element that creates more conflict. It's hard for me to be objective, but I can sort of see that when I'm watching. I think it's part of the reason for the audience response to the character."
Another reason for that response might be the crutch and the character's limp, which were part of the description when Innes got the role. Dr. Weaver is one of the few characters in prime-time television with a disability. Innes, who is not disabled, had to learn how to limp authentically by working with a physical therapist.
But Innes doesn't think the handicap is the reason Dr. Weaver is so tough. That would be too stereotypical. Innes has clearly developed emotional ties to Weaver. She actually gets upset when someone calls the character something of a witch -- or a word to that effect.
"That really gets my dander up," Innes says. "There's nothing that she does that is evil. All she's doing is her job. Quite honestly, I shot four episodes before the first one aired, and I was shocked by the reaction.
"I always considered her a woman who does her job very well. Someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly, who doesn't care what people think. Coming from the Midwest where people are thought to be pretty nice all the time, it's very liberating to play someone who doesn't care what people think, who is only concerned about doing her job. She's curt or whatever else you want to think, but her greatest motivation is to be a good doctor, and there's no question about that."
With ER's success, Innes now has the kind of problem most actors would kill for.
She also is signed to appear on another television series this season, a CBS mid-season replacement called Louie, after its star, the comedian Louie Anderson.
In the half-hour situation comedy, Innes plays the wife of Anderson's best friend, a sweet, repressed Midwest wife trying to break out of her shell (and her marriage).
If Innes is emotionally vested in Dr. Weaver, she is legally vested in Louie. She did the pilot last April, but CBS took a long time deciding whether to commit to the show.
Innes had done seven unsuccessful pilots before Louie, so she was well aware that the odds were the network would pass. While awaiting word, she asked her agent to get her hourlong dramatic roles that would round out her resume. (Previously, she was probably best known to television audiences for her comic role as Bunny, Lowell the mechanic's sweet but slutty ex-wife on Wings.)
The agent came back with an audition for ER. It went well and she was called back.
She received a commitment for at least six ER episodes (she's already filmed more than that) and permission from Diane English, executive producer of Louie, to sign on -- as long as it didn't interfere with Louie.
That was late last summer, and ever since she has been scurrying from one set to another. Clearly, however, her heart is with ER.
"The truth is that I would like that (becoming an ER regular) to happen. They can make it happen. If they want to make that commitment," she says at one point.
Innes has come a long way from her Michigan roots. Though born in Pontiac, she grew up one of six children in Birmingham and attended Seaholm High School. Her father, who used to read Shakespeare while the rest of the family gathered around the television, whet her appetite for acting with regular trips to Stratford.
"We started going when I was 8 or 9." She prefers not to be specific when it comes to how many years ago that was, but will admit to being in her 30s.
Innes graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in theater and soon began landing roles in Chicago regional theaters. Among her early successes, she played Stella to John Malkovich's Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire, and originated the role of Glenna in David Mamet's Edmund.
Ultimately she moved with the play to New York City and made her Broadway debut in that role. It was there that Innes met her husband, David Brisbin, also an actor, during a workshop of a new play.
When their son, Cal, was born five years ago, it meant a lot of changes in their lives. For one thing, they decided to relocate to California, figuring they couldn't really make a family-size income in the theater.
"The hours away from home are so great your baby-sitter winds up making almost as much as you do," she says.
But having a family changed her attitude, too. "My experience in show business is that there's a lot of hardship. You're always dealing with disappointment and rejection. You go on a lot of auditions where you don't get the job. And that's all you talk about with your friends. You become pretty consumed by it. But now with Cal my life changed drastically. I still work hard on my career, but when I come home Cal is my focus."
She sees a relationship between this shift in her priorities and her recent successes.
"Once I realized that if acting didn't work out I could move back to the Midwest, become a school teacher and still be happy with my family, well, there's something liberating about that. When you have a lot of fear, it's difficult to be good, hard to do your best work. Now it doesn't feel that way.I'm not saying it's like a little magic pill you take, but it does shift things around in a magic way."