Thursday, February 07, 2013

Criminal Instincts - Jeanne Tripplehorn on CBS Watch Magazine

Jeanne Tripplehorn on terrific timing, cast chemistry and terrorizing tween girls

Is there better proof of the circle of life than the fact that Jeanne Tripplehorn—who first steamed her way into movie theaters as a sexy police shrink in Basic Instinct—is returning to the world of chasing psychos? This fall, the Emmy-nominated actress gets her badge as a profiler on Criminal Minds, the popular FBI procedural entering its eighth season on CBS. A lot has happened in the 20 years between these two roles, both on-screen (she’s been in everything from The Firm to Sliding Doors to HBO’s multiwifer Big Love) and off (she married actor Leland Orser and had a son, now 10). The Juilliard-trained actress, 49, even flashed her funny bone earlier this year as Dermot Mulroney’s ex-wife on New Girl, so you can pretty much forget the old Hollywood triple threat: these days it’s called Tripple-horn.

Watch!: So what attracted you to Criminal Minds?

Jeanne Tripplehorn: Well, it kind of came out of nowhere!

Watch!: Jeanne Tripplehorn isn’t a crime procedural junkie?

Jeanne: I do not watch these shows! I have a hard enough time turning my mind off before I go to sleep, so shows like this just get me all wound up. I was not familiar with Criminal Minds, but I sat down with [executive producer] Erica Messer and [creator] Mark Gordon and just thought it was a great opportunity. It was an example of the right role at the right time.

Watch!: How so?

Jeanne: Right now, my main focus is my family and I don’t want to travel, and that narrows your field of work opportunities. I was also trying to find something that was very different from Barb, my character on Big Love. This character is very cerebral and the tone of the show is just a complete 180 from what I’ve been experiencing the last five or six years.

Watch!: What can you tell us about your character’s back story?

Jeanne: I’m still kind of learning about her, but she’s career FBI, one of the youngest people recruited, a real hotshot. She’s a Georgetown professor in forensic linguistics, she’s a loner, worked on the Unabomber case, very driven, no children.

[Read the whole interview on cbswatchmagazine.com]