By Michael Buckley
24 Sep 2007

After appearing in four back-to-back plays on Broadway (A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Barefoot in the Park) and Off-Broadway (The Busy World Is Hushed, The Clean House), Jill Clayburgh decided that it might be a good time to check out the TV world. "Dirty Sexy Money" (ABC Wednesdays 10 PM ET) appealed to her "because of the writing by Craig [Wright, who created the series]. I was very taken with his intelligence and bold imagination. I knew that he would go somewhere with this story." She plays Letitia Darling, matriarch of an extremely wealthy New York family.

Letitia is the wife of Tripp (Donald Sutherland) and mother of five: attorney general Patrick (Adam Baldwin), thrice-wed Karen (Natalie Zea), testy Episcopal cleric Brian (Glenn Fitzgerald), and twins, would-be actress Juliet (Samaire Armstrong) and lovable alcoholic Jeremy (Seth Gabel).

Viewers see the Darlings through the eyes of attorney Nick George (Peter Krause), who's paid an obscene salary to replace his recently deceased father as the family's lawyer — much to the chagrin of his wife Lisa (Zoe McLellan).

Clayburgh says that her character "is mostly defined by what has just happened — she's lost a man [the family lawyer] she's been in love with for 40 years. She's rethinking how she's going to live her life, now that this huge part of her life is gone — how she's going to deal with her husband, her family, and her lover's son who's now taking over the work that his father did."

Shooting an episode requires eight days, and asked about the working hours, she responds, "Oy! I worked until one o'clock last night and I had a nine o'clock interview this morning. I work the next two days, but I don't work Friday. I don't know how the crew works these 16/17-hour days. When do they sleep? If you're in a play, you go out afterwards and have dinner and a drink. But you can't do that at the end of a shooting day. That alone is very challenging." However, she agrees that television pays more than theatre: "Just slightly," she says with a laugh.

Does she prefer the stage to TV? "I cannot answer that. I just had an amazing run in the theatre; now, I'm completely engaged in this. I'm loving this more than I thought I would, because the writing is so good. I don't think: Oh, I wish I was back on the boards. Will I ever feel that way? I'm sure I will. I have a play I want to do as soon as I have time. Richard Greenberg wrote it for me. It's a wonderful play called Our Mother's Brief Affair.

"Working on my lines [for TV] is a very difficult challenge. Some actors just wing it, but I'm not an actor who enjoys the loosey-goosey type of thing. I guess that's the theatre part of me. While it's terribly hard to keep something alive eight times a week, it's a definite challenge to learn new lines all the time. But, if my lines are solid, I can feel free to act. One of the amazing things about the scenes is that you generally do not know where your character is headed. You take turns as a character that you're not expecting."

Married since 1979 to playwright David Rabe, Clayburgh has a daughter, Lily, who's appeared on Broadway in Steel Magnolias and Heartbreak House; a son, Michael (now in college, he's interested in acting and writing); and a stepson, Jason, who's a musician; he wrote the theme music for TV's "Damages."

Did she encourage Lily to pursue acting? "Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington [quoting Noel Coward's hilarious song]. I didn't let her act when she was little. I wanted my kids to have a normal life. While Lily was in high school, I got the call: 'Mom, I think I'm going to major in theatre.' She's a powerhouse onstage, an amazing actress who has that wonderful low voice, which is very unusual in a young woman. I've done two plays with her, and hope to work with her again. She's simply divine!"

Following her 1968 Broadway debut in The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson, Clayburgh appeared in two musicals: The Rothschilds and Pippin, in which she played the female lead. However, she doesn't favor musicals. "When Betty Buckley took over [in Pippin], people went: 'Ooh, that's what singing is.'"

Unable to choose a favorite role, Clayburgh claims, "I love all my parts. I really, really have." And right now, she loves Craig Wright's writing.

*

For the last few years, Craig Wright has been working on scripts (and producing) for television — "Six Feet Under," "Lost," "Brothers & Sisters" — assignments that were due to the success of his plays, including Recent Tragic Events, Orange Flower Water, and The Pavilion (which received a 1999 Pulitzer Prize nomination). When I interviewed Wright in December 2005, he had recently signed a lucrative deal with Touchstone, and told me, "I'm really excited to launch into trying to create something [for TV] as personal and evocative as I've tried to do with my plays." That something turned out to be "Dirty Sexy Money."

Having screened the pilot, I congratulate him and ask if it's correct to describe the series as "a soap-opera spoof?" Replies Wright, "It's very much a soap-opera. We talk about 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty' all the time. But it has a twist to it — we see the people [the Darling family] through the eyes of an outsider [new family lawyer Nick George, played by Peter Krause].

"That's the novelty. At the center of the show is a person who is not a member of the same class or family as all the main characters. So the show is revealed through him; the show belongs to Nick. Even when we're not with him, we're seeing the Darlings through his eyes. That creates room for a satirical tone, but it doesn't have many more satirical elements than anything I've ever written." Therefore, he would not term it a spoof: "It's more easily read as an allegory."

Did the title come easily? "When I wrote the final version of the pilot, it was called 'The Ruins.' The family name was Rooney, but the tabloids referred to them as 'the Ruins.' At a meeting, it was decided that the title was too dark. Somebody said, 'These people have problems, but there's something nice about them.' I said, 'They're sort of darling,' and it was suggested that we rename it 'The Darlings.' ABC didn't want to sell an ironic title. Somebody said, 'Can't we call it 'Filthy Rich' or 'Dirty Money?' Another person, 'Why don't we call it 'Dirty Sexy Money?' Everyone stopped and said, 'Okay!'"

Wright wrote the part of Nick especially for Peter Krause, who declined it three times. "He didn't want to commit to what he thought would be a long-term series," explains Wright. "Peter and I became friends on 'Six Feet Under.' Eventually, it worked out, which was very fortunate."

Have any characters been added since the pilot? "Yes, we have a recurring role for the family's chauffeur. Shawn Michael Patrick plays Clark, who's in a lot of episodes and performs several functions. When the family takes an impromptu trip to Italy, he flies the plane. He has lots of conversations with Donald Sutherland about Ancient Rome history books that Donald keeps getting him to read, and in episode eight, Jeremy [Seth Gabel] tries to convince a girl that he's poor and that the chauffeur is his father."

Notes Wright, "We have such a large cast and such a large palette of stories that whenever you're sick of writing about one thing, you can find another. That was the fun thing about developing it."

TV Guide's fall preview issue revealed several plot elements. "I didn't read it," says Wright, "but we just want people to watch. If giving people a little information, that may make it possible to grab as many people as possible." Dan Rather (as himself) and Peter Bogdanovich (as an actor) have cameos in the pilot.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wright traveled a lot during childhood. "My father worked for a company that frequently moved around. Also, he got married a lot. I lived up and down the east coast. At 14, I moved on my own to Minnesota. For a long time, I toyed with the idea of becoming an actor. At 20, I got a job in children's theatre. In the company was a playwright who suggested that I write a play and submit it for a Jerome Fellowship award. I did, and won $5,000. I didn't like being an actor. I wasn't very good; I didn't like taking direction. Being a playwright is really a good fit for me. It's just the right mix of introvert and extravert."

A multi-tasker (who sleeps "from about one to five"), Wright's a member of Kangaroo, an alternative-rock group. "Our latest CD is called 'Songs (French).'" He also writes lyrics ("I'm a big fan of Frank Loesser") to fellow band member Peter Lawton's music, and manages to fit in being a husband (to Lorraine LeBlanc) and father (son, Louis, is 18). And, somehow, he found time to collaborate with Larry Gelbart on a new play, Better Late.

Of "Dirty Sexy Money," Wright says, "It's an immense privilege to write for a big audience, and I don't take it for granted. I'm very, very lucky!"