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A PUBLIC AFFAIR Rob Lowe and Calista Flockhart kiss and tell about their sizzling Brothers & Sisters romance By David Hochman February 27, 2007 Let’s start with the kissing. Oh, we know. Brothers & Sisters is the most sophisticated new show in prime time. The ABC drama tackles serious adult issues such as addiction, homophobia, aging, death, blah, blah, blah . . . | |||
Lowe does a bit of a head bob, all proud of himself. He’s relaxing between scenes on the Brothers & Sisters set in L.A., where he’s been guest starring as Sen. Robert McCallister. Or Sen. Dreamy McSquarejaw, as he’s become known around TV GUIDE’s hallowed halls.
You may already know the backstory. Calista “Ally McBeal” Flockhart plays Kitty Walker, a conservative political pundit from California’s most gorgeously dysfunctional family. When Dreamy McSqu . . . Senator McCallister appeared on Kitty’s program earlier this season, it was love at first snipe. Well, not exactly, but one thing led to another and Kitty became his communications director and the two were soon locking lips like a couple of filibustering rug rats on shore leave. Now we’re waiting to see how their relationship plays out against the backdrop of McCallister’s bid for the presidency.
“It’s funny,” Lowe continues. “I kissed a girl in the pilot episode of The West Wing and that was it. I did almost 100 episodes and not another kiss. So I was a little rusty. I had to see if I still had my A-game, if I still had my fastball, if I still had my Binaca.”
Lowe, happily married and a father of two, leans forward and lowers his voice. It’s astonishing how little his boyish good looks have changed in the 20 years since About Last Night. “I’ll tell ya,” he says with an exaggerated wink. “In a situation like this, there’s nobody you’d rather get warmed up with than Calista.”
Executive producer Jon Robin Baitz almost blushes when he
describes the electricity that Lowe and Flockhart regularly generate in their
scenes together. “Rob and Calista are both so physically attractive, and they
clearly like each other very much,” he says. “So it’s much less mechanical than
love scenes usually are. Put it this way—it’s like watching two pieces that fit
together so perfectly, you begin to get embarrassed if you think about it too
much.” |
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Flockhart is a little shy, it turns out. Make that extremely shy. Its probably why she’s sidestepping here and doesn’t do much press, period. Not that you can blame her. Ally McBeal, a show about a flighty miniskirt-wearing lawyer who mostly thought about getting pregnant, did a number on Flockhart. At the apex of Ally mania, Time magazine put Flockhart on its cover at the end of a row of feminist icons such as Susan B. Anthony and asked, “Is Feminism Dead?” There were the endless prying questions about Flockhart’s weight. Then came the scrutiny when she adopted a son, Liam, in 2001 as a single mom. Which you think would have eased up when Flockhart found the man of her dreams a year later. Too bad the man was Harrison Ford.
“It wasn’t so much fun at the time,” Flockhart says of the media carnival that was her life, “but I took the last five years to step away from working, and I like to think I’ve done some personal and emotional growth.” She spent most of her days shuttling Liam back and forth to school, hiking with Ford and their dogs, traveling and reading. Above all, it was motherhood that saved her, she says. “It changed every fiber of my being, and I think I can honestly say it brought me as close as I’ve ever come to being really happy.”
Wait a second. Flockhart has somehow diverted the conversation. More than 12 million Brothers & Sisters fans want the scoop on her relationship with her chisel-cheeked costar! For instance, was Flockhart one of those girls who got wobbly-kneed at the mere sight of Lowe’s feathery mullet back in his St. Elmo’s Fire days?
“Um, no,” she says. “I’d love to say I had a crush on Rob but I never had crushes on celebrities.”
There’s an awkward pause.
“But,” she says, “working with Rob, he’s completely won me over. I adore him. He’s so charming and has this gentleness. And he’s really funny.”
And?
More awkwardness.
“OK, the kissing’s not bad.”
Score!
When last we saw the Senator and Kitty, they were failing miserably at keeping their personal relationship separate from work. Meanwhile, their highly public liaison was having a negative impact on McCallister’s campaign poll numbers. And yet the sparks keep on flying.
Brothers & Sisters hadn’t been developed as a romantic drama, but then almost everything has changed since the show’s initial conception. The original pilot episode had to be reshot, the original show runner left, and Sally Field was brought in to replace Betty Buckley as the Walker family matriarch. In TV, those are usually signs of the apocalypse. As Lowe says, “I told Robbie Baitz, ‘You must have a horseshoe inserted in your body somewhere because this show has survived eight things that would have sunk any other show.”’
Now that it’s gaining in the ratings, Brothers & Sisters can concentrate on storytelling. You know what that means: Kick back in your spoiler chair and we’ll tell you what’s next.
In no particular order, Nora (Field) will see her love life heat up when she has a fling with her professor from UCLA. The romantic exploits of Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Chad the soap star (Jason Lewis) come to a surprising end when Chad’s decision to come out sends Kevin into an emotional tailspin. At the same time, the surprise introduction of Rebecca (Emily VanCamp), the illegitimate offspring of the late William Walker (Tom Skerritt), has everyone in the Walker clan wondering what other secrets lie in wait.
Rebecca’s the talk of the set on this particular day of shooting. At a posh restaurant, Kitty and McCallister are dining out with Kitty’s sister Sarah (Rachel Griffiths) and Sarah’s scruffy husband, Joe (John Pyper-Ferguson). Kitty just realized she’s been kept out of the loop on the Rebecca news. “I tell you every time I sleep with someone at work, and you don’t tell me we have a sister?” Kitty snaps at Sarah.
Awkward silence.
“Calista can do comedy and heartbreak in a single sentence, says exec producer Greg Berlanti. “Let me rephrase: Calista can give you a single stare and get her point across.”
What are we to make of all those stares between Kitty and Dreamy McYou-Know-Who? Baitz says more questions will be raised this season before we get answers about their relationship. As their affair pushes Kitty and the Walker family into the spotlight, Baitz says, “It stirs issues like, ‘What do you do when you’re in love and everybody is watching—especially when the person you’re in love with could potentially be the leader of the free world?”’
Never mind the presidency. Lowe knows fans have another agenda: “People stop me at the gas station and say, ‘Are you and Kitty gonna get married?”’
Lowe (or anyone else, for that matter) won’t say. He’s not even certain he’ll be back next season, as his contract is still being negotiated. Then there’s the fear, small though it is, that he’ll be heating things up with FLockhart one day and look over and see the Boyfriend Known as Indiana Jones. “If I hear the bullwhip snapping in he corner,” Lowe jokes, “I’ll know there’s trouble.”
Speaking of trouble, Flockhart is throwing one of those revealing glances that suggests it may be time to wrap up the interview. She’d like to get back to work so she can say her lines and get home for the day (as Lowe put it earlier, "It’s sort of a competition between us to see who can get in the car to tuck the kids into bed quicker”). Clearly, Flockhart has her priorities in order.
“My only apprehension in getting back to TV was getting into a situation where I was working too much,” she says, walking back to the restaurant set. “But now I’m working two or three days a week and the rest is family time. I can’t imagine anything better than the situation I have at this very moment.”
How about all that and one day being First Lady to Dreamy McSquarejaw?
TV Guide ~~ February 27, 2007