Lorraine Bracco roars in ‘Lipstick Jungle’
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- February
- 14
We all knew and loved Lorraine Bracco as Dr. Melfi on “The Sopranos.”
But sadly, the Mob drama now sleeps with the fishes, and Bracco’s returning to TV tonight with a recurring role on the new drama “Lipstick Jungle.” (NBC, 10 p.m.)
“Lipstick” premiered last week and is sort of competing with ABC’s “Cashmere Mafia” to be the successful successor to “Sex and the City.” (“Lipstick” has Candace Bushnell, who wrote the original SATC newspaper column; “Cashmere” has uber-producer Darren Star, who brought “Sex” to the small screen.)
Anyway, Bracco plays Janice Lasher, a nasty piece of work who has it out for movie exec Wendy Healy (Brooke Shields).
Janice is a book editor, who is shopping around a roman a chef by Wendy’s ex-nanny. And let’s just say Wendy comes off looking as good as Anna Wintour—oops, Miranda Priestly—in “The Devil Wears Prada.”
I interviewed Bracco for the Journal News’ Sunday paper: Go here to take a peek.
She had a blast on “Lipstick” (she’ll be in next week’s episode, too), and it shows. She totally makes you forget she was ever butting heads with Tony.
Behind the scenes, Bracco says her “Lipstick” experience was kind of a “Sopranos” reunion. Lots of the “Sopranos” crew got jobs with the NYC-based “Lipstick.”
Bracco had nothing mean to say about the “Cashmere” competition, either: She’s friends with Darren Star. But in my opinion, she signed on to the superior show.
Maybe that’s unfair, considering that I only watched 5 minutes of “Cashmere.” But perhaps it’s telling, since I couldn’t bear to watch any more. I found the “Lipstick” gals to be more relatable—or as relatable as women who wear $600 shoes and live in $3 million Manhattan apartments can be. The ladies in “Cashmere” came off as cartoonish and irritating
Judge for yourself—and hopefully we’ll be seeing more of Bracco on “Lipstick” now that the writers’ strike has finally ended.
She was supposed to be in episodes 8, 9 and 10 this season. But because of the strike, only 7 were shot. And last week’s premiere only drew so-so ratings, so the show’s future is uncertain.
But for now, Bracco is giving the show a fun, nasty kick in the Prada pants.
(Photos courtesy of HBO and NBC)
This entry was posted
on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 9:30 am by Heather Salerno.
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