November 27, 2006 in Features

Wild ride on the marry-go-round

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Wendie Malick is not at all uptight about playing uptight.

“I tend to play extreme women who blow real hot and cold, and I don’t in my own life. I’m actually much nicer than that,” chuckles Malick between scenes on her latest show.

She plays Jane, high-strung mother of the bride, in the new ABC comedy series “Big Day,” which premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m.

It’s sort of a matrimonial answer to Fox’s “24,” chronicling 24 hours of an extravagant backyard wedding.

“I find it’s a great cathartic character to play because she is just wired so nutty … she just gets out of her mind crazy over these tiny, little nutty things,” says Malick, best known for playing the outrageously neurotic fashion maven Nina Van Horn on “Just Shoot Me.”

“I think oftentimes I play women who kind of stand up and make fun of those of us who take ourselves too seriously, and we all do sometimes. So, hopefully, in a humorous way, you can look at (Jane) and say, ‘Oh, God, I have a little of that in me. Maybe I should look at that, and calm down and breathe.’ ”

The former model is wearing a sleek, fire-engine-red dress and an assortment of offbeat jewelry, much of it her own.

She’d look the height of elegance if it weren’t for her hair, which is blown into a wind-swept froth, since Jane has just been on a wild motorcycle ride with an ex-lover.

Entering the house, they discover Jane’s husband consorting with a glamorous stripper, whom he suggests could stay and perform at the wedding dinner.

The scene is just one example of how “Big Day” explores the tension and turmoil surrounding the wedding of Alice (Marla Sokoloff) and Danny (Josh Cooke).

Malick likes the whole ” ‘24’ light” conceit, but says sometimes it does make the actors feel like “mice on a treadmill,” because “we keep thinking, ‘Weren’t we just in this room, wearing the same outfit?’ ”

Some characters wear the same outfit in all 13 episodes, so Malick feels lucky because Jane does get a change of clothing after being caught in the rain during a high-voltage family fight.

Malick, 55, is married to her second husband, Richard Erickson, whom she met building houses for impoverished families – something they still do every Thanksgiving.

But, she says, “I remember as a child never wanting to be married. I just thought, ‘Why would you ever want to give up your independence?’ That freedom was so much more alluring to me.”

The appeal of an elaborate wedding still escapes her. She and Erickson said their vows on a mountaintop in Sedona, Ariz., in the company of just 10 friends.

Malick has a theory about why big weddings are back in fashion: “I think there’s a direct correlation between how excessively people behave in their private life (and) how much in despair they are. …

“It’s a fearful time for a lot of people in the world, and that whole idea of living out a fantasy has taken on a new momentum.”

The birthday bunch

TV personality Bill Nye (“Bill Nye the Science Guy”) is 51. Actor William Fichtner (“Invasion”) is 50. Actress Robin Givens is 42. Actor Michael Vartan (“Alias”) is 38. Rapper Twista is 34. Actor Jaleel White (“Family Matters”) is 30.

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