Actress’ Career Ended Up In The Emergency Room
Actress Gloria Reuben wishes she should be so unlucky.
As physical therapist Jeanie Boulet, the newest addition to the stellar cast of NBC’s hit drama “ER,” Reuben became caught up last season in a troubling love triangle between her husband and Dr. Benton (Eriq LaSalle).
The Toronto native says the cliffhanger relationship, which so far hasn’t progressed much beyond a strong mutual attraction, will be resolved in the first three episodes this fall. But she refuses to divulge further details.
“All summer I’ve had complete strangers come up to me, ‘What’s going to happen? Are you going to do it?”’ she laughs saying she always responds with sarcastic naivete, “What’s ‘it’?”’
Unlike Jeanie Boulet, who has two men to choose from, Reuben laments that at this point in her life, “I don’t even have one to decide among!”
“It’s not much fun either way,” she continues. Reuben’s current solo status can be blamed in part on the busy life she has led in the last couple of years. Last year she starred as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s sassy partner in the futuristic action adventure “TimeCop.” She co-stars with Johnny Depp in the upcoming feature film “Nick of Time.” She also appeared last season in three episodes of “Homicide,” which is shot in Baltimore, portraying sex crimes detective Teresa Walker. “I was really hoping that would work (into a regular series role) and was more than a little disappointed to come back to Los Angeles,” says the actress.
Her role on “ER” came about because Steven Spielberg was impressed with her performance in “TimeCop,” she says. (“ER” is a production of Amblin Television, a company Spielberg founded in association with Warner Bros. Television.) Originally slated for five or six episodes, Jeanie appeared in nine of the last 12 shows.
Her relationship with LaSalle’s character began when Jeanie was hired to provide inhome care to his ailing mother.
This fall she returns as a physician’s assistant rather than a physical therapist so she can be closer to the emergency room action.
After five years of struggle, her acting career began to gel last year culminating in the “ER” role and the movie with Depp. In “Nick of Time,” a drama which unfolds in real time, she plays a governor’s aide, Christa, who assists Depp’s character, Gene, when he is blackmailed into carrying out an assassination.
“Unfortunately, because the whole movie takes place in two hours, there wasn’t time for a romantic relationship,” she sighs. “I told the producers I thought that Christa and Gene should end up together at the end of the movie. That was the way it was originally written. Everybody laughed.”
Reuben admits her life off the set isn’t nearly as exciting as her characters’. She likes to relax by reading, swimming and playing an upright piano in her apartment. Beethoven is a favorite. If her career continues on its upward trend, she hopes to buy a house and furnish it with a more elegant grand piano.
“I already have the room all pictured - with a view of the mountains out the window,” she says.
But for now the actress is taking life one episode at a time.