“A driven woman willing to sell her soul for high ratings, she’s lonely, obviously a workaholic, and has no private life to speak of.”
That’s director Tommy Lee Wallace’s description of the ambitious television programming executive in “Witness to the Execution,” airing at 8 p.m. Sunday on NBC-Ch. 5.
Who to cast? Faye Dunaway set the standard for ruthless woman TV executives in “Network” 18 years ago. NBC could have gone the predictable route with Cheryl Ladd, Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith or Meredith Baxter. Instead, they chose Sean Young, who hasn’t worked in network television since the 1986 mini-series “Blood and Orchids.”
In “Witness to the Execution,” Young’s character decides the best way to get blockbuster ratings for her pay-per-view channel is to broadcast a live execution. She finds a willing victim, a handsome and charismatic death row inmate, played by Tim Daly.
But as millions are signing up to view this first-of-its-kind event, she begins to have doubts about the prisoner’s guilt. So she launches her own investigation.
“This film started out as fiction, but now I see it as a pre- documentary,” “Witness” director Wallace says. “I believe live executions are just around the corner. We shot this in Texas, and I was shocked to see how many executions are going on there.
“This movie does not take on the issue of capital punishment. What it says is, `OK, folks, we the people have decided it’s OK to kill people in the name of the State. What about the issue of watching it?’ `Witness’ is about the power of TV and its ability to change the course of events instead of simply observing. I see it as an indictment of the way TV operates.”
As for casting Young instead of a former sitcom actress, Wallace says, “Sean brings a sense of the unpredictable, and that meant you’d get unexpected angles to the story. She’s a maverick. I had some trepidation about working with her, but after speaking to her I became convinced that she was no more temperamental than a lot of stars and maybe she got a bum rap.
“Later I knew that was true. Sean simply says just exactly what’s on her mind.”
“I’m fearlessly brave-stupidly brave, some might say,” Young agrees. “I still have mood swings, but I try my best. I was on the phone with my brother-in-law this morning, and he said, `In the seven years I’ve known you, you’ve gotten less stressed every single year.”‘
She has had a rocky time since catching people’s attention when she seduced Kevin Costner in the back seat of a limo in “No Way Out.” While preparing for the role of Vicki Vale in “Batman,” she fell off a horse, broke her left arm and had to give up the part to Kim Basinger.
Warren Beatty hired but quickly fired her as his love interest in “Dick Tracy.” Meanwhile, her “Boost” co-star James Woods and his girlfriend were suing her for harassment.
“That’s when I prayed, `Dear Lord, whatever I need to do to change what’s not working right, I will do it,”‘ Young remembers. Her insurance company settled the Woods suit and then, through a series of incidents as odd as the ones that had laid her low, she found her stride again.
The key was buying property in Sedona, Ariz., an isolated community in red-rocks country. She and her husband, actor/writer Robert Lujan, keep pretty much to themselves, hanging out in their modest seven-room adobe that they jokingly call “the Shonderosa.”
“Having land under my feet was the beginning of my life in a way,” Young says. “Actresses tend to be very open to the universe. Sedona really anchored me to the earth.”
Nevertheless, Young occasionally slips free.
“My biggest sin is that I get angry every once in awhile, when I feel injustice has been done,” she says. When “Batman Returns” director Tim Burton wouldn’t audition her for the role of Catwoman, she dressed up in a catsuit and crashed his office. “I caught a lot of flak for getting angry at Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, she continues. For `Batman,’ Tim asked me to get on a horse three days before production started, and I had that accident. It was at their hands that I suffered, so it was unfathomable to me that they wouldn’t even let me in the door. They could have given me five minutes as a courtesy.”
Young refused to be ignored.
“I allowed myself to respond in that manner because I couldn’t take any more crap,” she explains. “It’s good to have mildness and patience in your character, but if people and circumstances conspire against you and you allow it, you’re just a part of that conspiracy. Sometimes freedom is based on saying no. For me, that was a real moment when I said, `No more.’ “
Since then, Young has completed work on “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.” But some people in the film industry continue to be wary of her.
“In the last couple of weeks I haven’t been able to get in on certain meetings I wanted,” she gripes. “I’m not going to get into a rage, but a lot of anger and frustration does arise because you’re constantly having to support your self-esteem.
“I realized this morning that if I choose not to worry, that’s an alternative for me. It’s the same thing, and everything will, in fact, work out. So the challenge for me becomes, not, `Can I do this role?’ I know I can do just about any role. But, `Can I manage my emotions successfully when I don’t know what’s going to be happening?”‘
