Melina Kanakaredes was calling on a cellphone from the back of a limousine carrying her from a location shooting for her NBC series, “Providence.”
Laughing, she said, “How L.A. of me!”
As much as Kanakaredes has embraced aspects of the show-business life, she never seems to let go of the part of her that grew up in Akron.
Oh, she’s bubbling about “15 Minutes,” a movie where she plays a TV reporter and the love interest to Oscar winner Robert De Niro. She filmed her part more than a year ago but thinks the movie will finally get into theaters in February.
(In “Providence,” 7 p.m. Fridays, Kanakaredes plays Sydney Hansen, a doctor who left Los Angeles to rebuild her life and family relationships in Rhode Island. “Judging Amy,” “Ed” and “Normal, Ohio,” also focus on characters going home.)
Kanakaredes even said that Zoe, her 5-month-old daughter with husband Peter Constantinides, has gotten so used to being with Mom on the “Providence” set, “she stops crying when the bell rings” for shooting to start.
“Kidding,” Kanakaredes quickly added. “Just kidding.”
Kanakaredes is as accessible and open now as she was five years ago, when she was beginning the transition from daytime soap “Guiding Light” into prime time and movies.
And this is still the woman who, despite occasional nods to the publicity machine, is not afraid to say what she thinks — or to needle a writer about his past sins.
Remembering when “Providence” went on the air in January 1999, she said, “we didn’t get the best reviews right away.” And then the almost gleeful jab: “You didn’t like it much, did you?”
Guilty, sort of. In a review of the show, I said: “It has some very, very good moments and others that will make viewers gag . . . oddly hip and unabashedly cornball, seemingly eager to lure all kinds of viewers even as it threatens to drive them away.”
The show seems to have moved closer to the midpoint between those two extremes, though part of that may just be that viewers are now used to some of its odder flourishes, such as Sydney’s dead mother stopping in for chats. But Kanakaredes noted the series still likes its odd turns, including an upcoming dream sequence designed like an old silent movie.
“It is what it is,” Kanakaredes said of the series. “It’s warm. It’s not that edgy, `Sopranos’ kind of show. But we couldn’t do something like that at 7 o’clock on NBC.”
In fact, last season there were a lot of things “Providence” could not do because Kanakaredes was pregnant. She said that led to “always wearing a coat, and counter tops that were strategically placed,” and finally to a story line where Syd battled encephalitis and went into a coma.
When the season resumes, she’ll be dealing with the after-effects of the illness and the coma, Kanakaredes said.
“We tried not to make it an easy, quick, one-episode recovery. I’ll be getting physical therapy for the first six episodes, and there will be some kind of a relationship with the therapist [played by Rob Estes].”
The latest round of production continues a whirlwind, she said. Work in “15 Minutes” took up her “Providence” break in the summer of 1999, then spilled into the early months of “Providence” production. (“I’d film “Providence” Monday through Friday, then do “15 Minutes” on the weekends,” she said.) Then came the pregnancy and Zoe to fill the series’ latest hiatus.
While family matters, so does the work. At 33, Kanakaredes is not a wide-eyed kid getting a first taste of success. She had prime-time series before “Providence” (the short-lived “New York News” and “Leaving L.A.,” as well as a recurring role on “NYPD Blue”). “15 Minutes” is not her first movie. You can spot her in “Dangerous Beauty,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight” and “Rounders.”
“I’m up and ready to go if there’s another opportunity,” she said. “I hope that I can continue to do film and theater and TV. My goal is to continue to grow as an actor. . . . Had I not had the baby this summer, I would have gone back to New York and done another play.”
