‘Tommy,’ CBS cop drama starring Edie Falco
What kind of encounters has Edie Falco had with real life cops? “I’m a pretty good kid,” she reported. “L.A. cops have to work a lot of celebrity stuff. That’s where I’ve come into contact with them. Like looking under the car at the Emmys. In New York, I’m very close to the 6th Precinct in the West Village, so I see my cops at my Starbucks at the corner. So, I’m next to the guys, and I’m saying ‘How ya doin’?’ And they go, ‘How ya doin’?’” She sheepishly admitted she’s gotten a pass on a few tickets over the years.
Now Edie Falco is wearing the Top Cop badge on the new CBS drama Tommy, as the Chief Of Police for Los Angeles.
Falco is famous for playing Carmela in her breakout role as mobster Tony Sopranos’ wife on HBO’s The Sopranos. And she earned acclaim for her title role as the drug-addicted RN on Showtime’s dark comedy Nurse Jackie. She has four Emmy Awards thanks to both roles and over a dozen nominations. And it’s interesting to note that she has the role of General Ardmore in the upcoming Avatar film sequels.
In her new series Tommy, Falco takes command in the role of Abigail “Tommy” Thomas, a high-ranking NYPD officer who gets appointed the first female Chief Of Police for the LAPD. She also has to deal with blow-back from accepting the position that comes after a sexual harassment scandal brings down her male predecessor.
Tommy is an outsider as a true blue New Yorker. She’s been imposed upon the LA police department. They didn’t pick her, a federal judge mandated that she be hired. The show follows the fearlessly honest Tommy as she begins to exert her authority as the second-most-powerful person in the city of Los Angeles.
This is the first time the 56-year-old actress has played a cop, and Falco was at the 2020 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena in January to talk about it.
Falco loves playing such an honorable character. Falco said, “I’ve been lucky enough to play some real complicated characters. And it’s not that Tommy’s not, but we’re focusing less on that than on the fact that she’s got a very solid moral compass. She knows she’s qualified. She knows right from wrong, and she’s trying to head towards right as much as she can.”
“I won’t get too far into this, but in the times we’re living in now, to have someone at the helm who really is guided by something larger than them, it’s a huge relief.”
Edie Falco as “Tommy” (photo credit Cliff Lipson/CBS)
What kind of cop dramas does Falco enjoy? Edie admitted, “I had a crush on Petrocelli with Barry Newman back in the day, and I watched Hill Street Blues. But I’m afraid I’m obsessed with real life cop shows. I actually watched Live PD (on A&E program that follows real police officers on patrols) long before I started doing this show. And The First 48 (A&E true-crime series) documentary is really beautifully done about real life cops showing that a lot of bad stuff happens in-between New York and LA. I find it very moving. They’re capturing people in some of the worst chapters of their life. For whatever reason, I respond to those shows.”
Tune in great drama with ‘Tommy,’ Thursday nights starting February 6 on CBS.
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