If you’re dying for a new cozy murder mystery series, Brooke Shields has you covered with “You’re Killing Me,” premiering Monday on Acorn TV.
“I love a good mystery. I love not really knowing who did it. I don’t like a lot of blood — I’ve got other shows that I watch for blood and violence; I have that guilty pleasure,” the star and executive producer told TheWrap. “But with regards to just kind of bringing my blood pressure down, I love ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ ‘Murder, She Wrote,’ ‘Matlock.’ I love that genre of entertainment.”
The six-episode series from creator Robin Bernheim also stars Amalia Williamson and Tom Cavanagh. “Set in a quaint New England town, the mystery follows bestselling novelist, Allie (Shields), who forms an unlikely alliance with an aspiring writer and podcaster Andi (Williamson), to find the killer of a close friend,” per the logline.
“Robin gets me. I started working with Robin on ‘Quantum Leap’ years ago; she’s always understood my humor, she’s understood my physical comedy. She’s also a very smart writer and you just don’t find that a lot. After ‘Mother of the Bride,’ I was like, let’s find something that we can do together. You get so tired of sitting with your hand up, going, ‘Pick me, pick me,’ in this industry. So I said, let’s create something and see if we can make it happen,” Shields said. “This genre of mystery is very appealing to people, especially because it’s escapism. We came up with these two characters in a generational divide. Wouldn’t that be interesting? And I have young girls as daughters, so there’s a lot of humor to be mined there.”
“I’ve had an EP credit before, but I’ve never really been exercised so much. This is the first time a streaming service/network, whatever we call it now, has really been interested in my opinion. I just feel respected. Director, actor, DP, location — all of those things I now have a say in,” she continued. “Again, I’m not just trying to be in a position of power, I’m trying to make the most unique show that we can, so being an EP on this one has been 24/7.”
Of course, this is far from the Actors’ Equity Association president’s first starring role since gaining international recognition at such a young age.
“If I could go back to the ‘Suddenly Susan’ days, I would go back yesterday. ‘Lipstick Jungle,’ that was one of my favorite jobs ever. What’s really changed is production and the dissemination of information about the shows. You used to do a gallery shoot, now you are doing TikToks and gallery shoots and behind-the-scenes and selfie videos — all this stuff that is just mind-boggling to me,” she explained. “Junkets are different. You used to spend all day in a hotel and now we’re on Zoom. The good news is, we’re still able to produce quality storytelling … That hasn’t changed. The desire and the need for good storytelling I don’t think will ever go away.”
Outside of scripted television, Shields recently popped up in the trailer for Season 2 of “Next Gen NYC” on Bravo, as her daughter Rowan Henchy joins the cast.
“The whole world made me want to cry, because it’s so foreign. I probably, in my own way, lived in my own reality show since the time I was 11,” she recalled. “I had to navigate all that while carving out my real life, so I come at it from a different perspective. What I have known about reality TV has not been positive, so when my daughter approached me, my first reaction was Hell no.”
“I basically said, understand Bravo, Peacock, understand the production, who you are working for and if you want to be in entertainment as an entertainment news person, which is her dream … If you can harness that and you can turn this into an opportunity, well, then I would be happy. I can’t tell you not to do it or to do it,” Shields added. “Excuse my expression, but don’t be the f–k up. Don’t be the person throwing up, be the person holding the girl’s hair back. Be a voice that you will be proud of if you had children.”
“They asked me to do an episode. One episode. Of course, it’s in the trailer, obviously. And I was like, ‘They’re gonna use me in the trailer,’ and she was like, ‘No, Mom, they won’t.’ I was like, just watch. And they did,” she concluded. “But they were lovely to work with. Those of the cast who I met, they were really sweet. I was relieved.”
“You’re Killing Me” premieres Monday on Acorn TV.
The post Brooke Shields Explains How TV Production Has Changed Since ‘Suddenly Susan’: ‘Just Mind-Boggling to Me’ appeared first on TheWrap.
