The future of Britton - actress Connie Britton

Interview, Oct, 1997 by Graham Fuller

One of the many dubious legacies of political correctness in film and television of the '90s is that the "strong woman" character has become an oppressive archetype who wears her strength on her sleeve like a Girl Scout badge. Paradoxically, few A-list actresses - least of all those self-vaunting pseudofeminists who've used their power to command the biggest salaries and noisiest star status - manage to seem strong without proclaiming it. The media reserve the word feisty for these paper tigresses, damning them with faint praise.

And then there comes along a limber actress like Connie Britton - barely "C-list" yet, but watch out - whose strong-womanliness is not an advertorial for her career but an innate part of her being, something she communicates with simple ease. Britton was gloriously unfazed as the Long Island teacher whose husband (the big dolt!) cheated on her in The Brothers McMullen (1995), and as a single mother, she's purportedly the moral center of the next Ed Burns film, Long Time, Nothing New, due out next February. Just now, Britton can be seen in the second season of Spin City, in which she plays, with unforced elan, television's most sexually adventurous accountant.

"Groundedness is the quality I always want to be there," says Britton, "even if I'm playing a neurotic character, or a woman with a rambunctious sex life, like Nikki in Spin City. What does that mean, anyway? It means Nikki's a solid, savvy woman who's searching for something to fulfill herself. I always try to find the strength in any character I play - that's just my thing. I figure as long as I do that I'm happy, and," she adds lightly, "if they don't like it, screw 'em."