Tony winner Swoosie Kurtz is set to co-star with Kristin Chenoweth (another Tony winner) in the ABC pilot Pushing Daisies.
I think Kurtz is terrific. I loved her in Sisters, of course. She was also great in the brilliant satire Citizen Ruth. Kurtz played Kelly Preston‘s girlfriend. I greatly enjoyed their over-the-top portrayal of pro-choice activists who “rescue” a paint-huffing, birth-control-shunning rube (Laura Dern). And Kurtz was haunting in The House of Blue Leaves — and in Huff, for that matter. The only time she’s disappointed me was in Imaginary Friends, the Broadway show of five or so years ago in which Kurtz played Lillian Hellman to Cherry Jones‘ Mary McCarthy. It sounded pretty brilliant. It was pretty bad. But Pushing Daisies might be interesting. According to Variety, it’s about “a man who falls in love with a deceased woman after he figures out how to bring the dead back to life.” Kurtz will play the man’s aunt.
The central character is played by Lee Pace, otherwise known as the star of Soldier’s Girl and as Aaron in the vastly underappreciated Wonderfalls. And Wonderfalls producer and co-creator Bryan Fuller (who also brought us Dead Like Me) is an executive producer of Pushing Daisies too.
Dare we hope the show will live up to all those gay-friendly credentials? I’ve been burned before. But I’ll tune in, ’cause Swoosie’s skills are swoon-worthy.
