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It’s raining ’Men’ for Anne Heche in her new ABC series

By Jay Bobbin from Zap2it

"Men in Trees" isn’t just a new series; it’s also the climactic step in Anne Heche’s master plan.

After launching her career on a daytime serial -- NBC’s now-defunct "Another World," which earned her a Daytime Emmy Award as twins Marley and Vicky -- the lively actress went on to do movies ("Six Days, Seven Nights," "Donnie Brasco") and Broadway ("Proof," "Twentieth Century"), but marriage and parenthood prompted her to refocus her sights on the steadier pace of television work.

Starring roles in TV movies such as "Gracie’s Choice" and "The Dead Will Tell" and guest arcs on the series "Everwood" and "Nip/Tuck" began Heche’s process of landing a weekly vehicle.

Now it has arrived in the form of ABC’s Friday entry "Men in Trees," casting her as a relationship expert who questions the wisdom she espouses in her best-sellers after learning of her fiance’s infidelity.

Heche plays Marin Frist, newly settled in an Alaskan town where she had a speaking engagement, and getting fresh input on life and love from Elmo’s male population, 10 times bigger than that of females. Her most prominent advisers include enviromentalist Jack (James Tupper), bartender Ben (Abraham Benrubi, "ER"), pilot Buzz (John Amos, "Good Times") and ardent Marin fan Patrick (Derek Richardson, "Felicity").

"It’s certainly a new adventure for me," Heche says, "different from anything else in my experience. I had a beautiful 10 episodes on ’Everwood’; I loved that show, and I think it helped prep me for the world of prime-time television. I really wanted to try to find a place that could be my home."

And not only a professional home, stresses Heche, whose public profile was raised by a past relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. "I knew I wanted to create a safe place for my family (cameraman husband Coley Laffoon and 4-year-old son Homer), and the best way I could probably do that would be to get a TV show. After that, you hope it gets on the air and finds its audience, but I had to go out and learn the craft before taking on being the lead in a show."

"Men in Trees" was created by Jenny Bicks, a writer and executive producer of "Sex and the City." "Of course, that impressed and tantalized me," Heche says. "What ’Sex and the City’ often didn’t allow for, with its half-hour format, was this incredible heart Jenny has. She supports the humor with these incredibly interesting characters.

"When you read the scripts, you know they have such great rhythm, then they become so much more complicated when you start acting them. I could not have hoped for a better part and a better voice."

Of course, the fish-out-of-water-and-into-Alaska premise makes comparisons to the critically lauded "Northern Exposure" inevitable. "That was an incredible show," Heche says. "I think people really liked that universe of a different and beautiful place, and you get deeply into that world very quickly."

Heche is immersing herself in it well beneath the surface. "There’s nothing I like more in my life than encouraging people to love, and find happiness with, themselves," reflects the author of the autobiography "Call Me Crazy." "I really do believe in the things Marin is teaching. Of course, Marin then has to discover she doesn’t believe any of it, which is what’s interesting. It’s really fun to have a character who spews it all out there -- ’Be loved! Find happiness!’ -- then has to question it for herself."

Depicting that in the environs of Vancouver, British Columbia, where "Men in Trees" is filmed, has definite benefits. "You’re able to see some of the most gorgeous, glorious vistas in the world," Heche says. "We really like being isolated up there. We’re not going to the Warner Bros. back lot where we have to shoot along with five other shows. We really get to dive into the world that’s up there."

In a way, the show’s schedule has forced Heche to do that. She says friends who have starred in series have warned her "it’s going to be the hardest work I’ve ever done. I love that, though. This has been the thing I’ve wanted for five years, to try to achieve this goal, and it couldn’t have been given to me in any better way. Well, (the network) could have said, ’We’ll pick you up for three years,’ but we want to be sure that what we’re saying is connecting."

Adding that she hasn’t "worked this hard since I was on the soap opera," Heche has fond memories of "Another World." She maintains that job taught her that "if I learned my lines and embraced the writing, we would become a team, and that has helped me in every job I’ve done since.

"Certainly in television, you’re getting words very quickly and acting them very quickly. You have to make decisions, make them clearly and commit to them. You don’t really have time to wonder whether something will work or not. I’m grateful to have had that experience, because if I hadn’t, all of this might be more confusing to me."