On Emily Owens, M.D., Mamie Gummer plays a med school graduate just starting out as an intern.
No longer will Emily be the nerdy schoolgirl plagued by nervous perspiration, exclusion from the cool crowd and awkwardness with boys! She has reached a long-awaited turning point: adulthood. At least, that's what she tells herself.
Except her new life as a doctor feels uncomfortably like her former life. Denver Memorial Hospital feels eerily like high school, with its cliques and gossip and a fellow intern who, gorgeous and popular, was Emily's nemesis back in high school.
As a doctor, Emily knows her stuff.
But on a personal level, she's still dorky and naive.
"She's really smart," says Gummer, "which rescues her when her heart and lack of confidence get her into jams. She's very easy to embrace. I really love her!"
With a little luck, the audience will love her, too, and make a hit out of Emily Owens (premièring tonight at 9 p.m. on CTV2 and the CW network). And in the process, turn Mamie Gummer into a star.
Maybe then she'll be recognized for her own sizable talents rather than, primarily, as the actress-daughter of Meryl Streep.
The family resemblance is easy to see. But Gummer comes across as more ethereal, more vulnerable than her celebrated mom. Warm and friendly during a recent interview, she is also plainly ill-at-ease at being interviewed.
Gummer makes no bones about it: Interviews aren't her favourite thing.
"I feel like I'm a secondary artist, a kind of a conduit for the writer, and if it's a good writer then I have a great road map. If the material's not as good, or if I'm writing the material - which is what I'm doing right now, talking to you - then I get a little nervous.
The second of four children of Streep and sculptor Don Gummer, Mamie Gummer may not yet be a household name. But at 29, she has accumulated solid acting credits. She made her off-Broadway premiere in Mr. Marmalade, a dark comedy in which she co-starred with Michael C. Hall. She arrived on Broadway in a revival of Les liaisons dangereuses."
In the 2007 film drama Evening, she played the younger version of Streep's character. She appeared in the HBO miniseries John Adams, and has guest-starred on CBS's The Good Wife.
Now she's stepping front and centre as the star of her own series.
Yes, her mom has seen it. Her father, too.
"They're big Emily Owens' fans," she reports, "over there at the Gummer household."
But then the conversation inevitably comes around to this central question: What led Mamie Gummer to step into a field where her mother plays such a commanding role?
"Acting is really fun and deeply gratifying," she says. "When I was younger, it was more of a look-at-me kind of endeavour. But as an actor goes deeper, it becomes 'look-at-me and see YOU': What can I reveal about YOU, the audience, that you recognize?"
"I married a man who makes me feel beautiful, all the time," she explains, meaning actor Benjamin Walker ( Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), whom she met in Les liaisons dan-gereuses and wed a year ago.
"And also, I'm getting over myself a little bit," she proudly announces. "I'm almost 30. It's time!"
