Amy Brenneman News

Don't call her a McShrink! Amy Brenneman says that Private Practice is much more than just a Grey's Anatomy spinoff. The Connecticut native and married mother of two talked a little with Us Weekly about the show recently.

Us: What attracted you to the show?
Amy Brenneman: They really set out to write about people 10 years older than the Grey's Anatomy crew, and all the funny and smart stuff that goes with having been around those 10 additional years.

Us: How is working with Kate Walsh?
Amy Brenneman: Wonderful! She's a lovely girl. She's classy, funny and very humble.

Us: You also star in The Jane Austen Book Club with Maria Bello and Emily Blunt. Was that fun to film?
Amy Brenneman: I loved hanging with the girls, and Emily Blunt made me laugh my ass off. She's a goofball. I haven't experienced this since high school, but we cracked each other up during scenes.

Us: How do you stay so fit?
Amy Brenneman: Between doing this job and having two kids, I don't! I laugh when I read, "Oh, she spends two hours in the gym every day." I'm like, No, she doesn't, she has two kids!

It's been two years since she starred on the successful Judging Amy. Now Amy Brenneman is back on prime time, playing the Oceanside Wellness Center's resident psychiatrist, Dr. Violet Turner, on Private Practice.

In this terrific interview, TV Guide caught up with Amy Brenneman, a five-time Emmy Award nominee, to talk about raising kids, returning to TV after time off, and who inspired her to play an obsessive ex-girlfriend.

TV Guide: Why did you decide to return to TV after mostly making movies for the past two years?
Amy Brenneman: Shonda Rhimes. I'm ADD enough and I have these little kids so it's rare that I get sucked into a show. I did it with Grey's Anatomy, especially with Izzie and Denny. I got completely swept up in it and all the chances the [writers and actors] were taking. At that point, I really didn't have any interest in returning to television. But I remember thinking, "That looks like a blast!"

TV Guide: Did you know Shonda before she approached you for this show?
Amy Brenneman: I had not met Shonda, but we share people in common. My husband [director Brad Silberling] did a movie with Ellen Pompeo called Moonlight Mile. Shonda really loved that movie. That's where she first saw Ellen and got excited to work with her. Her producing partner Betsy Beers and Brad developed something, too, so the world gets smaller and smaller. So no, I had not met her. But when I sat down with her and Betsy, I really did feel like they were old friends.

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Fans already had a little taste of Private Practice in a two-part episode of Grey's Anatomy earlier this year, and got to meet Dr. Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman) and Violet's love interest, Alan (D.W. Moffett).

But D.W. Moffett has his own show on the CW, Life is Wild, so Amy Brenneman doesn't know what's up for her character's romance. Still, here's what this acclaimed actress had to say about the upcoming series.

"Remember Carlton the doorman?" she joked.

"I don't know. I know that [Violet] is hung up on Alan in a pretty serious way for the foreseeable future so I really don't know if it's going to be re-cast. I have a great imagination so if you don't want to spend the money, that's okay. No, I think that is her mother lode right there."

Amy Brenneman used to headline her own successful TV series (Judging Amy), so she didn't really need to go back down that road, she says.

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She's compiled an impressive, lengthy resume, including many years as the lead character on Judging Amy, but former NYPD Blue star Amy Brenneman fears her famous nude scene on the hit TV cop series will come back to haunt her.

The actress became one of the first women to bare it all on prime time TV in the United States back in 1993, and although her saucy scene was brief, she knows there are hundreds of outtakes still in existence.

Amy Brenneman says of the shot: "They shot lots of unused stuff for that nude scene ... which I'm convinced is now on Swedish TV somewhere."

With all the attention given to nude photo scandals these days, it's hard to say if such a thing could happen to the Private Practice star. However, it was filmed for prime time television, making it only so scandalous.

Texas-born actor Brett Cullen, whom you may remember as Goodwyn on ABC's Lost, Vanessa Williams' millionaire squeeze on Ugly Betty and Taylor Kitsch's alcoholic father on NBC's Friday Night Lights, continues his guest starring tour of high-profile shows with an appearance on Private Practice this fall.

Below is a photo of the actor filming scenes with Amy Brenneman on the set of Private Practice last week. Brett Cullen will appear in episode #5, which has just been completed. Private Practice premieres Wednesday!

Amy Brenneman and Brett Cullen on the set of Private Practice.

It is not clear yet who Cullen will play on the series. Could it be the previous love interest of Brenneman's character, Violet Turner, who she broke up with only to watch him get engaged to someone else quickly?