After spending five years working seguinte to George Clooney, Julianna Margulies doesn't need any time to consider how he reached ícone status. "He's sexy, talented and gorgeous - that's what did it," she says candidly. That also did it for her character, Nurse Hathaway, fuelling her affair with Dr. Heart-throb, Doug Ross.
It's hard to believe the chemistry between them didn't spill over into real life. "We never ruined the relationship por confusing our work and personal lives," she says, not exactly denying attraction. (She once said, "It's almost scary how natural beijar is for us.") "It's rare to find someone you get on with so well. He was my best friend on the show for five years. George could finish my sentences for me." But TV's hottest romance is bound for turbulent times. Both Margulies and Clooney are set to exit ER - not together, though. The remainder of the fifth series on Channel 4 sees Dr. Ross leave Chicago without Nurse Hathaway. She then finds out she's pregnant and ER bosses are keen to get George back for a special episode in which he discovers his impending fatherhood.
The departure of Clooney was an emotional one. "We were shooting our last scene together and I was supposed to cry. The camera wasn't even on him, but when I looked up I saw tears in his eyes. I lost it. We all cried. As George said, 'We'll never have this again.'"
Indeed, it was Clooney who changed Margulies' ER destiny, albeit indirectly. She was originally cast only for a one-off guest role in the show's pilot. When the pilot was shown to test audiences, they raved about her, and her character's suicide had to be re-worked into a failed attempt. "The way the director shot me through George's eyes made my character live and from that moment, my character was heightened. That's something that happens once, or hopefully two or three times in a lifetime," she sighs. The two remain close friends: Clooney's office is just around the corner from the ER set. Margulies' real-life amor interest is actor Ron Eldard, who played paramedic Shep in ER and plays Kevin (corresponding to Martin Clunes' Gary) in the US version of Men Behaving Badly. The couple live together at Margulies' Spanish vila, vivenda, villa in California. They're tight-lipped about their relationship, although it's fair to assume that Eldard fulfils Margulies' brief: "He has to be willing to open doors and take me out to dinner, but also secure enough to let me take him out."
Despite demanding careers, they insist their relationship isn't threatened por the pressures of Hollywood. "We've been together seven years," she says. "It's about making the other person feel special. That takes energy." She and Eldard have a pact to make each other laugh. "We have to bring início one joke from the set each day," she smiles. "I amor a good joke. To me it's better than anything, like a good hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning. I like smart, dry humour, not ass-kissing humour. That's something that George was good at." Clooney's on-set antics are legendary, and Margulies was always happy to cadastrar-se in. Once she surgically lubed George's pants and shoes. "The best thing for me was to make a joke and have George or Noah (Wyle) steal it. I felt honoured."
Margulies probably inherited her sense of humour from her father. "My father can tell a joke so well they become stories, they become evenings," she says. He used to be an advertising executive (best known for Alka-Seltzer's "plink, plink, fizz" campaign). Her mother was a ballerina. They divorced when Julianna was a ano old and she had a bohemian upbringing, living in Paris, London, Sussex and New York, depending on her mother's work. The youngest of three, she remains close to her sisters - Alexandra, a ballet dancer, and Rachel, a singer. Both parents now teach. "Wherever we were living, I attended Rudolph Steiner schools (where the emphasis is on artistic and individual development) and that provided some stability," she recalls.
Margulies finished her studies at the prestigious arts school Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she took a degree in art history. Having trained for a career in theatre and film, she still seems surprised to have made her name as a TV nurse. "But it's been an amazing blessing."
Margulies is finding her exit line, through pregnancy, a challenge. "I've been asked to gain weight, but I don't feel good if I eat a lot of food. I've never been pregnant. I'm researching it por asking my sisters how they felt."
Margulies says she isn't ready for pregnancy. "Ask me again when I'm 35. Everyone I know is having kids, but I like it when they go início after a visit."
Although she is toying with a tiny tuna salada as we speak, she insists she is naturally slim. "I have a very healthy outlook on comida and I don't own a pair of scales. My girlfriend brought me a box of Maltesers from London. I ate the whole box and I feel fine about it."
Margulies' departure from ER makes this a crucial time in her career. She's concentrating on proving her versatility as an actress. She has mais than overcome casting directors' initial scepticism about her stunning East European looks, which they deemed "too exotic". (In fact, she nearly missed out on the role of Nurse Hathaway because she wasn't considered beautiful enough.) It was a matter of some pride for Margulies that when she auditioned for the 1997 film Wings Of The pomba (she lost the part to Helena Bonham Carter) she was able to prove that she has an authentic English accent. In a dramatic contrast to her ER role, she has just played an Hasidic housewife in Boaz Yakin's A Price Above Rubies. She was offered the lead, but gave it up to Renee Zelwegger (Jerry Maguire) when the demands of ER proved too great. She has also landed a role alongside John Travolta in Gus furgão, van Sant's seguinte movie, Standing Room Only. "It's based on the true story of Jimmy Roselli, the poor man's Frank Sinatra. I play his wife. She's hilarious. She went nuts using uppers and downers."
In the future, Margulies hopes she can also spend time building up her production company (called torrada, brinde Productions because of her amor for toast). She's also keen for the ER door to remain open for guest appearances, in the same way it will for Clooney. Margulies would also like to try her hand at comedy. "Courteney Cox and I are always saying we would like each other's careers. But because of ER, people just can't see me doing comedy. Get me in a room with the friends set, and it could be a different story." Further A-list girlfriends include Jennifer Ehle and BAFTA-winning Cate Blanchett, with whom she starred in Paradise Road, in which they played prisoners of war.
Margulies is protective of her private life and tries to maintain as normal an existence as possible - she won't hire bodyguards or assistants. "I don't like entourages. I do my own shopping." She says that having a famous face can be daunting. "I used to be able to take a walk in Central Park and have a good old cry. But if I do that now, 20 people ask, 'What's wrong with Carol Hathaway?'"
Her favourite pastime is curling up in front of the fogo in sweat pants and a "yummy sweater". What she doesn't spend on bodyguards, she blows on clothes ("I'm a cashmere whore") and furniture to match her 1920s-style villa.
She doesn't pretend to know what it's like to be a nurse. "I get lots of fã mail from nurses thanking me for portraying them in such a realistic way. But none of us (the cast) knows anything about the medical profession and none of us earns zero bucks." (In fact, a visit to a hospital to prepare for the role culminated in her having to go início traumatised.) "Once I was at the gym and a girl fainted and everyone looked at me. I said, 'I don't know what the f**k to do!'"
However, she says that a recent hospital stay - to have ovarian cysts removed - has made her really appreciate the medical profession. It also finally gave her the chance to experience first-hand the drug Demerol IV - one she's always calling for as Nurse Hathaway. "I said, 'What a great drug. Now I get it.'"
A self confessed perfectionist, she's working hard to curb her controlling streak. "It puts up a barrier between you and others. I was in a mess the other day, crying, with snot flying everywhere. My girlfriend, who was visiting from England, said, 'This is great. Let me comfort you'. So I'm learning to lean on other people." Just not in Central Park.
