NY Daily News

Sasha Alexander's Maura gets a new perspective on jail in 'Rizzoli & Isles'
Forensic ace's latest wrong turn leads her to the lockup in TNT hit series

It wasn't all that surprising, frankly, when Don Draper ended up in the drunk tank of the local jail Sunday night on “Mad Men.”

But it could be a very sobering moment, so to speak, when Sasha Alexander’s Maura Isles finds herself behind bars in an upcoming episode of the TNT hit drama “Rizzoli & Isles.”

“It’s quite a scene,” says Alexander. “Jail is definitely a new experience for Maura.”

She’s not there because she’s drunk. Still, jail is a place where her encyclopedic knowledge of the human anatomy and an awe-inspiring array of other academic trivia do her little good.

What’s not new is that the fact that Maura’s once-tidy life — her habits, like her wardrobe, are precise, neat and fastidious — has taken a number of ragged turns since she started hanging out with Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) in the cops-and-robbers drama whose third season kicks off Tuesday night at 9.

She’s been shot at, held hostage and learned her mysterious father is Paddy Doyle, one of the most notorious mobsters in Boston.

“I love the Paddy Doyle character,” says Alexander. “I’m so happy he gets to play out. He brings out a different side of Maura that makes her more fun to play.

“He’s also the Whitey Bulger character, so that keeps things interesting.”

Paddy’s presence, in fact, is an indirect reason Maura ends up in jail as a murder suspect.

“Families can do that, can’t they?” muses Alexander.

But she says she’s still enjoying “Rizzoli & Isles,” where she’s about to set a personal record for tenure on a TV series.

She played agent Caitlin Todd on “NCIS” for two seasons before she asked to leave and the produces obliged by having Caitlin shot in the head. She has since returned for a couple of brief flashbacks and in a “Fringe”-style alternate-universe incarnation.

One reason she finds “Rizzoli & Isles” more accommodating, says the 40-year-old Alexander, is that it gives her more time for her two young children, Lucia, 7, and Leonardo, 2.

“I like taking care of the kids and I also like working,” she says. “During our last break I did a movie, ‘Girl From Nagasaki.’ I’d love to come to New York and do Broadway or live theater.”

She tries to leave Maura behind in the off-season, though that may not always work out.

“I was in a conversation about the ice hotel,” she says, “and I had it in the wrong country. And as we kept talking, Angie said, ‘You’re doing Maura. You sound just like Maura.’ So maybe I don’t step as far away as I thought.”

Though sometimes she does.

She’s working on scripts, she says, and finishing a children’s book.

She’s also finishing an updated revision of a popular out-of-print cookbook compiled by her mother-in-law, Sophia Loren.

“It has a lot of Italian food,” says Alexander. “But it’s not all Italian. And it’s a little bit lighter.”

 

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