Chances are there’s a Connie Britton character you absolutely adore. Whether it’s Rayna Jaymes on “Nashville,” Tami Taylor on “Friday Night Lights” or, for Gen Xers, Nikki Faber on “Spin City,” Britton is a cherished part of the American TV and film landscape. There’s just something about her: That voice with a delicate hint of twang in it, that trademark strawberry blond mane, the sense that she’d be your closest confidante if you were lucky enough to have her in your social orbit
Now that she’s a mom to a teenager, she’s garnering a new generation of fans, Britton says, joining Alexa on Zoom from her home in LA. “I’ll do a lot of things with kids around my son’s age, and I’m getting a lot of parents saying, ‘I just started watching “Friday Night Lights” with my kids,’” the 58-year-old Britton says with a laugh. “There’s another generation discovering it, and that’s really fun.”
That’s to say nothing of Britton’s chops for dark comedy, like her roles as a gaslighting college dean in 2020’s “Promising Young Woman,” a pampered lifestyle guru in the first season of “The White Lotus” and a therapist-turned-girlfriend in 2014’s “This Is Where I Leave You.”
The one version of her we haven’t seen much of is … Connie Britton.
For the first time in her career, Britton’s appearing in an unscripted show: Hallmark’s “The Motherhood,” out May 5, in which Britton hosts a six-episode series focusing on building a support system for single mothers, one mom per week. Together with three experts the show dubs “The Neighbor Ladies,” Britton talks to each mom about the particular challenges she’s facing and confers with her experts to come up with a plan to devise supports. The other moms join in the support group, with the goal of creating a community of friends that’ll last long after the cameras are off.
“I don’t watch a lot of reality TV,” Britton admits. “But I watched ‘Queer Eye,’ because to me, there was something so genuine and authentic about it.” She partnered with the “Queer Eye” production company, Scout, to bring “The Motherhood” to fruition. “This became a real dream of mine, because of my own experience as a single mom, but also, I saw a real need for it.”
In a media landscape with bountiful examples of single moms on scripted shows — think “Gilmore Girls,” “Jane the Virgin,” “Ginny & Georgia,” “Better Things” — a glaring lack of attention to single motherhood marks the reality show landscape. “There’s just a real void in the stories we’re telling in our culture around the reality of what it is to be a single mom,” Britton says. She’s eager to start a course correction, and she wants to do it in the spirit of sisterhood. “This is not something where people are coming on the air to be torn down!” Britton says. “They’re all willing participants, and we’re showing them in the most loving and authentic way.”
It’s an idea Britton’s been workshopping for years, inspired by her own experience adopting her son, Eyob (she calls him Yoby) from Ethiopia in 2011, when she was just starting work on “Nashville.” “It’s so all-consuming,” she says. “Nobody tells you. I think people always feel that way, like, ‘I wish somebody had warned me.’ But the truth is, it’s very hard to convey what it takes to be a good parent. Especially when you’re doing it by yourself!”
It was a juggling act that opened her eyes to the ways in which single motherhood can be both empowering and isolating. “I’ve gone through a lot of it, and I can share my own experience. Also, I’ve had a lot of privilege, and I want to be able to help people who have less.” For Britton, who describes herself as a very private person, that need to help compelled her to share herself on-camera. “I would have thought that I would have been more guarded, or self-protective or something, but the purpose of us all being there was so powerful,” she says.
“The Motherhood” was shot in Kansas City, a perfect showcase for how single moms are living in the heartland. Britton was excited for another reason: “I always wanted to go to Kansas, which is a real throwback to being a child who was mesmerized by ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”
Befitting an “Oz” lover, Alexa shot Britton in a series of dazzling looks (minus the ruby slippers), in New York’s Fifth Avenue Hotel. “It’s an old mansion, and it was owned by the same family for years,” says Britton, who was entranced by the renovated property where she modeled a series of gowns she describes as “stunning, like, beyond, beyond!”
Her top pick was a flowy Zimmermann dress: “The most unbelievable gown fit for a queen!” Britton also wore pieces she’s got her eye on for future events. “One was this beautiful red silk with a high slit up the leg, and I was like, I could wear this dress. Another had shimmery silver beading, so I felt like a chandelier. In the best way. Those two pieces I loved, because I’m a practical girl at heart, and I was like, I could wear these to an event and be comfortable!”
Most of all, she cherished the connection between her motherhood, “The Motherhood” and embracing glamour. “It was very cool, as a mom in her fifties, to do a gorgeous, sexy fashion shoot,” she says. “I love that I had the opportunity to do this beautiful shoot in such a beautiful place, and to really celebrate being a mom. That was special for me.”
It’s a comment that recalls the media rhetoric around her breakout role in “Friday Night Lights,” with critics opining sometimes with surprise on how Britton made a character in her mid-40s sexy. (One male friend of mine nearly swooned when he heard I was interviewing the Tami Taylor.) I ask Britton how she thinks the industry has changed vis-a-vis middle-aged women actors: Have we evolved? Backslid? “There was a period where it felt like there was a real interest in women who are over 40. I feel that window is closing a little bit now. I think there’s not as much commitment to telling those stories. But my commitment is the same. So it’s just about staying true to that, navigating the system as it is.”
Britton was born in Boston and raised in Maryland and Virginia; she majored in Asian studies at Dartmouth College, and spent her freshman summer studying in Beijing, China, alongside another American go-getter: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “She’s who you want in the foxhole with you!” Britton says with a laugh. “In my case, it was on the mean streets of Beijing in 1986.” The college friends obviously went in different career directions, though they’ve kept in touch; Britton has maintained political involvement throughout her life, and has been a UN Goodwill Ambassador for the past 11 years.
When she looks back at the era in which she adopted her son, it seems like a different world. “International adoption is basically closed at this point,” she says. “We are in this kind of contraction in the world. When I grew up, I had this very global outlook. I was raised with the idea that we could extend a hand to our neighbors around the world. I wanted to know about other cultures. I wanted to know how I could help.”
Like mother, like son: Britton shares that Yoby was excited to be included in the community-building world of “The Motherhood,” even if he was only glimpsed in photos. He’s dipping a toe into acting this year, too: “He’s playing a part in the eighth grade play,” Britton shares. “He’s good! Like, he’s really natural and funny.” Still, she says, she has zero interest in pushing her son toward becoming an actor: “Only if he really feels the pull.”
Work-life balance, as any single mom knows, is ever-challenging: Britton is commuting between shooting in New York and being at home in LA with Yoby, as well as her partner of five years, producer David Windsor, who has two kids of his own. It’s nonstop, she tells me, but also a constant source of joy.
This might be Britton’s most mom-centric year ever: “Overcompensating,” out on Amazon Prime in mid-May is a heartfelt comedy about a high school jock heading to college with a secret he’s been keeping from his parents (Britton and Kyle MacLachlan): He’s gay. Britton’s character, a daffy empty nester finding new life in self-defense classes and a job at J.Crew at the mall, pops in occasionally to offer that trademark Britton warmth. “It’s a really important story, and it’s told in the most brilliant, funny way,” Britton says. “Everybody’s going to want to watch it, and then they’re also going to realize they’ve learned something.”
Britton envisions a similar stealth effect from “The Motherhood.” “We need to get rid of the divide, and actually look at our neighbors and say, ‘You know what, I’m having a hard time, and I see you’re having a hard time too. How can we help each other?’ That’s really what this show is all about. My hope is that, because there’s just such fundamental humanity there, it will really have universal appeal. That’s how you change how people see the world.”
Britton was photographed in NYC’s luxurious Fifth Avenue Hotel, which comprises a landmark Gilded Age mansion and a newer glass tower. The hotel’s “bohemian romantic” aesthetic flows through its double-height lobby, adorned with arched windows, cabinets of curiosities and an impressive collection of art. Its 153 guest rooms and suites are swathed in a whimsical palette of garden green, marigold and pink peony, along with exuberant fabrics and Murano chandeliers. Epicurean delights are overseen by James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Carmellini. Rooms from $895 per night at TheFifthAvenueHotel.com; 1 W. 28th St.
Editor: Serena French; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Talent Booker: Patty Adams Martinez; Hair: Creighton Bowman at Tomlinson Management Group; Makeup: Gita Bass at The Wall Group using May Lindstrom Skincare; Manicure: Julie Kandalec using OPI; Fashion Assistants:
Jena Beck, Meghan Powers; Producer: Savannah Shipman; Lighting Director: Tim Young; Lighting Assistant: Faisal Mohammed, Digital Tech: Dustin Betterly
