WASHINGTON -- She is the mysterious woman in red.
When Jennice Fuentes got the call from the casting director forHBO's "K Street," the new pseudo-reality series about Washington'sinner power circles, the next thing she did was phone the HouseEthics Committee for clearance to take a part.
That's because Fuentes, in real life, is the chief of staff forRep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), and she must be mindful of House ruleswhen it comes to outside employment. But Fuentes is an unusual chiefof staff in that she is also an actress with a long resume ofcommercial and voiceover roles. Most chiefs on the Hill do not carrySAG and AFTRA actor union cards.
"K Street" wantonly blurs fact and fiction, playing off the newsof the week. It is semi-improvised, mixing actors with politicalfigures who portray themselves. Washington's entertaining odd couple,Republican consultant Mary Matalin and her husband, Democraticadviser James Carville, are cast as the owners of a fictionalpolitical consulting firm.
The casting director at first told Fuentes to come to the set thenext day. Then, a few minutes later, Fuentes got another call tellingher the show needed her right away, that evening and don't bother tochange clothes.
She was wearing a red business suit and fish-net hose.
"I didn't know who I was going to be playing," she said, but thatdid not matter.
She drove Gutierrez to the airport for his flight to Chicago andexplained the situation. "He said 'go, have fun.' "
When Fuentes arrived on the set in Alexandria, Va., a nearbyWashington suburb, she was introduced to "this handsome guy with ablack T-shirt holding a little camera."
"Hi," he said to Fuentes, "my name is George."
As in George Clooney, the actor, who is, along with StevenSoderbergh, an executive producer of the show. Clooney is also one ofthe cameramen.
The twist here is that Fuentes is not playing herself, a pretty,powerful and brainy $130,000-a-year congressional chief of staff,fluent in Spanish, French and Italian -- who can get by in German andRussian. The actress in her, she said, would not allow her to revealher age, somewhere in her 30s.
Fuentes made her way to "K Street" through her acting, notpolitical connections. She had worked previously with the "K Street"casting director and was asked about a month ago to audition for theshow.
With a camera running, the audition was more of an interview."They basically asked me my name and whether I was a conservative ora liberal," said Fuentes, whose credits include a televisioncommercial for Planned Parenthood. Her own political leanings areleft-of-center, like her boss.
"At this point, I was acting, and I said I was a liberal withconservative views, and I don't believe in a woman's right tochoose."
After noticing the startled looks of her interviewers, shereminded them that she was acting.
Fuentes makes her "K Street" debut in the very end of episode two,televised last week. The storyline has the Matalin/Carville firmmaking a pitch to sign up the Recording Industry Association ofAmerica as a client. The real-life pols in the episode includedCalifornia Republican Representatives Mary Bono and David Dreier andSen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
Fuentes appears twice in the closing scenes. She was shot in thered suit she happened to be wearing that day.
John Slattery, who plays one of the Matalin and Carville partners,is watching a focus group discuss downloading music from theInternet.
The camera cuts to a table in the focus group room and there isFuentes portraying a silent character sitting against a wall. It'snot clear if the Fuentes' character is real or somebody Slattery isimagining.
At the end of the episode, the camera shows the shadow of a woman,and that is also Fuentes.
Fuentes' part is one of those small if-you-sneeze-you-missed-itthings. But the Fuentes character may take on a life of its own,based on the "K Street" Web site, which asks, "Who is the Woman inRed?" A teaser for episode three asks what is "the significance ofthe woman in red?"
Fuentes said she does not have a clue about the significance ofthe woman in red.
She wanted to be an actor since she was a little girl growing upin Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, about 25 minutes south of San Juan. Herfather was not willing to pay for acting classes and disapproved ofacting as a career, so she acted on the side while attending ClarkUniversity in Worcester, Mass., where she majored in politicalscience and international relations.
She went on to earn a master's in international relations from NewYork University and ended up as a staffer on Capitol Hill. She signedon as legislative director after Gutierrez was elected to Congress in1992 and was promoted to chief of staff in 2002.
After her father died in 1991, Fuentes decided she could pursueacting more seriously, and she started commuting from Washington toNew York on weekends for acting lessons, which she still does.
Fuentes also carved out a third role for herself -- as anentertainment writer and movie critic for Spanish-languagepublications in Washington and Puerto Rico.
Episode three will run at 9 p.m. Sunday on HBO. What about thewoman in red?
Said Fuentes, "My return is as much as mystery as the character."
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