William Baldwin may be married to singer Chynna Phillips, but he and on-screen love Candis Cayne make a stunning couple in the new ABC series "Dirty Sexy Money" which premieres tonight. I chatted them up last week at a party marking the 40th anniversary of The Advocate magazine.
(BTW, in the photo above of Baldwin with co-star Donald Sutherland and Dan Rather, Rather is playing himself in a guest spot.}
"Money" marks the first TV series for Baldwin, whose film credits include "Backdraft," "Three of Hearts," "Slither" and "Fair Game," among others.
"I had been putting together some projects for the last 3-4 years, but we couldn't get them off the ground," Billy said. "We pitched them, we sold them, we wrote scripts. But for this, I was an actor for hire. They said they had me in mind for this part and I went into the meeting and things just clicked in the meeting. Great show-runner, great cast, great concept, we're having a lot of fun."
Baldwin plays a politician running for the U.S. Senate who puts his family man image at risk by becoming involved with a transgendered woman played bvy transgender actress Cayne.
"Our storyline, it's a scandal. It's a scandal," Baldwin said, laughing.
Added Cayne: "I'm very fortunate to be cast in the role. I hope that people take from me and my character that this is nothing that is so out there and so weird that people can't identify with me as a human. We really need to do it in an accurate way and focus on telling a real story, not a fake story or a story that doesn't happen in our community. And I think that's what "Dirty Sexy Money" is doing."

Baldwin told me that "the chemistry has been great" between he and Cayne. He then turned to her and said: "When I first met you, I think I was a bit nervous to try and convey to you that I was like totally cool, totally accepting and waiting with open arms for us to meet each other and know each other and work together."
At the first table reading, they shook hands then Baldwin took her and hugged her and squeezed her.
"That helped so much," Cayne said.
Baldwin said he has no plans to hold back when it comes to their love scenes: "I was saying in hair and make-up the other day, I said 'We kissed in the scene and it was good for television, it's good for movies the kiss we had, but in a real relationship, we would have kissed totally different from that - we would have been totally going for it.
And I said, 'I don't know if Candis thinks I'm afraid to do that because she thinks I'm uncomfortable with it. If anything, I wanted to go for it."

In addition to Baldwin and Cayne, the cast includes such heavyweights as Donald Sutherland, Peter Krause and Jill Clayburgh.