Sherry Stringfield - USA Today
1999

"When you get in a situation that doesn't work, you're supposed to walk around and say, 'I'm so lucky,' even if it's not what you want," says Stringfield, 31, who left her role as Dr. Susan Lewis on ER so she could have more free time and a varied acting career.

 

So why did she sign up for ER in the first place? "To be honest, no one thought it was good. I never thought the show would last."

 

She moved to Manhattan, taught acting at her old college (the acting conservatory at State University of New York at Purchase), hosted a Lifetime documentary about women's struggle to balance work and career, and appeared in the film 54. She returns to prime time Monday night in her first TV acting role since ER in Border Line (NBC, 9 ET/PT), a TV movie produced by her old ER co-star Anthony Edwards.

 

Stringfield stars as a Los Angeles immigration attorney and single mom who arranges international adoptions and discovers a murder connected with the agency she represents. Elizabeth Pena and Christopher Reid co-star.

 

"I come from Texas, and I was surrounded by immigrants all my life," Stringfield says, "so this is a subject that I was really interested in. The movie is about how these immigrants are treated so poorly here. Who are we to treat others as lower-class when we're the children of immigrants ourselves?"

 

(Stringfield is a third-generation American whose paternal grandmother came here from Sweden.)Edwards and Stringfield first talked about working together on an outside project while she was at ER. What Stringfield brings to the role is "her strength," Edwards says. "You believe she could be an immigration lawyer, and she has vulnerability as a mother."

 

He wasn't surprised when Stringfield left ER. "The schedule was overwhelming for her, and she missed New York. A lot of people who are unhappy stick around and make everyone else miserable. Sherry didn't do that, and that was refreshing. . . . She has a really full life teaching and being a regular human being."

 

Stringfield says she's very happy doing a little acting and some teaching, and enjoying her recent marriage (in October) to writer Larry Joseph.

 

She also is trying to get a documentary off the ground about female healers, which she plans to host and produce.

 

After acting school, Stringfield worked three years on the daytime soap Guiding Light. She was seen on NYPD Blue's first season as the estranged wife of David Caruso's Detective John Kelly - then quit, saying there wasn't enough to do, to join ER.

 

As part of her exit from ER, Stringfield agreed to stay out of series television for the remainder of her contract - a term that's just about to expire.

 

Not that she's ready to sign up for a series again. "Oh, God, that would be a shocker," she says. "No way."

 

by Jefferson Graham