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Set during the Christmas season, Borrowed Hearts is a poignant drama about Kathleen Russell (Downey), a struggling single mother who agrees that, for a fee, she and her seven-year-old daughter, Zoey (Rosen Fruitman), will pose as the family of Sam Field (McCormack), her bachelor boss. Field, a factory owner, hires Kathleen and Zoey in order to favorably impress a potential buyer of his company, Javier Del Campo (Elizondo), a visiting Mexican industrialist with strong, traditional views about family values. It being the holiday season, of course, things don't go exactly as planned.Irish-born actor Roma Downey has starred for the past two seasons on CBS' Touched By An Angel, the top-rated drama series on CBS and a consistent title on the Top Ten list of the highest-rated primetime network shows on television. On Touched By An Angel, which has become a genuine grass-roots television phenomenon, Downey plays "Monica", a wayward angel who is given the task of guiding people through changes at crucial crossroads of their lives. Seven-year-old Zoey becomes convinced that Del Campo is her guardian angel, and that he has arrived to help bring her delinquent dad, a traveling golf hustler, back home in time for the holidays. As Kathleen and Sam spend time together, their business relationship gives way to something personal and more meaningful. Maybe Del Campo, if he is indeed a guardian angel, is working for Zoey's happiness in ways she does not yet understand.
With the powerhouse casting of Roma Downey (Touched By An Angel), Eric McCormack (Lonesome Dove: The Series), Hector Elizondo (Chicago Hope) and screen newcomer Sarah Rosen Fruitman, Borrowed Hearts is a warm and tender love story that suggests even the smallest miracles are worth wishing for.
Undercover Angel
The TV-movie Borrowed Hearts (CBS, November 30), starring Hector Elizondo and Roma Downey, is the story of an angel who intervenes in the lives of some mere mortals. Surprise, surprise - it's not Downey who plays the heavenly creature. Did Elizondo look to his "Touched by an Angel" costar for advice: "We never spoke of it," he says. "But there's no trick to playing an angel. It's all in the conception. If you have a preconception of an angel, you're going to get it wrong and play the stereotype. The charm of the opportunity is not to do that, to surprise folks and give an angel human qualities."
In the contemporary tale, Elizondo exhibits very human qualities: The angel, Javier Del Campo, exists on Earth in the body of a businessman. His presence affects the lives of two lonely people (Roma Downey and Eric McCormack) and a young girl (Sarah Rosen Fruitman). And no, "he doesn't wear wings," says Elizondo, who likens the character to thecrutsy-on-the-outside -soft-on- the-inside hotel manager he played in "Pretty Woman."
"Javier's mission is to buy this particular company," the actor says, "but as afar as the girl is concerned, his mission is to put together a match - if you'll excuse the expression - made in heaven." Hearts marks Elizondo's first time in the role of an angel, though he has played a higher being on stage ("Steambath") and on-screen ("Final Approach"). "I suppose it's a demotion of sorts," he jokes. "Now I'm just a working hand."
The Chicago Hope star, who says he received an early Christmas gift in the form of the Emmy he took home this fall for best supporting actor in a drama, was particularly eager to jump intothe happy-holiday mode after an intense season. "On Chicago Hope, you're dealing with life-and-death issues and an environment that's supercharged," he says. "I was looking to do something lighter, and I was charmed by the fact that it was going to be something that would make people feel good."
So what's on the wish list of his Hope character? "Phillip could use an angel, definitely," Elizondo says of the romantically challenged doctor. "He needs love. He needs a lot of love."
