Polygamy Loves Company.

Genre: Drama
Series creator(s): Mark V. Olsen, Will Scheffer
Network: HBO
Role: Nicolette “Nicki” Grant (series regular)
Other cast: Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ginnifer Goodwin, Amanda Seyfried, Harry Dean Stanton, Bruce Dern, Grace Zabriskie, Douglas Smith, Mary Kay Place, Matt Ross, Joel McKinnon Miller
Original airdate: U.S., March 12 2006 (Season 1 pilot)

• Series Overview
• Memorable Nicki Quotations
• Big Love Series Trivia
• Critical Reception
• Series Awards & Nominations
• Big Love Online

More at Chloë Sevigny Online’s Big Love Photo Gallery

Synopsis from the Big Love About.com page:

Separated from the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, a large group sets up a commune in Utah where Polygamy is still the accepted way. Big Love is the story of Bill Henrickson, a polygamist carrying three wives, three homes, two Home Improvement stores and seven children in Utah. In addition to his large family, Bill must also deal with the threats from Roman (his father-in-law), who is attempting to claim 15% of his home improvement stores. Hiding his dark secret from the rest of the community in which he lives, life has become extremely complicated for Bill — but it is certainly never dull.

Chloë Sevigny portrays Nicolette “Nicki” Grant, Bill Henrickson’s conservative and manipulative second wife and Bill’s connection to Roman Grant. The icy relations between her Juniper Creek family and Bill often cause tensions in Nicki and Bill’s relationship, and Nicki’s built-in “family first-approach” to issues and events and her dedication to her father more often than not results in illicit and harmful activies and lies.

Quotations not available or coming soon.

• The show’s fictional fundamentalist group, the “United Effort Brotherhood”, is in some ways similar to and was largely inspired by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints whose financial and legal wing is called the “United Effort Plan”. The FLDS is one of the most prolific and well-known remaining groups of polygamists claiming to be the successors of the original LDS church.

• Big Love may have been inspired, in part, by real life Texan, Brian, who maintains a poly-amorous (bigamist) household with three wives.

• Sarah is the oldest of the Henrickson children but in real life Amanda Seyfried is 6 months younger then her co-star and character’s younger brother Douglas Smith.

• Renowned actor Tom Hanks is among the producers for the series.

Since the series’ 2006 debut, Big Love has steadily gained new fans and viewers, and was in February 2009 renewed for a fourth season by HBO. Critical reviews on the series have been mixed but generally positive, and particularly the lead actresses Sevigny, Tripplehorn and Goodwin, have been universally commended on their performances.

• Rating > Internet Movie Database: 8.3/10 (5,500 user votes counted)
• Rating > MetaCritic: 72/100 metascore, “Generally favorable reviews” (professional)

Extracts from professional reviews:

“If you’re waiting for a wink or satirical nudge, it’s not coming. Surprisingly for HBO, which has never exactly courted family-values conservatives, Big Love, for all its R-rated content, takes its deeply religious characters on their own terms. [...] Big Love is exciting and fascinating too. Beneath his bland exterior, Paxton subtly shows the pressures of trying to be the breadwinner of a ’50s-style household (that would be the 1850s) in the 21st century. [...] Secrets, threats, Viagra — Big Love was always going to be interesting TV, but what makes it first-rate drama is how confidently it moves past exoticism to the ordinary universals of family life. The big in the title, it turns out, refers to the expansiveness, not the number, of the Henricksons’ commitments.”
– James Poniewozik, Time

” In fact, there are elements of this new series that have a quirkiness that might seem deliberate or overly clever against a different backdrop, but that feels natural in its own gracefully odd environment. [...] Which, of course, leads us to the question of whether every drama that comes our way these days will be an imitation of The Sopranos in one way or another, featuring the same troubled yet sympathetic leading man with the world on his shoulders, just trying to make it from day to day. The look of the show, the pace, the characters all fit into that style of HBO drama that viewers are becoming accustomed to. But hey, why argue with a good thing? The deliciously odd situations and sympathetic yet stubborn characters of Big Love have kept me riveted for the first four episodes, and I can’t wait to watch more.”
– Heather Havrilesky, Salon.com

“Much of that audience is likely to stick around for all 12 parts of this thoroughly sharp, seriously compelling drama about a family of Salt Lake City Mormons living in a polygamous arrangement — a three-wife household, that is — under sharp scrutiny of suspicious neighbors. [...] Chloë Sevigny makes a convincingly dour wife No. 2 as the pathological spendthrift Nicky, who harbors a passion both for her husband and her father. Wife three, Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), has troubles of her own to contribute to this household. Admirably written, entertaining, and generously stocked with vivid, if not quite graphic, mating scenes.”
– Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal

Personal Thoughts:

Although I don’t watch a lot of television nowadays, Big Love has been strangely addictive to me from the beginning. The series is an entertaining, eye-opening and smart take on a rather unusual subject, and I was most pleased to see that although stereotypes are included, they do not make the show. It’s like watching House M.D., but with less satirical dialogue and more realism. Season 3 has thus far proved the series’ best — quite surprising, personally, since when it comes to television in general I have almost without exception preferred earlier seasons to later ones.

Chloë Sevigny’s as Nicolette “Nicki” Grant is such a pleasure to watch, and my main attraction to the series, despite its many other good qualities. It never ceases to amaze me how (seemingly) easily Chloë slips from role to role, no matter how different or unrelatable, which I imagine requires a level of versatility not many actors can boast on. Watching Chloë as Nicki reminds me of something her co-star Jeanne Tripplehorn once said about initially having a “crisis of character” portraying Barb, a character she felt she couldn’t understand. Does Chloë ever have one of those? Because if she does, it doesn’t show.

In 2010, Chloë Sevigny received her first Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, for her portrayal of Nicolette “Nicki” Grant.

• Nominated: Artios Award, 2006; Best Dramatic Episode Casting
• Nominated: Artios Award, 2009; Outstanding Achievement in Casting, Television, Drama
• Nominated: CDG Award, 2007; Outstanding Costume Design for a Television Series, Contemporary
• Nominated: CDG Award, 2008; Outstanding Costume Design for a Television Series, Contemporary
• Nominated: Emmy Award, 2006; Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series
• Nominated: Emmy Award, 2006; Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
• Nominated: Emmy Award, 2006; Outstanding Main Title Design
• Nominated: Emmy Award, 2008; Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
• Nominated: Emmy Award, 2009; Outstanding Drama Series
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award, 2007; Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award, 2007; Best Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award, 2008; Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award, 2008; Best Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award, 2010; Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Golden Globe Award, 2010; Best Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2006; Best Actor in a Series, Drama
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2006; Best Actress in a Series, Drama
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2007; Best Actor in a Series, Drama
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2007; Best Supporting Actor in a Series
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2007; Best Actress in a Series
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2009; Best Actor in a Series, Drama
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2009; Best Supporting Actor, Television
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2009; Best Supporting Actress, Television
• Nominated: Satellite Award, 2009; Best Television Series, Drama
• Nominated: Television Critics Association Award, 2006; Outstanding New Program of the Year
• Nominated: Young Artist Award, 2008; Best Performance in a TV Series, Recurring Young Actress
• Nominated: Writer’s Guild of America Award, 2010; Episodic Drama

• Won: BMI Cable Award, 2008
• Won: Golden Globe Award, 2010; Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Television

Below are some Big Love related links that may be of interest to you.

• Big Love official site
• Big Love TFL-approved fanlisting
• Big Love TFL-approved Nicki character fanlisting
• Big Love at IMDb.com
•Big Love at MetaCritic.com
• Big Love at Wikipedia.org

• Amanda Seyfried at Amanda Seyfried Source
• Bill Paxton at Bill Paxton Hall
• Ginnifer Goodwin Ginnifer Goodwin Central