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Timothy Hutton is starting to sweat. Unable to find his gold wedding band, he is feverishly rifling through the pockets of his blue raincoat. Although he's sure it's not in the slicker, the missing object turns up soon enough--right there on his finger. As he sits back down in his dressing room chair, a visibly relieved Hutton explains, "I have to take it off when I put this stuff on."
"This stuff" being the zoot suit, short fat tie and wing-tip shoes Hutton wears to play Archie Goodwin, the very capable--and very single--crime-solving assistant on A&E's Nero Wolfe. Based on author Rex Stout's acclaimed mystery novels, the 12-part series is being launched after A&E's The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery attracted a healthy audience when it aired last year. As in the original movie, Maury Chaykin plays the title character, an agoraphobic private eye who relies heavily on Archie.
"It's a classic odd couple", explains Hutton, 40. "On any given day, one or the other says "That's it. I can't work with you anymore."
In addition to starring and co-executive producing, Hutton--who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1980's Ordinary People--directs three of the series' episodes. Bill Smitrovich (Life Goes On), who plays Inspector Cramer, says it helps having an actor in the director's chair. "Tim is willing to trust the characters, let the camera roll a little bit and see what happens. He's a very creative boss." As a director, Hutton draws inspiration from Noel Coward plays, Preston Sturges movies, and the "Thin Man" films. "That, to me, was the style we should go for," says Hutton. "These people live in a world of a different kind of energy in the way they speak, interact and get things done."
It's world his father, the late Jim Hutton, inhabited on NBC's The Adventures of Ellery Queen. Hutton, however, eschews the comparison to the 1975 series. "I wouldn't want anyone to think [Nero Wolfe] is like Ellery Queen," says the actor, who was raised in Los Angeles by his mother, Maryline Hutton Adams, a librarian, after his parents divorced when he was 3 (he also has an older sister, Heidi). "The writing is so different. To me, the only thing they have in common is that they're both in the same profession."
While Hutton is clearly devoted to all things Nero Wolfe, he's even more excited about spending time with his 13-year-old son, Noah (from his four-year marriage to actress Debra Winger). In 24 hours, they will be traveling to France to meet up with Hutton's wife, Aurore Giscard d'Estaing. Hutton met d'Estaing--a graphic designer and niece of former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing--while shooting "French Kiss" with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline in 1994. Married last January, the couple split their time between Paris and New York.
Despite his jet-setting lifestyle, Huttons says he's happiest just being a dad. "My favorite thing to do is spending time with Noah," says Hutton, who shares joint custody with Winger. Father and son enjoy building things (like treehouses and bridges) on Hutton's 200-year-old farm in upstate New York and playing baseball and basketball together.
"Since my son was born," he says, "I really want to be home for good stretches during the year."
That's unlikely for now, though, given that Hutton starts shooting "Gold Coast", on Florida's Amelia Island later this month. he co-stars with Edie Falco (The Sopranos) as a landscape architect looking to change the community's coastline. "We build disgusting condominiums that look the same, kill a bunch of trees and ruin the ecosystem," he says with a wry smile.
Further down the road, Hutton hopes to leave acting behind him for good. "I never wanted to act and direct," he says. And the benefits of being a full-time director? "Staying in street clothes," says Hutton.
Not to mention never having to worry about misplacing your wedding ring.