Source: Daily Breeze.com
Article By: Eirik Knutzen
Date: July 18, 2005
Every morning just before sunrise there is a long, sleepy line stretching in front of the makeup trailer on the New Mexico “Wildfire” set, where a small army of brawny makeup artists are waiting with rollers and buckets of paint.
Although Dennis Weaver is a cast regular, beauty magicians are primarily focused on the big, powerful star — Moreno, the horse — who plays the title character of the show, plus his stand-ins and stunt performers Finder, Mattie and Butthead.
In a vicious business calling for good looks, youth and agility, Drifter, the shiftless original headliner, was replaced after only two episodes. Once touched up with gallons of red-brown and white water soluble paint, plus their hair trimmed and fluffed, the whole herd moves on for breakfast near the catering truck.
Minutes later, the yawning and stretching leading lady, Genevieve Cortese, shows up in makeup for fine tuning surrounded by the likes of Weaver, Nana Visitor, Greg Serano and Micah Alberti, some sipping steaming cups of coffee.
The beauties and the beasts are all there on the outskirts of Albuquerque to shoot “Wildfire,” a heartwarming family series revolving around a troubled 18-year-old woman scrambling to turn her life around before it’s too late.
In her television debut, Cortese portrays Kris Furillo, a car thief recently released from juvenile detention who has a special gift for working with thoroughbred racehorses.
Kris’ considerable skills are recognized by a ranch manager/respected race horse trainer, Pablo (Serano), a volunteer teaching riding and horsemanship at the detention center. He is particularly impressed with her work with Wildfire, a high-strung thoroughbred ill-suited for the sheriff’s department’s equine training program.
Taking a big chance on the embittered youth — beaten down by a drug addict mother and an absentee father — Pablo arranges for Kris to work with him training racehorses at the financially-troubled Ritter ranch in Fremont. The shaky operation is run by the family patriarch, Henry Ritter (Weaver), his skeptical daughter, Jean (Visitor) and her romantic, college-bound son, Matt (Alberti).
By the time the brilliant sun hangs low over New Mexico’s spectacular desert wilderness and the director yells “Action!” Cortese is putting Moreno (or one of his stand-ins) through his paces. Riding comes easy to the jockey-sized actress at 5-feet-4-inches and 105 pounds, as she has been around horses all her life, mainly because her mother has been a serious equestrienne for many years.
With only three paying acting jobs behind her — the independent features “Mojave,” “Kids in America,” and “Bickford Schmeckler’s Cool Ideas” that may be released someday — it didn’t hurt when Cortese displayed her obvious confidence in the saddle of 1,200 pound mammals during a couple of auditions.
“I’m comfortable saddling up horses and galloping into the sunset,” she says, laughing, “But it has never been a sport that I have been interested in.
“Obviously, I learned a lot about horses mostly to please my mom. But the day I was cast I started brushing up on everything that had to do with horses and riding. My character is inching closer towards becoming a jockey and I want to do as many of my own stunts as possible. I want it to look and smell real.”
Cortese also admits that she draws on every trick in the book when ripping across the desert floor on such magnificent horses as Finder, who also doubled for the title character in the box office smash “Seabiscuit” (2003). By sheer coincidence, she also taps into childhood memories of riding on the outskirts of the real Fremont and solitary journeys to the top of the real Mount Diablo.
Into theater ever since her grandmother introduced her to stage productions at an early age, Cortese was part of every school play and pageant, plus community theater gigs wherever the family happened to land.
“I had acted my whole life, so when it was time for college I went for one of the top theater schools in the country — the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University — and earned bachelor degrees in theater and English a couple of years ago,” she explains.
Her first paid gig as an actress was a profitable TV commercial for a New York shoe store, according to the mid-twentyish performer. Modest parts in low-budget independent pictures didn’t stretch very far, but Cortese roughed it out with help from home on the beach in Venice, until “Wildfire” loped into her life.
On temporary assignment in Albuquerque, she now regards herself as a nomad with most of her family and friends spread between Manhattan and Sun Valley.
“It’s just me,” she laughs. “I’m single, I’m dating, I’m hiking and I’m a real mountain girl. If it gets boring, the whole cast hits a couple of clubs in Santa Fe.”
