Nude underwear, killer curves and a black backdrop.

That’s the stripped down marketing campaign driving eyeballs to Jennifer Love Hewitt’s racy new Lifetime series, The Client List, which launches Sunday (10/9C).

But Hewitt will tell it you you straight. “The scariest part of those billboards was how hungry I was when we were doing the photo shoot,” says Hewitt today in her trailer, laughing. “Because for days I was just like, ‘Let me suck on an ice cube and pretend it’s chicken.’ ”

Sex is on the front burner in the series which revolves around Hewitt as Riley Parks, a Texas mom who turns to giving erotic massages to break even on her mortgage.

The show, says Lifetime president Nancy Dubuc, is helping push the network forward. “It’s clearly not your mother’s Lifetime anymore,” she says. “We want to be a reflection of who women are today.”

Hewitt is ready to shake up her image. “I’m not just going to turn the music up a little bit I’m going to turn the music up really loud,” she says, curling up in an oversized t-shirt and ripped jeans, while sipping on lemon-flavored sparkling water, her extra-long lashes and TV makeup still in place. “That, for me, was those billboards, and for (Lifetime), it’s this show.”

To play Riley, who is often in lingerie, Hewitt has been “working out like crazy,” ruling out junk food and soda and treating herself to desserts once a week. She calls flaunting her new body, years after tabloids gleefully ran photos of her then-curvier self on the covers of magazines, bittersweet. “I didn’t have a body image issue until they plastered me on the cover of things,” she says. “Then I got one.”

But today she says she’s in the best shape of her life – for herself. “Because I’m at the right age, I’m not in that phase of my life, I’m not caught up in (the tabloid) side of things I went, you know what? If I don’t do it at 33, I’m never going to do it.”

The Client List began its life on air as a Lifetime Original Movie that debuted in 2010 to 3.9 million viewers, with Hewitt starring. Hewitt, who is also an executive producer, will reboot Riley’s story on Easter Sunday with a newly empowered protagonist, and a few new characters to boot (Cybill Shepard remains as her mother).

The series will be lighter, and funnier. “The movie had a bit of a dark tone to it and I think it felt a bit heavy and a bit more reminiscent of what the old brand and tone of Lifetime has been,” says Kim Rozenfeld, executive vice president of current programming at Sony Pictures Television, which produces the show. He says the sexual content was handled carefully by the team. “It was very important not for it to be flagrant and not for it to be gratuitous.”

But there’s plenty of steamy content left to satisfy those intrigued by Hewitt’s billboards. In the first episode, Riley’s husband mysteriously leaves her with two children to take care of, and she ends up applying for a job at a massage clinic called The Rub. Lingerie-fueled massage sessions quickly follow.

“I think we might surprise some people with how they feel about what she does,” says Hewitt, whose character often counsels the men she services. “Even though the ad campaigns and a lot of the provocative parts of promoting this show are about the ‘happy endings,’ the show is a really a very normal series about a woman who’s just trying to be a single mom.”

Called “Love” by her friends, in her personal life, Hewitt, who is single, says her view of love has grown up. “I’ve always been a hopeless romantic,” she says. “I’ve always had my head in the rom-com – which I think is a great quality. The problem is, rom-com’s aren’t real.”

Although she still tweets actively about love, “I’m at a place where I could get married, I could not get married,” she says. “Kids is not something I’ll give up on, that’s something I really want in my life but I just sort of started shifting my mindset a little bit.”

Prince Charming, right now, might just turn out to be a netowrk. “Lifetime and I are in such synergy right now because we’re both in exactly the same place,” she says, with a TV movie and another series in the pipeline with them. “We both have been one thing for a long time and loved it and are now ready to say hey, there’s more to me in there than you thought there was and let’s switch it up a little bit.”

USAToday.com

The Lifetime Television drama series The Client List, premiering on April 8th, follows the life of Riley Parks (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a single mother, living in a small Texas town, who leads a shocking double life that would send shockwaves through the community and possibly land her in jail, if it was ever exposed. With an absentee husband, Riley must learn to juggle being a mother to her two children with her job at a seemingly traditional day spa, that offers a little more than just massage therapy.

During this recent interview to promote the risque new show, actress/executive producer Jennifer Love Hewitt talked about what initially drew her to this role, what made her want to do a series version of this story after having done a two-hour film, how she’s been using social media sites to attract interest from viewers, how she mentally prepares to wear lingerie and give the guest stars massages, the research that she did for this role, how exciting she is to be directing the season finale, and that she hopes viewers just have a really good time watching the show.

Question: What made you want to be a part of the television version of this, after starring in the film version?

JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT: We had joked around, when we were doing the movie, about how fun it would be to turn this into a series and really get in deeper with the lives of the women in the spa and everything. So, when the movie did really well, I talked it over with everybody and said, “Let’s pitch it and see what they think,” and here we are.

What originally really drew you to the role of Riley Parks?

HEWITT: I just thought it was really interesting, even with the movie. I think it’s interesting to create empowerment in a woman, who essentially could feel powerless and who could find herself in danger and could look at the situation she’s in, if she wanted to, as not very empowering. This is actually very powerful. She’s making these decisions and she’s making them consciously, and she’s growing sexually, emotionally, physically and mentally, in this job. She’s connecting, in a real, human way, with the human condition and human spirit and hearts of the people on her table. It’s super-powerful. I was really interested in that. I just thought that that was really cool, and a neat message to send out.

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Jennifer Love Hewitt is back on the small screen in Lifetime’s newest series, The Client List. The stunning 33-year-old plays Riley Parks, a single mother-of-two, who finds extra work with a high-end prostitution service in Texas. It’s based on the 2010 Lifetime television movie of the same name, which also starred Hewitt.

The actress talked to reporters about her latest role, wearing lingerie on set, and the secret behind her lasting success in Hollywood.

On The Client List.
“Riley is a single mom whose been left by her husband. [The audience] will get to know different clients and the people that come in and out of the spa every week. You’ll get to see more about her being a mom and how she handles having a double-life. [It] has a certain amount of reality to it. The family is facing economic hardship, which is a very real situation happening in a lot of families in a lot of places in the United States and all over the world right now. So I think that part of it is real. I think her being a single mom with two kids is real.”

On showcasing her sexiness.
“I learned a lot actually. I’m not quite as scared as I thought I would be. I’ve actually learned how to wear lingerie better — sort of how to get into it faster — all of those things. Being sort of a feisty young lady from Texas comes naturally to me because that’s sort of who I am. I’ve grown up in a household of feisty Texas women. But being so overtly sexy and provocative — that part of it is not something that I’ve really put out there before. And it has been fun and exciting.

“I feel like I’m at a good age for it. I’m 33-years-old and I think if I was younger, it would feel more saucy and daring. But at 33, I’m a grown woman. This is what we do. You sort of find your femininity and your strength and your own sexuality in playing a part like this. It’s been really fun.”

On the show’s risque premise.
“Although we are being provocative and sort of pushing the envelope, we are also leaving a lot to the imagination. We do sort of walk right up to the line of inappropriate and then we cut out and I feel good about that. It’s meant to be provocative and it’s meant to be a fantasy. Television is supposed to allow you to escape into other worlds and watch other people do things and forget about your life for a minute.”

On her longevity in Hollywood.
“I’ve worked really hard, so I think work gets work. I’ve always had respect for the business that I’ve been in. I’ve tried not to act too crazy or disrespect the opportunities that I have been given or the people that have believed in me. I also think some of it’s just luck. I’ve been really blessed and I don’t necessarily know what keeps one person here longer than somebody else, but I couldn’t feel more grateful.

“I’m only 33-years-old and I’ve been [acting] for 24 years. I feel like Betty White! I feel like I should be 91. It’s so crazy. I work with people who are my age and they’ve been in L.A. for four years and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so old!’ But I feel very lucky.”

Parade.com

Jennifer Love Hewitt is set to kick off a new Lifetime series based on a television film called The Client List.

The new series is about a Texas housewife who begins working at a day spa after her husband deserts her and leaves her in deep financial trouble.

Hewitt’s character Riley Parks realizes that the spa gives much more than massages, but must partner with the parlor’s owner.

While helping to run the business she struggles to discreetly balance two lives.

Hewitt says what means the most to her is the character Riley Parks and how she becomes an empowered woman.

Not only was Hewitt on camera for this series, she also was the executive producer.

The series will premiere on April 8, and Lifetime said it has ordered 10 episodes of the Client List.

Jennifer Love Hewitt is about to launch another series, but even before it debuts, some people are indicating they aren’t fans.

The “Ghost Whisperer” and “Party of Five” alum debuts in a weekly spinoff of her Golden Globe-nominated Lifetime movie “The Client List” on that network Sunday. April 8. She’s also an executive producer of the show, in which her new role is an abandoned Texas mother who makes a day spa her line of business. There, certain co-workers — as Lifetime puts it — “provide other services” to customers.

The group Licensed Massage Therapists is petitioning to keep “The Client List” from being shown, citing it as “a huge step backwards” in the depiction of their profession. “I feel badly that they feel offended,” Hewitt tells Zap2it, “but I respect that people need to say what they need to say.

“I tried to make a joke on Twitter that I wondered why people were not writing to ‘Dexter’ about killing people, or to ‘Nurse Jackie’ about taking drugs on the job. Those are big, big television characters audiences love and adore …. so if there can be a serial killer we all like, I feel like a happy-endings specialist is the least of our worries.”

Hewitt insists she admires professional masseuses, even with the take “The Client List” has on them. “At the end of the day, though, it’s a television series,” she adds. “I’m not saying every massage parlor in the world gives happy endings, nor do I know which ones do, but it is a part of our society. And even if it wasn’t, it’s just a part of our story. It’s entertainment.”

While her less-edgy image remains evident in “Ghost Whisperer” repeats on both WE: Women’s Entertainment and ION, Hewitt finds it interesting that her portrayal of the career in that show never brought a peep of protest. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“No medium ever complained that I was playing a medium who had too much cleavage,” she muses. “In fact, they were all like, ‘Thank you so much!’ I mean, I constantly had cleavage up to my chin, and not one medium had a problem with it. They were like, ‘People think we’re hot!’ Now, if massage therapists could just feel the same.”

Zap2It.com

For some, the holidays are the perfect time to take a break from their yearly diet, but Jennifer Love Hewitt won’t be indulging this holiday season.

The actress, 32, says she’s buckling down to prepare for January when she’ll start filming racy scenes in the TV series extension of her 2010 Lifetime movie, The Client List.

Playing a mom who gets into prostitution to make ends meet, Hewitt tells PEOPLE, “I will be in lingerie a lot, so I’ll be working out. I will not be eating for the holidays.”

Hewitt, who enjoys making – and devouring – mashed potatoes during this time of year, says she’ll be doing Pilates while her family enjoys the food.

“This year will be loads of fun for me,” she said, laughing sarcastically.

But once the holiday temptations pass, Hewitt has a lot to look forward to in 2012. Not only does she start filming her sexy Lifetime series, but she also guest stars in an episode of Hot in Cleveland with Joe Jonas that airs on Jan. 25. The TV Land comedy’s season premiere is on Nov. 30 at 10 p.m.

Source

Longtime Dress for Success supporter Jennifer Love Hewitt was excited to attend the 3rd Annual Give and Get Fête at The London Hotel in West Hollywood. The actress gave us the dish on why she loves the organization and how important it is to look and feel fab.

GIRL POWER: [Dress for Success] is such a wonderful cause. Anyone rehabilitating women and helping them feel powerful to go out in the work place, get a great job, feed their families and feel confident, beautiful and strong—I’m a big fan of that. Women taking over the world, as Beyoncé says, is a great thing.

MAKEOVER MAGIC: From the time you’re a little girl, it’s about dresses, hair and makeup. Being girly is the fun part of being a woman. When life unfortunately hands you situations that make you feel debilitated inside, if you can give the outside a little kick and glamour, it helps the whole package transform.

WHAT SHE’S STYIN’: I’m wearing Hervé Léger. They’re my fave. Particularly with what tonight’s about, their dresses are the kind that I put on and I never even have to think about it. I know I’m going to feel good and everything’s going to be in the right place. I’m going to have a great time in the night, and people talk about it and they think it’s beautiful. That makes me feel good. They sort of transformed me in that way.

BEAUTY FAVE: I really like the Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. I love it—it’s great stuff.

BANDAGE DRESS BEAUTY: They’re comfy and warm, which is nice because it’s a little chilly in L.A. tonight.

HOLLYWOOD HELPS: It’s great when people spend time, especially in Hollywood, on something that’s worthy, cause-oriented and for good, not just about all the silly stuff that Hollywood’s about.

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