Entertainment

A TOUCH OF BRASS

Lorraine Bracco turns up in a new kind of role this week on “Lipstick Jungle,” but for many of us, she will always be HBO’s First Lady of psychiatry.

“I think ‘In Treatment’ is fabulous,” declared Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist when asked what she thinks of HBO’s current series starring Gabriel Byrne as a psychotherapist.

“I love him!” she said on the phone in a voice so bubbly and brassy that every statement seems like it deserves an exclamation point. “I was the precursor, or if you talk to Billy Crystal [star of the “Analyze This” movies with Robert De Niro], he would say he’s the precursor of all the psychiatrists in film. It’s very funny! But the only good thing I can tell you is I think I have nicer legs than both of them!”

Now Bracco, 53, is switching gears to play a very different character in the next two episodes of NBC’s racy new prime-time soap about powerful New York women.

She’s guest-starring on “Lipstick” as Janice Lasher, a hard-nosed book-publishing exec who is about to release a thinly veiled roman à clef written by a nanny formerly employed by the movie company CEO played by Brooke Shields.

“When I spoke to [executive producer] Oliver [Goldstick] about creating Janice, I asked him to keep her a tough New Yorker,” said Bracco, who was born in Bay Ridge and raised in Hicksville. “I said, ‘Why can’t this character be someone who went to Brooklyn College instead of [the other women on “Lipstick”] who are very slick and fancy shmancy?’ I really wanted to be the ‘jungle’ in ‘Lipstick.’ ”

“Sopranos” fans in particular will love a scene in which Shields’ character, Wendy Healy, tries to get the book squelched in a confrontation in Lasher’s office. “You must have me confused with your shrink,” Lasher says to her with a sneer, an obvious reference to Bracco’s best-known role.

While this particular story arc will take only the next two episodes to tell, Bracco said her character might return in future episodes, although that scenario has been put on hold due to the writers strike.

Also on hold: A proposed series for Lifetime called “Long Island Confidential,” in which Bracco plays the mother of a young detective played by Alison Elliott. A pilot has been produced but because of the strike, Lifetime has not yet decided if it will become a series.

“Everyone’s starting to feel the trickle-down effect of the strike,” said Bracco, who fortunately has a side business to fall back on. For the past three years, she has run her own wine importing firm.

“I lived in France for 10 years and always had a huge love of wine and food,” she said. “I didn’t want to sell hair products and perfumes and things like that, and when some people came to me with this, I said, ‘Wow, what a great idea! I could do that well.’ ”

She would definitely like to return to “Lipstick Jungle” when the strike ends. She said the show made her feel right at home.

“You know what was great for me on ‘Lipstick Jungle’?,” she asked. “I walked into the set and found half my crew from ‘The Sopranos’!”

LIPSTICK JUNGLE

Thursday, 10 p.m., NBC