Make that several schools.
But the star of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasmwasn't sitting at a desk. Instead, she was cleaning up run-down schools.
The project became School Pride, a seven-episode series that premieres tonight at 8 ET/PT on NBC. Think Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for schools.
But don't expect to see much of Hines, who is School Pride's executive producer, in front of the camera. She will "pop up here and there to try and guide people who might be inspired by the show," she says.
The gig is different. "When I go to work as an actress, I show up in an air-conditioned, nice place and somebody gets me coffee, and they do my hair and do my makeup until somebody tells me to go to the next air-conditioned room. On this project, I might have a toilet-bowl brush in my hand. I might be painting a classroom. At the end of the day, I just feel dirty and good."
A feeling she might not have if it weren't for daughter Catherine Rose, 6, who started first grade this year. "Before I had my daughter, I really didn't think about schools at all," Hines says.
"When she started school, it made me think about other parents and children, and made me feel like it does take a village. The idea of a child going to a school where the lights don't work, where the toilets don't flush, it makes me sad.
"I know that it's not because parents don't care. ... Most of the time the resources aren't there. What I've learned and what I'm still learning is how to connect all the resources to the right people."
School Pride began with a "cold call" a few years ago to the principal of a school in Compton, Calif., where she volunteered. "I said, 'I was wondering if your school needs any help,' " Hines says. "I thought I could donate some soccer balls and jump ropes. So she said, 'Why don't you come over and I'll show you around.' "
What she saw was "a bigger project than jump ropes and soccer balls. The school hadn't been painted in 28 years." The playground couldn't be used because the sand was infested with bugs.
After renovations were completed, the series idea sprouted.
"I was just in a camera truck crying," says Hines, who is calling from the site of her last school "reveal." "I've cried a lot of tears of joy in the past five months."
This summer included the end of her nearly eight-year marriage to Paul Young (father to Catherine Rose), so the project's timing "has been helpful," Hines says. "My ex-husband is truly a good friend of mine. I still talk to him every day. He was part of the inspiration for this show."
Despite going through an amicable divorce, "it's hard to go from being married to not being married," Hines says. "Paul and I have so much respect for each other that it's been difficult, but positive. We really do care about each other, and we're going to be great parents to her."
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