THEY'RE FAKING IT BUT THE ANGST IS REAL FOR GYPSY TRAVELER CHARACTERS WHO GO UPSCALE.

Byline: David Kronke

Television Critic

SANTA CLARITA - "The Riches," concerning con artists masquerading as an upscale couple, is all about fakery and bluffing. So it's appropriate that on this day, for a scene that will take place on a lush, expansive lawn, the production is shooting on an 8-foot-wide patch of grass surrounded by concrete: between a parking lot adjacent to its soundstage and a street populated by industrial complexes.

Fakery presents problems, too, as a parade of trucks rumble by, ruining the audio as star Minnie Driver and a guest star try to perform their dialogue while lying in the grass.

"Another (expletive, expletive) truck," grumbles a crew member.

Driver and comic Eddie Izzard star as Dahlia and Wayne Malloy, Louisiana Gypsy Travelers who tool around in a dilapidated RV with their children, subsisting on scams. When they observe a fatal accident and discover that the dead were en route to moving into a new community, they decide to co-opt their identities in an upscale neighborhood.

Complications ensue, and not just because Dahlia hates the mainstream world of what she calls "buffers" and resists Wayne's efforts to give her a good life, while Wayne decides to enter the world of his identity, Doug Rich, and become a corporate lawyer. He quickly discovers that when it comes to con games, he's an amateur.

"He's discovering that the mainstream world is just as corrupt, if not more corrupt, than what he's been doing," notes creator Dmitry Lipkin.

"It's very interesting, truthfulness," muses Izzard. "The truth is, you probably couldn't exist and have a human life without lying. Because if you went around telling everyone, 'God, you look crap today,' and, 'Why are you so overweight?' you'd sound like you had Tourette's syndrome."

Lipkin, who moved from Moscow to Baton Rouge at the age of 10, knew nothing about the Travelers before developing his series.

"I wanted to write something about a family who pretends to be someone that they're not, and I went through various permutations of that, and my wife said, 'What about the Travelers?'" he recalls. "It was the perfect context for what I wanted to do. I love the idea that in a time where everybody can be tracked, they're completely off the radar."

Conflict comes as the Malloys vary in their desires and abilities to assimilate into "buffer" culture.

"Didi (the teenage daughter, played by Shannon Woodward) is more up for trying this out; she's closer to Wayne's way of thinking," Izzard explains. "Dahlia and Cael (the teen son, played by Noel Fisher) are more against it but are swayed somewhat by being very acquisitional characters. The goodies that are out there -- from iPods to a great wardrobe - those expensive things that were maybe not so easy to get hold of. Sam (the younger son, played by Aidan Mitchell) is slightly above it all and may be the purest of us all."

"Dahlia doesn't want this," counters Driver. "She wants to go home. She's broken parole from the very first moment and could go back to jail. I don't think she's getting too many sleep-filled nights. She knows just how dangerous this thing is, and she doesn't like buffers. Eddie has this amazing speech: 'I wanted to build her a castle. I wanted to take her away and build my queen this place where she could be happy,' and you understand that he's done this all for her - and she doesn't want it.

"What's interesting is playing the conflict in Dahlia - she didn't like who she was to begin with; she was a meth addict, and now she's playing someone else who she likes even less," Driver continues. "In a weird way, I know that two negatives don't make a positive, but in this case, they kind of do."

All of which makes for a dream role for Driver.

"This is a character of such unpredictability, and there's such gravity and yet such lightness - that to me was, 'Omigod, I could do anything with this.' And they're writing for me to do everything and anything - if I'd written down everything I wanted in a role, it would be this one. It's weird -- it's as if they crept into my secret desire," she says with a laugh.

David Kronke, [phone]

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THE RICHES

What: Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver head a family of con artists who assume the lives of an affluent couple who died before moving into a new community.

Where: FX.

When: 10 p.m. Mondays.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(color) Minnie Driver, left, Eddie Izzard, Aidan Mitchell, Noel Fisher and Shannon Woodward are Gypsy Travelers who take over another family's wealthy lifestyle in "The Riches."