By Sean P. Means
The Salt Lake Tribune

Jane Seymour is putting Salt Lake City's reputation as a consumer of family-friendly entertainment to the test.

    "In this community, people actually care about the human condition -- they care about people's feelings and about family," the British-born actress said over breakfast Monday at a Salt Lake City restaurant. "They really want to have that kind of option in terms of quality film and television."

    That's why Seymour, the artist formerly known as "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," took a whirlwind media tour of Salt Lake City on Monday to promote "Touching Wild Horses," a family-friendly drama opening here Friday as a test run for a nationwide theatrical release. Seymour conducted media interviews, appeared on two morning TV shows and attended a preview screening at the Century Cinemas 16 before an appreciative audience.

    In the film, Seymour plays Fiona, a wildlife expert who has secluded herself on a remote Canadian island to study the wild horses there. Fiona reluctantly lets her 12-year-old nephew Mark (Mark Rendall), whose mother has been hospitalized after a car crash that killed his father and sister, live with her.

    Their prickly relationship warms as they study the horses.

    The 53-year-old actress said "there are four times it's happened to me where I've gone, 'I have to make this movie.' " She then reeled them off: the 1980 romance "Somewhere in Time," in which she starred with Christopher Reeve; the pilot for "Dr. Quinn," which ran five seasons; the World War II miniseries "War and Remembrance" in 1988, and now "Touching Wild Horses."

    Seymour said the film's success with festival audiences -- such as receiving the Crystal Heart Award at the 2002 Heartland Film Festival -- shows it can find acceptance with regular moviegoers.

    "Kids love it, and you don't have to dumb down to kids," she said. "Adults adore it; they just particularly relate to it."