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Guest
Should have many familiar T. scenes.
A Darker Parker
Award-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker talks about playing a scheming, seductive siren in the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride
MICHAEL POSNER
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Mary-Louise Parker wasn't exactly looking for work. The Tony-award-winning actress ( Proof) had just wrapped her second season as the star of Weeds, the Showtime channel's drama about a Californian widow with two sons who sells marijuana to supplement her income, when something completely different fell into her lap: the TV movie script for The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood's 1993 novel.
“I'm a fan of her work, her poetry mostly,†Parker explained in a telephone interview last week. “And I thought the story was interesting and the character was pretty rich. Dark. I'm usually more content playing darker.â€
The character, of course, is the scheming, seductive siren Zenia Arden, a serial betrayer. The name, derived from the Greek word for stranger, is no accident; as well as they think they know her, the men and women Zenia casually betrays are ultimately confronted with an enduring enigma.
Co-produced by Toronto's Shaftesbury Films and Britain's Working Title Television, the two-hour movie airs Sunday night on CBC Television.
The script, by Tassie Cameron, is at once faithful to the spirit of Atwood's themes, but significantly different as well. Chief among these perhaps is the creation of a new character, insurance investigator John Grismer (Shawn Doyle), who probes the mystery of Zenia through three women who are at once her best friends and most bitter enemies.
“I really liked Shawn,†says Parker, 42. “He was really game, a collaborator.â€
She reserves particular praise for the film's costume designer, Lea Carlson. “She was really gifted, one of the best I've worked with. Because Zenia is all about externals and the way she looks and how she transforms is important. So Lea and I talked several times a day. She was really vital and generous. She took some of my ideas and had wonderful ideas of her own and brought so much.â€
Parker said she did not read Atwood's novel before the 21-day shoot, which took place in and around Toronto and Hamilton late last summer. She knew vaguely about the speculation — denied repeatedly by Atwood — that Zenia is modelled in part on Barbara Amiel, wife of former media baron Conrad Black.
“The director [David Evans] wasn't coming from that point of view,†Parker says, “and we wanted to stay in the world he was trying to create.â€
Her chief regret was that the shoot wasn't longer. “It would have been nice if there had been more time,†Parker says. “Because Zenia is one of those characters you could spend forever on. There are so many aspects to her. What she is and what others see, and the questions about whether what you're seeing is reality.â€
A native of South Carolina, Parker is the youngest of four children. Because her father was in the U.S. military, she grew up in as series of army bases around the world. She took to acting as a teenager, studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and after a few lean years in New York in the early 1980s, seems to have been in demand ever since. In addition to the shelf full of awards for Proof, (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Obie Award), she has pocketed an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her work in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, as well as another Golden Globe for Weeds.
Her film résumé includes quality work in, among others, Fried Green Tomatoes, Bullets over Broadway, Grand Canyon and Longtime Companion.
With her three-year-old son, William Atticus (Will), the product of her seven-year relationship with actor Billy Crudup, Parker now makes her home in New York, although she will be returning to Los Angeles in April to begin shooting a third season of Weeds. “I'm not going to work until then,†she says. “Will keeps me pretty busy.†She finds the steadiness of the show's shooting schedule a major help to responsible parenthood.
The Crudup affair brought Parker's life into the unremitting glare of celebrity gossip. When she was seven months pregnant with Will, he left her for actress Claire Danes. Ironically, just before Christmas, Danes is said to have spurned Crudup for 31-year-old British actor and Burberry model Hugh Dancy.
Parker herself has recently been romantically linked with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays her dead husband on Weeds.
I asked Parker if she had any comment on the Crudup breakup with Danes. There was a rather long silence at the other end of the line. Finally, she said, “I don't talk about my personal life.â€
In addition to The Robber Bride and the new season of Weeds, Parker has several new films ready for release or in development. There's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which she plays alongside Brad Pitt. There's Romance & Cigarettes, John Turturro's 2005 oddball musical comedy with James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet and Mandy Moore, which has so far been unable win a North American release date. There's Small Tragedy, directed by her long-time Broadway director Craig Lucas with Tony Goldwyn, Patricia Clarkson and Maggie Gyllenhaal. And there's The Spiderwick Chronicles, a children's fantasy film, with a scheduled 2008 release.
But next year at this time, Parker says, she hopes to be back on Broadway in a play. “I'm looking for something now,†she says. “That would make me hapiest.â€
The Robber Bride airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBC-TV.
A Darker Parker
Award-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker talks about playing a scheming, seductive siren in the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride
MICHAEL POSNER
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Mary-Louise Parker wasn't exactly looking for work. The Tony-award-winning actress ( Proof) had just wrapped her second season as the star of Weeds, the Showtime channel's drama about a Californian widow with two sons who sells marijuana to supplement her income, when something completely different fell into her lap: the TV movie script for The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood's 1993 novel.
“I'm a fan of her work, her poetry mostly,†Parker explained in a telephone interview last week. “And I thought the story was interesting and the character was pretty rich. Dark. I'm usually more content playing darker.â€
The character, of course, is the scheming, seductive siren Zenia Arden, a serial betrayer. The name, derived from the Greek word for stranger, is no accident; as well as they think they know her, the men and women Zenia casually betrays are ultimately confronted with an enduring enigma.
Co-produced by Toronto's Shaftesbury Films and Britain's Working Title Television, the two-hour movie airs Sunday night on CBC Television.
The script, by Tassie Cameron, is at once faithful to the spirit of Atwood's themes, but significantly different as well. Chief among these perhaps is the creation of a new character, insurance investigator John Grismer (Shawn Doyle), who probes the mystery of Zenia through three women who are at once her best friends and most bitter enemies.
“I really liked Shawn,†says Parker, 42. “He was really game, a collaborator.â€
She reserves particular praise for the film's costume designer, Lea Carlson. “She was really gifted, one of the best I've worked with. Because Zenia is all about externals and the way she looks and how she transforms is important. So Lea and I talked several times a day. She was really vital and generous. She took some of my ideas and had wonderful ideas of her own and brought so much.â€
Parker said she did not read Atwood's novel before the 21-day shoot, which took place in and around Toronto and Hamilton late last summer. She knew vaguely about the speculation — denied repeatedly by Atwood — that Zenia is modelled in part on Barbara Amiel, wife of former media baron Conrad Black.
“The director [David Evans] wasn't coming from that point of view,†Parker says, “and we wanted to stay in the world he was trying to create.â€
Her chief regret was that the shoot wasn't longer. “It would have been nice if there had been more time,†Parker says. “Because Zenia is one of those characters you could spend forever on. There are so many aspects to her. What she is and what others see, and the questions about whether what you're seeing is reality.â€
A native of South Carolina, Parker is the youngest of four children. Because her father was in the U.S. military, she grew up in as series of army bases around the world. She took to acting as a teenager, studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and after a few lean years in New York in the early 1980s, seems to have been in demand ever since. In addition to the shelf full of awards for Proof, (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Obie Award), she has pocketed an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her work in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, as well as another Golden Globe for Weeds.
Her film résumé includes quality work in, among others, Fried Green Tomatoes, Bullets over Broadway, Grand Canyon and Longtime Companion.
With her three-year-old son, William Atticus (Will), the product of her seven-year relationship with actor Billy Crudup, Parker now makes her home in New York, although she will be returning to Los Angeles in April to begin shooting a third season of Weeds. “I'm not going to work until then,†she says. “Will keeps me pretty busy.†She finds the steadiness of the show's shooting schedule a major help to responsible parenthood.
The Crudup affair brought Parker's life into the unremitting glare of celebrity gossip. When she was seven months pregnant with Will, he left her for actress Claire Danes. Ironically, just before Christmas, Danes is said to have spurned Crudup for 31-year-old British actor and Burberry model Hugh Dancy.
Parker herself has recently been romantically linked with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays her dead husband on Weeds.
I asked Parker if she had any comment on the Crudup breakup with Danes. There was a rather long silence at the other end of the line. Finally, she said, “I don't talk about my personal life.â€
In addition to The Robber Bride and the new season of Weeds, Parker has several new films ready for release or in development. There's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which she plays alongside Brad Pitt. There's Romance & Cigarettes, John Turturro's 2005 oddball musical comedy with James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet and Mandy Moore, which has so far been unable win a North American release date. There's Small Tragedy, directed by her long-time Broadway director Craig Lucas with Tony Goldwyn, Patricia Clarkson and Maggie Gyllenhaal. And there's The Spiderwick Chronicles, a children's fantasy film, with a scheduled 2008 release.
But next year at this time, Parker says, she hopes to be back on Broadway in a play. “I'm looking for something now,†she says. “That would make me hapiest.â€
The Robber Bride airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBC-TV.