Mary McCormack
As you watch Mary McCormack, the statuesque blonde who nabbed a Tony nomination as airline Amazon Gretchen in the Tony-winning revival of Boeing-Boeing, you understand why she has made a career of playing smart, thick-skinned ladies, from Howard Stern's infinitely patient wife in 1997's Private Parts to a willful Navy commander on TV's The West Wing to her newest gig, as a U.S. Marshal in the witness protection program on USA's In Plain Sight. The star, who made her Broadway debut almost 10 years ago as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, dominates the stage at the Longacre Theatre in towering heels and a scant miniskirt, making co-stars Bradley Whitford and Mark Rylance quake with fear and drool with lust. This New Jersey native and mother of two maintains a better sense of humor than her onstage counterpart, which means she's loving every absurd minute she spends playing the German hothead—though her co-stars don't always make the job easy.
What was it like to attend the Tony Awards as a nominee this year? Was this your first time at the Tonys?
Oh my god, yeah! This is only my second Broadway play after Cabaret, so it was new and really exciting for me. Growing up in New Jersey, I was used to getting [Broadway tickets] for graduations, birthdays, class trips. That's sort of how I fell in love with acting. Broadway's always been magical, so being at the Tonys felt really special. For years I've been going to awards shows for television and film, and this just felt so much more glamorous [as a nominee].
Your on-camera reaction to co-star Mark Rylance's Best Actor acceptance speech was priceless. What was going through your head while he was up there?
Well… [laughs] At the Drama Desk Awards he read a poem by the same prose poet [Lewis Jenkins, who wrote the poem Rylance recited at the Tony Awards] and I loved it. He just doesn't care that much about awards shows. He thinks, "Oh, this is a nice opportunity to read a poem." I loved him for that; I just wondered if everyone else would love him for it. I thought, "Oh my god, he's doing this at the Tonys!" I couldn't believe it.
I read it and loved it. It's my kind of thing. I like stupid humor. I give fart machines as gifts. I'm not very highbrow! So for me, this kind of comedy is really, really joyous and fun to do. I wanted to work with [director] Matthew Warchus and knew Mark Rylance was doing it, and thought if I could just get near a stage with him on it it'd be the opportunity of a lifetime.
Were you surprised that rolling around onstage, kissing the carpet with a German accent would earn you a Tony nomination?
Definitely! The whole thing was a pleasant surprise.
Your co-star Bradley Whitford said that the cliche of comedy being hard is true with this show. What is the biggest challenge for you in Boeing?
Originally, it was understanding the size [of the action] that was necessary and being brave enough to do it. But now, the challenges are more physical. My voice! We're not miked, and Gretchen is a character who speaks with passion, so she screams a lot. Also, the longer the run goes on, [the challenge is] keeping it truthful and real. Even within a farce you have to find layers of truth, because that's what makes it moving as well. You can just be silly-funny, but there's also a sweetness to Boeing-Boeing that Matthew [Warchus] was smart to protect.
Gretchen is a larger-than-life character. Did you draw on anyone for inspiration?
Geez, Louise, let me think…you know, I don't really think I did. Matthew [Warchus] was the most helpful in talking about size. In the first week of rehearsal he said to me, "Mary, if Mark [Rylance] is a clarinet and Bradley [Whitford] is an oboe, you are the entire orchestra." Things like that were very helpful. He called Gretchen a "tectonic warrior." But the most useful thing is the audience. When you're in a rehearsal room with fluorescent lighting and fake doors and just stage managers—[try] to wrestle a giggle out of those guys! As soon as we had an audience, it came alive. We're six hams up there. We just have fun. Truthfully? My biggest challenge now is not cracking up onstage, and I only manage that about half the time.
A colleague of mine who saw a recent matinee said that Mark Rylance seemed to catch you off-guard, that you needed a minute to collect yourself.
[Laughing] It happens a lot, but Mark is soooo brilliant! All of our actors are, but Mark is so completely organic and comes up with new things all the time. One time, when I threw him—I throw him in the show—he did this enormous leap. It just gets bigger and bigger and makes me laugh harder and harder every time. But recently he added a scream to it. Just without warning, this sort of faraway cartoon scream, as if falling from a cliff. It kills me. I'm not very good with that Catholic schoolgirl kind of quiet laughter.
So he didn't slip you the tongue or anything?
Ahhhh. Well, the kissing scene does crack me up. Sometimes he humps my leg. Like, last night he humped my leg, and then Gina [Gershon] went, "Oooh, like a leeettle puppy," improvising in her Italian accent in my ear. And I'm like, "I don't need either of you doing that, thank you very much!" The two of them are very naughty.
It sounds like you have no trouble keeping one another on your toes show after show.
Oh yeah, we just have fun. In the scene where Kathryn [Hahn] flashes Mark [Rylance]? Sometimes there's "things" in her panties.
Um….
I'll leave it at that!
Do you feel that Boeing-Boeing is misogynistic or disrespectful to women?
I really don't feel that way. I mean, it's definitely a period piece. There's nothing untruthful about a time [the 1960s] when women working as stewardesses could be fired just for being overweight. So I guess if it lives up to its time, then yeah, we're definitely showing the signs of [misogyny]. But I don't think the play itself is, because the women come out on top. They're pretty much in charge from start to finish. I actually think it's a pretty innocent little play.
Mark Rylance is also a renowned Shakespearean actor. Have you learned anything from working with him?
Oh my god, yes, so much. All joking aside, I stand in the wings and watch him when I'm not on, because he's phenomenal. Nothing can go wrong onstage for Mark because he's so in the moment. If anything happens that's new or looks like a mistake, he just looks at it as a new opportunity. And what freedom that brings him! It's a real gift, and that's been a big lesson for me, that there's nothing you have to be "married" to onstage. Every day it's a new audience. His freedom and fluidity and playfulness—I've learned too much to list.
I don't think he minds, really! He's pretty laid back, my husband. I've done a lot of smooching in my years [as an actress], so whatever awkwardness he might have felt about my kissing other actors I think he dealt with, like, a decade ago.
How did the two of you meet?
We met at a dinner party in London. And then, well, you know what happens next. We fell in love and he moved to America. He's doing great, producing Brothers and Sisters on ABC.
Is it true that [Cabaret star] Alan Cumming emceed your wedding?
Ha! Well, not my whole wedding. He's one of my great, great friends, and so he was at my wedding and during the toasts, he introduced people as they would speak. You know, he'd go, "The brrrriiiide…" in his little Scottish accent. So yes, in essence, he emceed my wedding.
You trained as a theater actress, but most of your work has been in TV and film. Is there a reason for that?
I started out auditioning in New York and doing theater, and then I got a TV show, Murder One. It brought me out to L.A., so that led to films and more TV and I just went with where the work was interesting. I feel lucky that I've been allowed to do all three. It's really nice to act in all mediums.
How did you end up playing "the Pilgrim Woman" in the Christopher Guest film For Your Consideration?
I'm an enormous Chris Guest fan. He's my all-time favorite director and Spinal Tap is my favorite movie of all time. I've seen everything he's ever done and sort of know it, you know, too well? So when the movie was happening, my agent said, "Do you want to meet him?" and I said "Yes." I went in knowing there was no real part for me, and was like, "I'll do craft services on your movie, anything!" And then I started telling him how some of my favorite roles in his movies were the non-speaking roles. Like the vampire—have you seen Waiting for Guffman?
Yes!
You know the audition section, where the vampire is just there? All those guys that [the camera] pans by and you go, "What will they do?!" I started telling Chris about my favorite nonspeaking parts in his movies. And so I got the "pilgrim" role. And I actually got one big, fat line in there. I was thrilled! Seriously, I could retire.
Between Murder One, The West Wing, K-Street and your new show, In Plain Sight, you've done a lot of crime and law dramas.
I have been cast in a lot of those, but I've also been cast as a lot of wives, so you could also look at my list and go, "Oh, she's the wife." I'm definitely thought of as "sensible." And I don't mind that, because the parts are usually intelligent. I loved playing Kate Harper on The West Wing and Justine Appleton on Murder One, and to be called to do K-Street, where the entire series was improvised; I'm thrilled that people think of me that way. But this has been a fun year for me too. Boeing-Boeing is pure comedy. And even In Plain Sight is very comedic. I don't think many people have seen me do that.
Is there one project you can pinpoint as your big break?
Murder One and Private Parts, for different reasons. Murder One because I was honestly working three restaurant jobs when I got it. I'd never been on a soundstage before, and all of a sudden I was moving to L.A. Suddenly I could pay my student loans, answer my phone, feed myself! Everything was different. Private Parts put me in the feature [film] world in a really big way. It was such a big character, and it was an enormous movie, such a big event, that a lot of people saw it. That helped!
You did Private Parts star Howard Stern's show a few weeks ago. How do you survive an interview with him? His fans are brutal!
The best way to survive is honesty. I'm a listener myself, so I've heard people handle it many different ways and I've always thought the most successful are the ones who do it with honesty. When celebrities get asked about what they do sexually or how much money they make, offering the most candor you can without losing yourself is helpful.
Is it true that the USA network delayed filming In Plain Sight for nine months so you could have your daughter?
Well, I already had one daughter when we shot the pilot two and a half years ago, and they had initially talked about filming again several months later. But it was sort of vague and kept getting pushed back. Eventually I thought, maybe this [show] isn't going to work for me in terms of "family planning," because I'm not as young, and I just [went for it] and got pregnant again. It was a really big compliment to me because they waited a year for me to have my second daughter. I thought that might make the show go away for me, but we got through it and started shooting when she was just a few weeks old.
Is it surreal to see yourself in an ad on a billboard or the side of a bus?
It really is! I'm riding through Manhattan with my daughter, and there's a huge poster of me. USA promotes so well! But I'm glad they do because we worked hard on the show.
After playing a witness protection agent, can you help me disappear if I need to?
I personally can't, but I can definitely hook you up with someone who can.
It was pretty big. I started exercising as soon as I could walk! I had so much weight to lose before I could get in front of the camera. And then we were shooting these 13- to 19- hours days and I was coming home to an eight-week-old—it was a good but tricky time. It definitely prepared me for Boeing-Boeing.
Boeing's Gretchen is an incredibly tough woman, as is your character on In Plain Sight. Do you see the two women as being similar?
I think they're so alike it's weird. They're obviously living in two different lifetimes, but they're really strong on the outside and soft on the inside. They both cover their vulnerabilities with toughness. I mean, by the end of Boeing, Gretchen is a complete romantic who literally lets her hair down, so the two are very much alike.
Are you anything like them in real life?
Ha! I might be accused of being like that, yes. I'm definitely not mushy or sentimental.
Is being from New Jersey helpful in playing strong, tough women like these?
I don't know! Someone else asked me that recently, and I honestly don't know where it comes from. I mean, if you're from the area generally you have a little more of an edge, I think? When I'm in L.A. and get to chatting with people, they're always, like, "Are you from the East Coast?" There's definitely a little bit of that edge that a tri-state girl might have.
So the last three months you've been in the city working on Broadway. Has your husband has been back in L.A. working?
Yes, he actually flew in at 3AM last night to stay with us for the month, so it's nice to have him here finally.
With long distance marriage, two young daughters, a new TV show and a Broadway play, how exactly do you manage everything?
Well, I don't, obviously, since I missed our first appointment to talk. I do it with the forgiveness of people like you.
Please! It's great to talk with you. So, will audiences have to wait another nine years before you're back onstage in New York?
I hope not. Listen, I'm available! [Laughs.] You can put that as the headline: Mary McCormack, looking for work!
See Mary McCormack in Boeing-Boeing at the Longacre Theatre.
