Hope Davis
Congratulations! Even in a Broadway season filled with impressive casts, the four of you stand out.
It’s been an A+ experience so far. I’m so inspired by my three fellow actors onstage. I’m so grateful that they cast the play the way they did. They’re hilarious, and everyone has worked so hard. I know this play’s been done in other cities, but I can’t imagine anyone else playing the part that Jeff Daniels is playing [as Davis' blowhard lawyer husband].
Jeff Daniels said he loves being in the show because the four of you can all “bring it” and no one has to act for two people or compensate for weak links. Does it feel that way to you?
The play has a lot of laughs in it, and it’s not uncommon that a cast member abandons the rest of you and goes straight to the footlights. That has not happened at all here. In fact, people have given up laughs in order to push the play forward. They’ve given up juicy little moments in order to look at the larger picture and get something across. I’ve got no complaints.
What do you mean “goes straight to the footlights”?
You never know when you’re going to end up onstage with an actor who doesn’t give a shit about any of you and just wants to connect with the audience and milk whatever little moment they can. There can sometimes be a feeling of abandonment when something that everyone’s worked on together gets left in the dust. And that’s been the opposite experience with this group.
During a press conference before previews started, you said you hadn’t been in a play since having kids, and you wanted to see if you still had it in you. So do you?
Yup, I have it in me. If we were getting a lukewarm, confused reaction from the audience, it’d take more out of me. But the audiences have been very excited and really energized by the show. It’s actually been thrilling to do.
So instead of coming home exhausted, you’re all buzzed?
We’re all kind of jazzed. I’m having trouble sleeping, yeah. I’m too excited. I can’t come home and just get into bed and fall asleep.
What do you do when you’re…
…while my husband is sound asleep beside me? I just lay there and think about the play. I think about the play all the time—what’s working, what might not be working and what should I do about it.
Do you ever feel starstruck by your castmates?
By us? [Laughs.] We’re all just a bunch of working actors, working parents. No one’s got an entourage or anything.
James Gandolfini wasn't intimidating?
Well him, yeah. I didn’t know him, and I think it took me maybe a week into rehearsal to let go of this feeling that he was a really imposing character. And he’s not at all. He’s one of the sweetest guys you’ll ever meet.
He seems kind of shy.
He’s a very, very, very nice person. Shy? I think everyone—well, I don’t know if you could call Marcia shy. I don’t think she would say she’s shy.
She seems more like a hostess, actually.
She was kind of the hostess in the first week. She asked the questions that all of us were thinking about, and she was really able to articulate everything.
How do you feel you’ve changed as a stage actress in the years since Spinning Into Butter?
My stage fright has gone away. I think my children have beaten it out of me, since they tire me out before I can really get worked up.
As a parent, how do you relate to God of Carnage’s set-up?
My daughters are young and haven’t punched anybody in the face, so I haven’t had this exact experience. But I do relate to the feeling of wanting to protect one’s child. It’s very easy to believe that your children are the ones who are right, and that if they’ve done something wrong, it’s because they’ve been wronged. But I don’t specifically have a strong connection to the story. I was more interested in the larger issue of how we so easily devolve into an us-and-them mentality.
Have your parenting skills ever been questioned by another parent?
One time, some witch in the Bleecker Street playground started yelling at me and chastising my tiny two-year-old daughter. Her son had filled a bucket with sand and turned it over, and it was supposed to be a castle. After it had been sitting there for 10 minutes, my kid walked over and smashed her hand on top of it. This woman started hollering at me about how I had allowed my kid, through my negligence, to wreck her son’s castle. Her kid was screaming and crying, and I thought, “Wow, instead of yelling at me, you ought to tell your son that he can fill another bucket and turn it over and he’ll have another castle. I’ll do it, if you want me to.” [Laughs.]
Now that we’re on the subject of childhood, I see you were friends with Mira Sorvino.
I haven’t seen Mira Sorvino in 20 years. I have nothing to say on that subject [laughs]. Sorry. I just finished an interview and this woman asked me all about it. I was like, “My god!”
Well, it’s listed on several online biographies of you.
How can I get it off? Nothing against Mira, but I haven’t seen her in 20 years.
Okay moving on, after moving to Chicago, you were in a play in 1988 with John Cusack and Tim Robbins.
Yes, I think it was about a traveling troupe of magicians and circus freaks. I can’t remember the name of it, actually.
It was called Alagazam…After the Dog Wars.
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about that. I played the androgynous MC of the show, if I remember correctly. I wore a tuxedo and tied my hair back in a ponytail and I had white face on.
Then you starred in Speed-the-Plow in the part people are still calling “the Madonna role.”
I don’t know how David Mamet feels about that. That was my first real gig, with a box office and real theatergoers; we weren’t just filling the house with our parents and friends and the dogs sitting in the back. It starred William L. Petersen as Bobby Gould, the role Jeremy Piven just played. Joel Schumacher directed.
The Joel Schumacher who directed The Lost Boys and Batman Forever?
I think it was his only [theatrical] directing job.
Did he hook you up with your first film role in Flatliners?
Yes, that’s how it works. I had a couple of scenes with Billy Baldwin.
It must have been cool doing a Mamet play in Chicago.
I couldn’t believe I was meeting David Mamet. But that’s when my stage fright was like, “My god.” I couldn’t eat for about a month when we were in previews.
Why do you think so many actors suffer from stage fright?
Before you know if you’re really gonna be able to do it, you’re always going to stress about it. “Will I remember my lines? Will I be able to perform, or am I going to freeze like a deer in the headlights?” It takes a long time to prove that, yes, you are going to get out there and say your lines, as 99.9 percent of actors who step out onto the stage eventually do. It takes time to understand that you can handle the experience. Some actors don’t find it as paralyzing as I did. But I still got out there. I got through it. And it’s not like I had to be drugged and thrust onto the stage.
How did you get through Speed-the-Plow?
By running my lines four or five times a day. I’d say every single line I had in the play. I knew every else’s lines, too. I was kind of obsessive about it.
What do you remember about Two Shakespearian Actors, your Broadway debut?
Victor Garber got me that job. He was one of the leads. I was studying with him at HB Studios at the time. He got me an audition at Lincoln Center for a small part. Jack O’Brien was directing. Victor kind of pushed me into the room, and I got my first Broadway gig. Being tied into corsets and running around onstage, I was beside myself.
Then you were an off-Broadway hit in Nicky Silver’s Pterodactyls.
That was the first time he’d done a play in New York, which was very exciting. He was a real discovery. His voice was a revelation. Plus, it was a great character to play. It was a lot like God of Carnage, actually. Everyone’s onstage a lot, whipping lines around as fast as possible.
When would you say you found your legs as a film actress?
Probably around the About Schmidt year. It was a part that I really pursued, which is not something I’ve done often in my career. But I really went after that job. I just thought the script was amazing and I loved [director] Alexander Payne’s work so much. I never would’ve dreamt in a million years that I would’ve been playing opposite Jack Nicholson. And I asked him a lot of questions about how to do things. Of course, he was filled with information. None of which I can divulge.
Oh, you can tell us something. Please?
They’re Jack’s secrets. He might come get me.
He’d have to come to Broadway to find you.
That’s right. I’ve got a steady gig here until July, at least.
How does everyone feel after the show? Exhausted, I bet.
Exhilarated. It takes a lot out of everybody; we walk offstage and kind of huddle in a sweaty clump and laugh for a couple of minutes. It’s just us four out there for the entire time, and it gets kind of crazy. But it’s been a great experience to hear the audience’s response. The play really works.
I’m sure that also does wonders for curing stage fright.
Don’t have that anymore, thankfully. I feel focused and relaxed. It’s very exciting to be back in the theater. I hope to spend a lot more time here in the next—oh, what have I got left? Forty years?
See Hope Davis in God of Carnage at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
