Mary-Louise Parker (10/04)

It's hard to describe Mary-Louise Parker's stage acting without resorting to cliches, all of which happen to be true: She lights up the stage, she makes every line sound fresh, she adds heartbreak to comedy and she always makes her co-stars look good. The frustration for fans of Parker's performances in Proof, How I Learned to Drive, Four Dogs and a Bone and Prelude to a Kiss was that she rarely got film roles that capture her unique gifts. Luckily, Mike Nichols changed that when he cast Parker as Harper Pitt in Angels in America for HBO, a role that brought her a richly deserved Emmy and Golden Globe. She's back on Broadway as a housewife on the run in Craig Lucas's dark comedy Reckless, capping off a year in which she gave birth to William Atticus Parker on January 7 and turned 40 on August 2. Before the actress spoke with Broadway.com, her publicist warned against asking about the baby's father, Parker's ex-boyfriend Billy Crudup, but there's something about Mary-Louise that inspires a sense of protectiveness. Billy who? Other subjects were fair game, including the upcoming movie of Proof, starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

You know Reckless well, having played the role Rosie Perez is now doing [Pooty, a deaf paraplegic who befriends Rachel, the lead character] in the 1995 movie version. Why did you want to come back to the play?
I had enough distance from having seen the original production [starring Robin Bartlett at Circle Rep in 1988] and having done the movie to feel that I could put my own interpretation on it. It just felt right. I read it a bunch of times to make sure I had a point of view on the part, and something clicked.

You have a long history with Craig Lucas, from Prelude to a Kiss to the movies Longtime Companion and Reckless. Why are you drawn to his writing?
I like how dark he gets, but at the same time there's such a whimsy there. He's truly one of the wittiest people I've ever known, and his sense of humor has so much range and intelligence. The humor can be black, but his characters are endlessly optimistic. Rachel is totally, indefatigably positive, even though she's running for her life because she's been told someone wants to kill her. She's different from me in every possible way, so I have to reach for her, which requires a lot of energy. I'm not a talkative person and she never stops talking.

This production seems funnier to me than the original.
I really don't approach comedy or drama differently; it's all the same to me. I mean, I thought Proof was funny! I hope this is funny because you need to embrace the irony in the writing, but you have to be careful not to play it for humor because then it ends up being a farce and you don't get the depth that's there. To me, this play calls up the story of Job and Siddhartha, although everything that happens [to Rachel] is against her will. A lot of Craig's writing comes back to [questions of] who am I, who are you, and can we ever really know other people.

You've been a great friend of Manhattan Theatre Club, but a number of actors and writers have criticized the passive nature of subscription audiences, especially at MTC. Do you find that they "getting" Reckless?
So far, I feel like the audiences are with us. Certainly not everyone--it's going to be too obscure for some people and a bit too dark for other people, but it's a rare play that appeals to 90 percent of the audience. I bow to anyone who buys a subscription because they're supporting the theater. At the same time, it takes a certain level of income to be able to do that, so there tends to be a sameness that doesn't always create the most interesting audience. You'd like more of a cross-section of people, but anyone who helps make theater happen is fine with me. You know, I was intent for this play to be done on Broadway. It wasn't originally intended to be, but I really wanted more people to hear it and appreciate it.

Are you surprised that you've become the queen of the awards show sound bite?
I have?

First you thanked your baby at the Golden Globes for making your breasts look so good. He wasn't even a month old at the time, was he?
He was two and a half weeks old.

And you were slim and gorgeous!
It was crazy. I don't know how that happened, quite frankly. Even I thought it was a little weird. But you know, Janel [Maloney of The West Wing] dared me to say that minutes before I walked up there. And I was like, "Okay, I'll say whatever. I just had a baby two and half weeks ago!" I didn't have anything to lose.

At the Emmys, you quoted a co-star who'd just told you, "If you don't win, you're such a loser."
That was Justin Kirk. I love Justin so much; we were whispering all night.

I also loved that you said Mike Nichols could get a good performance out of something odd--was it a kumquat?
A quiche. He could! So much of my performance in Angels in America I owe to him.

A few years ago, you talked about how much you disliked red-carpet events. Has that aspect of the business gotten to be more fun for you?
Yeah it has, actually. It depends on what you expect of the experience. If you just take it for what it is and have people around you that you want to be with, it can be fun. For the Emmys, I brought my sister and my niece and we had a great time. It was as much about getting our nails done and putting our dresses on and having champagne and candy before the ceremony as anything else. The whole thing is frothy and silly, and if you take it too seriously, you're kind of doomed. People are watching at home with their remote control and they want to talk about who looks fat or who said something stupid. You just have to accept that.

Your dresses were beautiful. Did you choose them yourself?
I did. Jeff Mahshie of Chaiken, a designer in New York, made both dresses for me. He's a great guy, a friend of mine who loves the theater.

I also remember you saying quite firmly a few years ago that Hollywood couldn't care less about a great theater performance. But didn't Proof provide the push that led to Angels in America and your recurring role on The West Wing?
It did, and that never happens! But that's something you can't ever expect. When I did Proof, I was just doing an off-Broadway play at the Manhattan Theater Club. You don't do a play to get famous; it would be idiotic to think you could. You do a play because you love the theater. It's rare that people take notice of a play, and it was lovely that it happened that time. I'd much rather someone notice me for my stage work than anything else.

Did Mike Nichols ask you to do Angels?
No, I auditioned. I knew him a little bit, but I wanted to audition. I wanted the part so desperately! I was supposed to come in with one scene but I kept saying, "Do you want to see another one? Do you want to see another one?" [Laughs] I didn't think I'd ever get the part. I still can't believe I got it.

Did you have any contact with Marcia Gay Harden, who played Harper on Broadway?
I sent her a note just to say "I want to pay my respects to you and tell you how much I loved your performance, and I'll try to do justice to the part."

That was a lovely gesture. Did you hear from her?
No, but someone told me she said she got a note from me and it really meant something to her. I hope it did. I don't know that she was ever planning on doing the movie. But I felt I should pay my respects because she was part of the success of the play.

On the other side of coin, do you have any interest in seeing the movie of Proof?
I don't. I'm not even curious. Not to be bitchy or anything, but I know what happens in Proof. I did it every night for a year and a half. I had my experience and I loved my experience. If you offered me the movie over the play, even if you told me I was going to win an Oscar for it, I would pick the play. That's so much more rewarding to me. I had the experience of taking it from its very first reading around a table to Broadway, which nobody thought was going to happen. One of my agents literally laughed at me when I said, "This got good reviews; do you think it will move?" I just felt it would have been nice if David [Auburn, the playwright] had come to me and said, "I'm selling the rights." I have zero bitterness now, but it hurt me that he didn't bother to tell me he had sold it because I was so close to it. They weren't going to produce it on Broadway without me. [Playwright] Robbie Baitz said, "You can do [a movie of] The Substance of Fire, but only if you use Ron Rifkin." I felt like because I had so much to do with getting the play done, it would have been classier if David had said something to me. But I was too old for [the movie] anyway.

You don't look any different now than you did 10 years ago.
Not up close!

I read that you've just done a pilot for Showtime. Do you know if it will be picked up?
I don't know how any of that stuff works because I've never done a pilot before. The only TV I've ever done was The West Wing. I play a housewife in Los Angeles, but not typically suburban. It's edgier.

There's a market for that kind of show now. Look at the ratings for Desperate Housewives.
It's kind of like that. It would film in L.A., but it's only 13 episodes so I wouldn't be out there for very long.

Does the steadiness of a TV show appeal to you?
Absolutely, just for the baby's sake. I really like the idea of being in the same place day to day and knowing roughly what I'll be doing. Theater is a brilliant schedule for a child because once we're not rehearsing anymore, I'll pretty much have all day with him except for matinee days.

It sounds like juggling motherhood and work is going well.
Yeah. I mean ultimately, if I were a gazillionaire, I would probably just do theater and be with the baby--which means I wouldn't work very much because it takes a lot for me to love a play enough to want to do it! I probably wouldn't work so much for a while. I had to work a lot this summer [Parker acted in John Turturro's upcoming musical film Romance & Cigarettes and shot a Lifetime TV-movie in Canada]. I wish I hadn't, but meanwhile I was able to put away some money and I'll be able to relax with the baby for a good while.

You had previously expressed ambivalence about motherhood. Aren't you glad you did it?
There's nothing better in the whole world. There's never been anything better. It's made me a lot more laid back in certain ways because it 's so much more important than anything else in your life. It puts everything in perspective, but I guess everybody says that.

You experienced a tiny brush with tabloid fame around the time of the baby's birth. How were able to keep it under control?
I don't court people's interest in my personal life. I'm just an actress, you know? I'm a private person; I'd be a private person if I were a botanist.

So you don't feel any pressure to use your awards to get bigger film parts or achieve a different level of fame?
No, because I'm not an ambitious person. I would be happy if I could keep doing what I am doing now--just keep getting good parts in the theater and [film and TV projects] that I kind of like to make money. There's nowhere I'm trying to get; I'm not trying to move up to another level, do you know what I mean? I'm too old to have some wild film career and I'm not looking for one. I'm happy with what I have right now.