Milk Train’s Olympia Dukakis on Cher, Camera Fright and her Rose-Colored Career

Olympia Dukakis may be best known for iconic film roles like Clairee in Steel Magnolias and her Oscar-winning turn as the sardonic Rose Castorini in Moonstruck, but she has certainly never given up her love of the stage. For decades, she has balanced a thriving film career with a robust stage resume, interpreting classics from Willliams to Chekhov to Pirandello while creating stage roles for Christopher Durang and film roles for Woody Allen. For 19 years she also ran her own theater company with her husband of 48 years, actor Louis Zorich, while the couple raised their three children. The indomitable actress, who turns 80 later this year, is now taking on the role of eccentric recluse Flora Goforth in Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore at Roundabout’s off-Broadway Laura Pels Theatre. During a recent post-rehearsal chat, Dukakis looked back on her career of 50+ years and mused on why she’s always playing mothers.

You’ve tackled Flora Goforth before; why revisit this character?
She’s a fierce and fragile woman, and that combination is intriguing. She’s grappling with her life and her mortality, and the sum total of all that she’s done and she hasn’t done. It’s a really interesting and challenging part. As you age you become a mother, and then a grandmother and then you become like this lady—part monster, part tragic figure, part clown. And, of course, it’s Tennessee Williams.

In your memoir, Ask Me Again Tomorrow, you said that a Williams play was the first time you ever felt a real connection to the stage.
Oh, that was a million years ago. Literally over 50 years ago. It was my first season of stock and I was actually there as a director, but we didn’t have enough actresses so I had to fill in. By the end I knew I wanted to be an actress, and Streetcar was one of the linchpins of that decision. That summer was a defining summer for me.

You’ve done well over 100 shows since then; which ones stick out as highlights?
I suppose it’s the Roses, really. Rose, the one-woman show I did at the National and in New York, was an extraordinary experience. Then there’s Serafina Delle Rose in Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo and Rose Castorini in Moonstruck. Someone said if I wrote another memoir I should title it A Dozen Roses.

In your film career, you’ve worked with a pretty staggering list of people. Who influenced you the most?
In the movies I would say [Moonstruck director] Norman Jewison. I learned a great deal from him. He opens up the process and he’s not faking it; he’s really not afraid to say when things aren’t clear and ask people for suggestions. On the other hand he’s very quick to shut something down if it isn’t working. He’s really extraordinary as a movie director. The other one was Jules Dassin. It was in the 70s, and he and Melina Mercouri were in exile in America and we did a film called The Rehearsal. He was instrumental in helping me with film acting. He knew right away that I didn’t like the camera.

That’s surprising to hear from an Oscar winner. Why didn’t you like the camera?
I didn’t know what to do with it! I didn’t know what it saw. I felt I had more control over what I could do with distance from an audience, and all of a sudden this camera was right up my nostrils. When I went to school you didn’t study film acting technique, they figured you’d just figure out how to transition into it.

How did you make that leap from stage to film?
Just by stumbling around, really. I did a film called Made for Each Other, which if you ever see you’ll think “Oh my god!” and not in a good way. I played Joe Bologna’s mother.

And you were only three years older than him. It seems like you’ve played a lot of mothers in your career, and from a very young age.
I played a couple of ingénues, but mostly I’ve played older, that's true. I’m not sure why; I think it’s my voice. I have an older sensibility.

Playing Cher’s mother in Moonstruck won you an Oscar when you were in your 50s. What is it like to achieve that level of recognition after working as an actor for so long?
It never hurts! I suppose it also helps people think that by hiring you, the box office will be good.

Your New Year's Resolution for Broadway.com was to only do parts that scare the hell out of you. What has scared you most in recent years?
Milk Train is right up there, as well as The Singing Forest [by Craig Lucas] at the Public Theater. That play had great ambition. There’s one point where I get raped. I kill somebody. It was complex and full of contradictions and that director, Mark Wing-Davey, is one I’ll work with again, if God is good. I want to really feel challenged and shaken, either by the play or by the director’s concept or both.

On the lighter side of new challenges, you made your New York musical debut not so long ago.
Yes, 70, Girls, 70! at the Encores! series. That was a very modest musical part and I was very happy to have been asked to do it. I’d sung in a lot of Brecht things, evenings of Kurt Weill and things of that sort, but mostly acting songs, not real stylization songs. I’m not a singer.

So you don’t see yourself doing another musical anytime soon?
Well, I don’t think they have many parts for septugenarians! But I like them; I take my grandchildren. Wicked I liked, Mary Poppins, things like that.

There was talk of a Cher musical. Did you hear that?
I did hear about that, though we’re not in touch much anymore. One of her final performances at Madison Square Garden was the last time I saw her. There’s nobody like her. She’s just fabulous, she keeps reinventing herself and keeps going on. That’s a musical I’d definitely see.

Are your grandkids growing up to be theater lovers?
I hope they grow up to be fans. I hope they don’t grow up to be actors.

Why not?
Oh my dear, you always wish a different, easier life for your children and your grandchildren. It's what mothers do.