Mary-Louise Parker’s acting roots are firmly grounded in the stage. After graduating from the North Carolina School for the Arts, she set her sights on New York and made her Broadway debut in 1990’s "Prelude to a Kiss." Her versatility was matched by a quirky, sexy persona that soon set her on a path to stardom.
Critics may never call her classically beautiful, but she possesses a worldly endearing sexuality, a distinctive voice and delicate features. Her work in Prelude earned her a Tony nomination and later she won an OBIE for her riveting portrayal of a victim of child abuse in Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning "How I Learned to Drive" (1997).
As a mathematician coping with the legacy of her father in the Pulitzer-winning "Proof” in 2000, Parker, 43, almost made it a clean sweep of theater awards, including the Tony. Because her work is largely confined to Broadway, she may not command the attention, or box office boffo, of other contemporaries, but her work in “Weeds,” the hit Showtime cable channel series, she shows she can not only carry a production, but can also do it winning strong critical acclaim.
On film, Parker is known widely for her starring roles in Fried Green Tomatoes, Grand Canyon, Reckless, Boys On The Side, The Client, Naked In New York, Bullets Over Broadway, The Best Thief In The World, Longtime Companion, Pipe Dream, Red Dragon and The Five Senses.' Parker will next be seen next winter in The Spiderwick Chronicles, opposite Freddy Highmore, Nick Nolte, Martin Short and Joan Plowright.
As Nancy Botwin on the show, Parker struggles with the sudden death of her husband and agonizes over how she'll support and raise two young boys on her own. Without any discernible career skills, the widow Botwin finds good paying work as the local pot dealer in the pristine, new LA suburb known as Agrestic. There's definitely a double meaning when this girl puts on her Mary Janes, according to the show’s Web site. For her efforts on the series, she’s already snared a Golden Globe. Parker spoke to Ken Hubbard recently in Los Angeles about her work on “Weeds.”
Improper: Does Nancy actually enjoy her business just a little bit?
MP: I think she enjoys the adrenaline of it, and I think she’s grown to enjoy it. I don’t think she necessarily knew that about herself but I don’t think she’s the most rational person, you know? I think she is a bit reckless, and I think she isn’t someone who thinks ahead.
IM: Nancy seems to be headed toward a more aggressive form of business this season, which would seem to lead to more danger as well. That may not be as funny as before. Have you guys explored that option?
MP: Yes. I mean, I never saw this show as a flat-out comedy, and if you look at the pilot, that isn’t really what it is. To me, I don’t know how to approach anything as a straight-out comedy or a straight-out drama. It’s just life as life, and sometimes it tips one way darker than the other. I think that it does have the potential to go pretty dark. I think, actually, within that darkness is where a lot of great comedy is born of that.
IM: How was Snoop Dogg to work with?
MP: Snoops, I have to say, was pretty awesome. He was a really lovely fellow. He doesn’t have a large part, but he plays himself, and he did a really great job. He was really generous. In fact, he worked off-camera for everyone and was really sweet, and the first thing he did when he walked in the room was shake everyone’s hand.
IM: What do you do to prepare yourself when you're playing Nancy?
MP: Yes, there are a number of different things that I do. Sometimes it’s a matter of getting myself uncentered. It depends on the scene, it depends on what the scene requires, and it depends on what the scene is asking of me. If you’re talking about this particular character, you know, it would be literally impossible for me to describe. It’s just my process, and it would be utterly tedious. But it is something that I put a lot of work into and a lot of energy into.
IM: How have your feelings towards Nancy changed over time since you started playing her?
MP: My feelings are still changing because I’m still trying to discover new things about her that will help me to play her and help me to understand her and her relationships to other people, and I don’t really think about whether I like her or not. I don’t try to think of her in those terms. It doesn’t really help me in terms of playing her because she doesn't really think about whether she likes herself or not, you know? I don’t think she’s somebody who thinks about that.
IM: What are the parts that you enjoy the most?
MP: I like playing the scenes when she’s in the most amount of danger because I think that she’s someone who a lot of times doesn’t necessarily accept what’s going on around her and doesn’t necessarily belong where she is. So when you see her in this world where she’s getting shot at or fucking someone in an alley, everything is incongruous. I just like the juxtaposition of her against these other backdrops and these other worlds. I just find it really interesting that she doesn’t belong, and her trying to belong or knowing that she doesn’t. I like it when it’s very dramatic and things are going very badly.
IM: Did you think going in that this was an Emmy-worthy show that could go for more than one season?
MP: You know, the very first movie I ever did in my life ran for two days and just tanked. I was so excited about it before it came out, but it really taught me to not have any expectations whatsoever, so I never have any expectations. With this, I didn’t have any and if anything I thought people would probably be pretty offended by it. I didn’t think that it would necessarily be something that people would really dig. So I guess it’s kind of surprising.
IM: Why do you think people really like the show? What has made the connection with audiences?
MP: I don’t know. Tonye Patano (who plays Heylia) said something kind of interesting. She said you don’t really know what it is, but you kind of can’t not watch it. I thought that was kind of interesting to say. But you don’t know what it is. There’s not really another show quite like it, so even if you don’t like it, if you turn it on before you’ve really decided that you hate it or not, it’s over, so it’s probably good at the half mark. [Laughs] I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of a world that hasn’t been fully explored. I guess it hasn’t. Have there been shows about pot? I don’t think there have.
IM: Is that a fun set? Is there joking on the set?
MP: There is always joking on any set. I mean, it doesn’t really have to do with ...
IM: ... the topic?
MP: Yes. I mean, there is joking on any set. But I do take my work really seriously. It doesn’t mean I don’t laugh. I really do.
IM: One of the reasons people can relate to Nancy, maybe, is because they can relate to her situation, going from comfortable housewife to struggling widow. Did you draw on anything in your own background to play her?
MP: I tend to abstract my characters more than draw on my own background. A lot of times, the first thing I do when I play a character is make lists on the ways they are different from me. I find it distracting to at all relate it to my own life. I find it distracting, and I find that it interrupts me when I’m working because the other actors that I’m acting with, they weren’t involved in my life. So if an image flutters down in the midst of a scene and happens upon me or washes over me that’s lovely. But I don’t intentionally impose those things because I just find them intrusive.
IM: And what about Elizabeth Perkins? She's horrible in so many ways, yet there is an appeal to her character.
MP: I think that’s a testament to her acting. I think it’s because she’s such a wonderful actress that she’s able to bring that kind of dimension to the character. I think it would be really easy to play her as just Cruella DeVille. I think in some ways it would probably be more fun for an actress to play it that way, but I think she manages to bring another layer to it and make Celia…she’s always trying to make Celia more of a human being, and she’s constantly searching for another layer and trying to bring out the humanity in her, and I think that’s why you care about her at all.
IM: Why do you think Nancy stays friends with Celia?
MP: Well, I think the relationship goes in and out, but I think like Conrad, I think Celia and Nancy doesn’t really fit in their world, and I think Celia doesn’t fit in in this town and Nancy doesn’t fit in in this town, and I think Celia oddly is attracted to Nancy, not in a sexual way, but I think she’s just attracted to her and wants to be her friend. I think she sees that there is something about Nancy that is not phony in the way that the other ladies are phony. Oddly, in a way, Nancy is incredibly duplicitous and incredibly dishonest.