It’s life. Let’s face it, sometimes something terrible happens and then for no reason, you laugh about something and you can’t believe you did. Then, you go back to actually caring about what’s really happened. There’s some elements of that, but good writing is good writing and I’ve had the privilege of working with some wonderful writers. Chuck Lorre is fantastic and I did “[The] Kominsky [Method]” with him and “B Positive” and then, working with great actors that they brought in on that series, that was fantastic. The higher the caliber of the actors you work with and the better the material, the better the experience.
I wanted to ask you a little bit about that as well. You’ve had decades of amazing experience. Which roles have pushed you to hone your acting craft, and were there any that specifically helped you with this role?
“War and Remembrance,” I dove very deep into that. It was a very hard, heart wrenching, difficult shoot, nine months. I was all over Europe and pretty much what’s happening right now on the border of Russia, the same stuff was happening. We filmed in Auschwitz, and it was all very realistic. I was surrounded by people who survived and my parents had survived World War II. That was a very big one.
“East of Eden” was an amazing role. I played [Cathy Ames] from 13 to [her] late 50s, American classic. How can you not hone your skills with that? [Another role was] “Dr. Quinn,” because it was great material, but my God, to get up every day and do nine, ten pages of that outside, literally if it was frost on the ground or it was a hundred and something degrees, or we had rattlesnakes, or we had mountain lions or we had fires, it all happened there. It was pretty amazing.
I’ve played Maria Callas, which I got the Emmy for. That was really cool because I had to learn all these arias and had to fake sing and I had to play this amazing character. I played Marie Antoinette in “The French Revolution,” no one told me I was playing it in French. I had a week in which to make sure that I could at least say what Marie Antoinette had to say in French. I learned to be fluent in French. Each one has its challenge.
[For] “Wedding Crashers,” the challenge was, why am I the only woman in the [film] who is actually naked? What went wrong here? Why am I at this age and they have body doubles? Hmm. Okay. But it was funny.
Acorn TV’s “Harry Wild” premieres on April 4, with new episodes airing weekly thereafter.
