Mary-Louise Parker

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Mary-Louise Parker is an acclaimed actress of three mediums: film, TV, and theater. She's won a Tony for the Broadway musical Proof, an Emmy and Golden Globe for her role in the HBO miniseries Angels In America, and another Golden Globe for her popular role as pot dealer Nancy Botwin on the hit Showtime comedy-drama Weeds.

Parker's newest role is as mother Helen Grace in the film adaptation of the popular children's book series The Spiderwick Chronicles. While most actors tend to be a bit reluctant to play roles that are second-fiddle to young children, Mary-Louise, when she discussed the film with us, said she was eager to do the film and not just because she happens to be a fairly newly-minted mother herself.

'I am a mother and I think what drew me to this movie was the fact she's really part of the struggle with the family,' she says, 'And I think what makes the end resonate when they unite together is the fact that she is struggling, too.'

'I think if she was some sort of picture of perfection and she's sort of joined in the struggle, then I wouldn't think it would really be quite as poignant,' Parker continues, 'But I think because she's trying so hard to keep everything together and she's resisting them and resisting them and when she does give in, I think that's what made it kind of sweet. I like that she's really trying so hard and then, in the end, she really bonds with her kids in the purest way.'

The now-43-year-old actress says she was also impressed with the depth of the story itself, despite her initial lack of familiarity with the books themselves.

'It's interesting,' Mary-Louse notes, 'The characters are finely drawn. It's an interesting dynamic. The characters, certainly with the daughter and the mother, I mean the daughter fences. It's so random and specific and grace.'

'I actually had bought one of the books for Alexander [Gould}, the younger son [on Weeds],' she adds, 'I think it was the first year. It was something I bought him for his birthday because we asked for a book, he likes the book, and the bookstore said these books are really good. That was one of the things I bought him for his birthday, so it's the first time I ever heard of the books.'

One of the tougher aspects of playing a role in such a deeply special-effects-driven film like Spiderwick is the constant interaction with CGI. The actors often had to interact with mere objects like tennis balls as stand-ins for the more animated characters. For the Tony and Emmy winner, the actress says such a task has the odd double-edged sword of both being fun and complex.

'That, it was more fun to play, but it was harder to play because obviously, I'm not looking at anything,' Parker believes, 'But it's more fun to get to play that moment when she does because you're seeing things that no human ever could or would ever see, so how to play that was a really fun challenge. It was the hard part, but it was also the fun part. It's just all the CGI and the green screen that presents its own funny little challenge of working with little plastic people that aren't there. It's just its own challenge.'

Parker even has a rather intriguing analogy with which to explain to us what such a process is comparable to.

'It's like going to work with an actor that's not that great, but times 50,000, because you can always project something,' she claims, 'Say someone is not trying that hard or they're not having their best day, or not to be mean, because sometimes people are just not into it or they don't like the project or they can't connect to that actor.'

'The two of you just don't have something that you could project onto them,' Mary-Louise continues, 'I'm sure people have done that with me, you know, like you can find something. You can't really find much in a plastic gremlin, you have to delve, you have to conjure something up within yourself.'

Taking center stage in Spiderwick are in fact children. They consist of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and August Rush star Freddie Highmore and Irish actor Sarah Bolger, best known for her roles in In America and Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker.

When asked about her experience working with the both of them, Parker shared plenty of praise for both her young co-stars. First, she spoke of her working with Highmore.

'I think [Freddie's] a smart kid and so professional and so bright that I'm sure he made everyone else feel like everything's going to be fine and he's not cocky at all either,' Parker says, 'I think he just works so hard and is so committed that he just makes everyone think that he can do it and he really can.'

'He was doing things that were slightly out of his wheelhouse,' she says, 'He's a very elegant, dignified, intelligent young adult, but he's English trying to play this troubled American and he does it so well. I think there's a lot he can do.'

Then, the actress spoke of her experience with Bolger.

'I thought [Sarah's] so fantastic, that girl,' Parker recalls, 'I never seen anyone burst into tears when you tell her she has to go home. She loves to work. She loves to be on the set. It could be 12:30 at night and two degrees outside and you tell her she has to go home and her eyes fill up. She's just like, 'Is there anything else I have to do'' I'm like, Sarah, don't you want to go to sleep, and she's like, no, I just love being on a film set, I just love it.'

However, this has also been a time where seemingly too many of Hollywood's younger talents like Lindsay Lohan find their lives complicated by their extraordinary skills as actors during very formative years of growing up. We asked Parker whether both the actors ever came off as too grown-up for their years.

'No, and I mean that as a compliment, because he is not polished and he is not slick, he's not like a little mini-adult,' she replies, 'He's such a lack of ego, he and Sarah both, and they're so unsophisticated in the best possible way. And at the same time, they both have this lovely elegance about them, without being posh or sophisticated or in a way that's creepy that sometimes kid actors can be. Those kids are so great. And I often find it really sad for child actors. You really worry about them for good reason.'

Mary-Louise Parker has much to look forward to. She's continuing to work on new episodes for Weeds after Lions Gate had already made a deal in the midst of the writers' strike. As we ended , the actress, despite being immensely proud of her work, claims she has not seen the final cut of Spiderwick.

'I haven't seen it,' Mary-Louise says, 'I usually don't see the movies that I'm in, but this one I am going to see at some point.'