Mary Louise Parker’s cannon include some great favorites such as: Fried Green Tomatoes, The West Wing, Angels in America. She has also been in tons of theatre, most recently in Hedda Gabler where she got slammed by the critics which she said felt like a “physical assault.”
As the new season of Weeds kicks off, Parker talked to More about on screen nudity, airbrushing and her reaction to the reviews of her Hedda.
I am impressed with her honesty. Even in comfortable interviews most actresses are reserved. She’s not. I’m thinking that I might give Weeds another chance. New season begins on June 8. Here are some quotes.
On the nude scene:
She’d been fine with the series’ wildly erotic sex scenes, she says, but the shot in the bathtub in which the camera lingered on her breasts seemed intended to titillate. “I didn’t think I needed to be naked, and I fought with the director about it, and now I’m bitter…I knew it was going to be on the Internet: ‘Mary Louise shows off her big nipples.’ I wish I hadn’t done that. I was goaded into it.”
On aging:
To actually want to look your age on camera is a violation of Hollywood’s youth-at-all-costs handbook, but Parker says she has urged the producers not to digitally enhance her features, telling them, “Don’t take out my wrinkles. I’m happy that I look a little tired.” She hasn’t had Botox or plastic surgery, she insists, contorting her face into a seriesof hilarious expressions to prove it. “Somebody told me that they’d read that I had all this work done and showed me a picture, and it was totally airbrushed,” she says in outrage. “It made me so mad. I don’t like what that says to other women. I’m 44, and I look OK for 44. I’m not trying to look 34.”
Here’s a comment from co-star Elizabeth Perkins on Parker:
She adds that there is a double standard for actors—that a man is seen as being in charge of his craft if he complains about lines or scenes, whereas a woman is branded a “huge bitch.” Parker, she says, “is frighteningly intelligent, and she’ll call a spade a spade. I suppose it could come across as prickly, but it’s not meant that way. She’s just smarter than anyone else in the room.”
I love her!!! and the show WEEDS is phenomenal.
Watch it all, in sequence.
Her Weeds character is my favorite TV mom EVER!!!!!!!!
I was turned off by the title- I don’t like pot, etc.
then I watched a couple episodes and was hooked. I
spent every day off catching up & now I’m waiting with baited breath for the next season.
plus, it’s created/written/produced by a woman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenji_Kohan
rent it
That bit about the nude scene makes me so sad. It makes me sick to my stomach that a director would goad an actor into doing nudity they’re uncomfortable with, particularly in the age of the Internet. Such total disrespect.