Mary Kay Place is nominated for an Emmy for her work as Adaleen Grant on the HBO show Big Love. The ceremony for her category — guest actress in a drama series — takes place this weekend on August 21st.
Women & Hollywood: Congrats on the Emmy nomination. I’ve loved your work for so long and I’m flattered that you like my site.
Mary Kay Place: It’s just very interesting. There’s a lot of good stuff on there.
W&H: What are you working on now?
MKP: We’re shooting the 5th season of Big Love.
W&H: You’ve been a writer, director and actor.
MKP: I wrote before I acted. I was studying acting when I moved from Oklahoma to LA. I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t even know the right acting classes to get into. I started out in production and before that I worked for Tim Conway. I also worked as a typist in music clearance and learned about publishing.
I really wanted to learn and when I started with Norman Lear’s company I typed about 4,000 versions of every episode of Maude so I learned structure for the half hour sitcom. Then I met Linda Bloodworth who was teaching high school English in Watts and asked her if she wanted to write a script with me because I had an idea for a Mary Tyler Moore show. We wrote a spec script and wound up getting assignments from MASH. It was pretty amazing.
W&H: I never knew you and Linda Bloodworth were a writing team.
MKP: We were at the very beginning. For three years she and I wrote together. Then Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman came along and I started acting full time because we were shooting 35 pages a day five days a week. It was insane.
W&H: Is writing your first love?
MKP: I think for me it the hardest of all the things. I don’t think it is my primary gift by a long shot.
W&H: How did you get into directing?
MKP: I have had this script which is like The Last Picture Show from the girls point of view that I’ve been trying to write for 150 years, and I haven’t had time to do another draft in recent years. I’ve not quite gotten it right and I’ve always wanted to direct that so I just started directing TV to practice and learn the craft of it. I was lucky to get opportunities and I enjoy it. It’s fun to be able to shape the rhythm and tone. One of the hardest things about directing is the stamina required. I think as an actress you approach everything differently after you have been on that side of the camera.
W&H: What ever happened to the 12 Miles of Bad Road (the HBO show from Linda Bloodworth Thomason and starring Mary Kay and Lily Tomlin)
MKP: That is such a good question and I think you would need to ask the powers that be about that. I have no idea. I guess it’s in TV heaven.
W&H: That’s so sad.
MKP: It’s a mystery to me. I have no idea what became of it.
W&H: Your character Adaleen on Big Love is really scary.
Laughter.
W&H: Every time I see her I recoil. How do you get Adaleen to be such an interesting character? And what have you learned about the power dynamics of that culture?
MKP: It’s only possible to do Adaleen because the writing is so amazing. Will Sheffer and Mark Olsen and their amazing writing staff are brilliant writers and have such psychological understanding. They really get the dynamics of family and manipulation. The show is so rich with levels and layers that makes it really fun to act.
For Adaleen, this is a woman who has been in a closed situation for a long time and she has found a way to have her own power. Because she was with Roman, she’s got a lot of power on the compound. Even with Roman she figured out a way to be in charge of her life a lot more than the other women have. There is very little consciousness going on in the compound. Everything is in the dark and underground and secretive and buried. In spite of all her denials she has strong emotional reactions to things which she then tried to clamp down or or divert but sometimes they just come out and she can’t help it and that surprises her. The thing that cracks me up is how she and nicky can be furious with each other and then next week they are talking again.
W&H: Do you have a favorite character that you’ve played?
MKP: I’ve had a lot of favorite characters. Adaleen is one of my favorites because she is so unlike anything I have played. But I loved Loretta on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, I loved Meg in The Big Chill, I loved the nurse that I played in Manny and Lo and I even loved the little part I played in Being John Malkovich. I have had a lot of nice fun parts.
W&H: I was remembering your part as the Surgeon General on The West Wing. That show had such strong female characters. Do you have any comment on that?
MKP: It was a great gift to play that part. That woman had such integrity and because she was friends with the President she really had the courage and the faith in herself to speak her truth and to argue with him. I really appreciated that.
W&H: You’ve seen the ups and the downs for women in the business. Where are we as women now?
MKP: When I look at TV I am so excited because there are so many fabulous parts for women more so than in film. I’m really encouraged by that. The fact that these shows do well is encouraging. When I look at hard numbers and statistics it ain’t so great but I think that shouldn’t stop any of us. The fact that there are these shows such as Damages and there are many examples of women in strong positions making intelligent choices being leaders saying the one true thing in the room, I think that’s happening in spite of these statistics. And women are succeeding in spite of the obstacles and it will keep happeining because there are too many smart women out there writing good scripts, directing good episodes and acting in beautifully written roles. So I’m encouraged and whenever those statistics come out I don’t think about them twice. I get a moment of irritation and then I see a movie like Temple Grandin which was moving and inspiring.
W&H: HBO needs to have some more womencentric shows on the air.
MKP: It would be nice.
W&H: So what’s coming up for you?
MKP: I did a 4 episode arc on Bored to Death which was an absolute blast, and of course the new season of Big Love.
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I have always enjoyed Mary Kay Place’s acting, so thank you for the interview. I had no idea she started out writing with Linda Bloodworth, and has also done some directing. I hope to enjoy her work for many years to come.
Melissa, thank you very much for this talk with the criminally underrated MKP and for consistently bringing readers of this site interesting, worthy content and subjects that simply are not found anywhere else (other than maybe in my column! lol!). I appreciate pieces on great character actresses like MKP so much – I’ve been a fan since Smooth Talk!
I love Mary Kay Place. Manny & Lo was one of my favorite movies and she was so amazing in that.
I went to high school with Mary Kay Place. She was wonderful even at that young age. I always loved her name. I admire her acting skills. She is great.
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