Ann Dowd – Family Matters

Q) What are the current projects that you are working on?

A) I did a film called Saving Shiloh, which is the third of a trilogy of books written by Phyllis Naylor. We did the third one this summer in Missouri. The first one we did ten years ago and the second one we did seven years ago. It’s been set over an eleven-year period. I also did a film called I Believe in America, which I just loved doing and is by Michael Narvaez. It’ll come out in a year, I suppose. It’s about the Puerto Rican movement in the US. I’m doing a film with Clint Eastwood called Flag of Our Fathers and I have a small role in it. I started that six weeks ago and I’ll finish it in November. I’m doing some auditioning, which is always going on. I also have two children, so, we have a very full household. The wonderful thing about being an actress is you have spurts of work and then you have periods where you are not working where you can attend to family and go back into work.

Q) Please tell us about the premise for The Thing About My Folks and your character Linda.

A) The movie is a story about a father and a son coming to know one another over a road trip. The reason that this road trip happens is that, seemingly out of the blue, Peter Falk’s (who plays the father and is married to Olympia Dukakis) wife disappears. This is a very strange thing for her to do so everyone is up in arms. I play Paul Reiser’s sister, Paul plays the son, and he has three sisters. I play one of them and Linda is the one who kind of gets to the heart of the matter very quickly. She is a direct, forthright person, who deals with life in a very direct fashion. It is a very sweet, funny and sad story about this family and what really happens to the mother and what is really going there. It kind of investigates the relationship between the father and mother and what their marriage was really about. The son, played by Paul, sort of gets to it with the father and they take a trip and get to know each other. It’s a very sweet story and a very poignant story with this family and how they come to know each other more at the end of the day.

Q) What made you want to be a part of this project?

A) I liked Paul Reiser tremendously; I’ve always liked him. I also thought the script was really charming and very good. I just thought I’d love to do this. The people involved with it are wonderful. I went in, read for this and said to myself, “You know, I hope I get this. I really liked the screenplay tremendously and would love to be a part of it.” I also liked the sister, Linda. I felt very at home with her and understood exactly where she was coming from. She has a family and children and she is used to just getting to the heart of the matter very quickly with whatever time she has and I felt a kinship with her. I understood where she was coming from so I was very happy to do it!

Q) What as it like working with such a high profile cast?

A) Paul Reiser is a complete utter dear! He is a sweetheart and he is very funny. He is a delight! I don’t know how else to say it about him. He kept kind of a low profile on the first day and the first couple of scenes with Linda are over the phone. He actually wasn’t in the room. In reality, he wouldn’t be in the room, since he would be on the phone, so Paul would be in the corner doing the voice and saying things to me. He is a very lovely person, a very smart person and, as we all know, a very funny person. It was a total delight! The women that played my sisters were just a blast! I just enjoyed them immensely! Peter Falk is an incredibly hard working, focused, very warm individual. The whole thing was an entire pleasure. I had just come off of doing an episode of “Law & Order,” which was a wonderful experience and very taxing. When I got there the next day to the set of The Thing About My Folks, I felt very relaxed. After working on something, and you go directly into something else, you are very relaxed as long as you know what you are doing, done your homework, you know what you are going to say and what the relationships are and so on. It was like falling into a very comfortable household. The first day is always a little nerve-wracking, but as soon as you begin working it gets easy. The director was utterly lovely. He knew exactly what he was doing, but was not at all pushy about how he wanted to see things happen. He would suggest something and it was just a very easy set. It was the kind of thing where actors thrive in and it is a place you want to work.

Q) Do you have a most memorable moment from filming?

A) The first day is always a bit of a blur because you are trying your best to do what you can, get to know people and do the role as best as you can. The day that we shot the scenes in the hospital, I loved. We had a lot of down time so we would all sit, as you do in the hospital when you’ve got someone you love in the bed (in this case it is Olympia Dukakis, the mother). We did a scene where we ran down the hall trying to bring Paul and Peter, who had been on this road trip, to the room of our mother. When we filmed it, we used the words in the script and then when I watched the film they decided to do it without sound so you could see the behavior amongst siblings and father. You knew they were saying something, but you didn’t know what they were saying. It was beautiful and I thought what a fabulous choice to just watch the behavior, watch them running down the hall trying to get to the room of the mother and yet not hearing any of the words that they are saying to one another. The highlight was that day of shooting and then later watching it and saying what a great choice.

Q) What has been your favorite project to work on?

A) I couldn’t tell you because there are so many of them. I work in the theater also and I’ve had some wonderful experiences there. This is how I look at it, I have been amazingly fortunate in the films, plays and television projects that I’ve worked on. I’ve made some very dear friends as a result of that. I just feel very lucky to have the chance to work with Paul, Peter and Elizabeth Perkins, whom I adored. There are just a great many them! Meeting Clint Eastwood, what can I say? He’s utterly charming, focused and relaxed on the filmFlag of Our Fathers. All I can say is, each project that I’ve worked on I’ve loved.

Q) Who would you most like to work with in the future?

A) I have worked with a director in theater many years ago named Yuri Yurenen and I would love to do a play with him. I’d like to do a film with Sydney Pollack and a film again with Jonathan Demme, whom I adore. I’d like to do a film with Jane Campion who directed The Piano. There are so many! There are so many wonderful actors and directors. I had a very small part in The Manchurian Candidate and I had worked with Jonathan Demme on Philadelphiaand he’s a marvelous director. This part in The Manchurian Candidate involved a scene with Meryl Streep. Now, that in itself, was such an extraordinary experience because I didn’t know what to expect. She’s a marvelous actress, we all know this because we’ve all seen her films, and what can you say, but extraordinary. To meet her in person, to see the kind of human being she is – which is to say a stellar human being – and an actress who plays no celebrity on the set, that’s a remarkable thing to see. She walks on to a set and is as warm, kind, focused, alert and aware of all that is happening and to see her as she gets down to work just like any other actor blew me away. That was a remarkable experience to have and I’ll take more of that any day of the week!

Q) You have starred on such amazing shows like “Law & Order,” “House,” “Third Watch,” “Judging Amy,” etc. What show would you most like to work on?

A) I loved working on “NYPD Blue.” That was a bolt of lightening. I loved working with Earl Brown, he’s doing “Deadwood” now, so I’d love to do that. It’s always great to make an appearance on these shows that are going on. It’s hard to keep up with them when you have children so you are not always watching television. The “Law & Order” people have been doing it for so long and it’s such a class act, all of them. That’s always a great pleasure and I enjoy working in New York. I moved not long ago from LA to New York and I’ve continued to work a lot and I am thrilled about that.

Q) In 1993, you won the Clarence Derwent award for your role in “Candida.” How did that make you feel?

A) I felt like a million bucks! The fairytale about Broadway and doing a Broadway show turns out to be true, completely. It is a thrill beyond description! This was my first Broadway show, in a role I adored and it was a wonderful play. There was a wonderful director and cast. To then have someone say to me at the end of it all, “and how about this award”…I was flabbergasted! It was very much the world to me with the excitement, the joy and the accomplishment of arriving on Broadway! I remember the opening night, I’ll never forget it. I had done Philadelphia with Jonathan Demme and in the cast of that film was Mary Steenburgen. She is a marvelous actress and an incredible lady. She was playing Candida and Bobby Leonard was playing in the show too. The opening night was full of press and excitement, like an old time Broadway opening. That’s a night when you receive flowers form people you don’t even remember knowing! You say to yourself, “You have to get dressed. You have to go on stage!” It’s all so exciting that you can’t quite believe it. I remember coming out to do my first scene and I remember saying that I needed to take deep breaths. I remember flash bulbs going a mile a minute from the press! That was so bizarre because I was just not accustomed to it since it was for all of these people in the play. Also, in the audience were a million people! It was an extraordinary experience and at the end of it, for someone to say to me, “Here’s an award,” it was really an honored. I felt deeply honored and speechless.

Q) What do you do in your spare time?

A) In my spare time, I audition a lot and I try to get other wonderful parts. I have three children so it is a full on wonderful experience and it’s a matter of juggling. My husband is an actor and a teacher at NYU so I just keep schedules going. This summer, when I went to do Shiloh in Missouri, it was wonderful because I was able to pick up the family and go. Though that takes juggling, meaning sometimes they’ll come to the set and sometimes not, it was a pleasure to take them because it is a family going together to a sweet beautiful town in Missouri where we had never been. I loved the role and the people who worked on it because I’ve worked with them before and they are marvelous. That kind of a thing is a great thrill and then you come back when the school year begins and you’ve got to keep everybody in one piece. That’s what I do in my spare time. I also love to sing and I try to do my pilates to stay in some kind of shape. It’s a little hectic because I have a ten-month old in my home and that’s full on paying attention.

Q) What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A) I want to say to them that I am so deeply grateful for your support and I cannot tell you how gratifying it is to do a performance of something and have someone say, “I liked that,” or “That meant something to me.” I don’t know what is more gratifying than that. I want to say to them, deeply from my heart, my thanks and my love to you. I wish you the very best in your life.