February 1994 T PAGE 27 Q-Notes
Mary Steenburgen
Continued from page 12
Miss Firecracker, where I played a vain
bitch. So that part of it—playing someone
who’s not likeable—was not a problem for
me. I’m actually eager to do that more and
more in my career. While I have mainly
eluded being typecast in my career, if I have
been at all, it would be that I’ve played more
likeable people than people like the Miss
Firecracker character. I adored her, but, you
know, one does not aspire to be like her.
Thatwasn’taproblem. The problem was
just literally that it was AIDS. That was the
hard part for me—tiying to go up against
somebody who had it.
BRENT: It seems like one of the things
the film has going for it is that it has very
likable actors, such as yourself, and Tom
Hanks and Denzel Washington, that can
draw in an audience and make AIDS ac
cessible to people who don’t understand.
MARY: Thank God Tom Hanks is the
person who played that part. He’s stunning.
He’s incredible. In fact, he was so incredible
that I sometimes got so mesmerized by what
he was doing, I forgot I was working, I’m
ashamed to say...
There are some people that are literally
going to protest the fact that a straight actor
played a gay part, but the fact is I don’t know
who you would have found who would have
been any more respectful of this material
than Tom Hmiks, and who would have done
abetter job. Tom is familiar and likable and
easy and accessible, and since that is the
experience of so many of us with our gay
friends, it was wonderM to use him, instead
of someone who was more aloof or harder to
relate to.
BRENT: A lot of your films haven’t
been big box office hits. Does that discour
age you?
MARY: No.
BRENT: That’snotsomethingyoucon
sider when—?
MARY: Well, sure, I consider it, but I
can’t make people go to the movie. All I can
do is do my best work, which I always try to
do. I’ve never phoned in a day or an hour of
my work, ever. I really care about it. That’s
not to say that I don’t help to promote mov
ies, because I do, but ultimately, it’s almost
serendipitous in the end. You do as much as
you can do, and then you have to leave it to
someone else. If I got eaten up by that, I think
it would probably restrict the work that fol
lows it. I’m very protective of my working
self. I just don't let things like that bother me.
It’s been really nice that some of my less
successful films have been loved in video.
Cross Creek is really a film that eventually
people really saw. Miss Firecracker has its
own fimny little cult. Certainly I would love
foramillion—millions of—people to go see
these films, but when a film comes out it’s
either Parenthood or Back to the Future III,
and everyone goes and it’s fantastic and
great, or it's Miss Firecracker, which I loved
and had an amazing experience doing, and
you mourn it and you go on. You just have
to do that.
BRENT: Recently, Susan Sarandon
said, “In Hollywood, they nominate an
actress for playing an activist, but ban her
for being one.” You have a reputation for
being an activist. Do you agree with Sus
an?
MARY: I’m a funny activist in that I do
a lot of my work quietly. I worked for two
hours this morning on political activism is
sues, but no one knows it. I don’t do it to get
my picture in the paper—I’m not saying
most people do it for that, although some do.
The work that I do is mainly work I started
before I ever became an actress, and it’s a
continuation of that work. [She laughs.] I’m
probably more involved than you could ever
guess, but for me part of the pleasure of it is
not making a big deal out of it.
BRENT: So you find that it hasn’t
really negatively affected your career?
MARY: I don’t think so. I’ve been
criticized, and I’ve taken very unpopular
stands. I mean, I went on television last
February to support Bill and Hillary Clinton
when nobody would go near them with a
barge pole.
That wasn’t a fun time to be their friend,
but I am their friend, and she’s one of my
closest friends, and they needed me. When
I did that, there were a lot of people who
thought I was nuts, and a lot of people had a
lot of negative things to say about them to
me. Of course, some of those same people
were inviting me to cocktail parties honoring
them within a few months. If you care about
that stuff, you only have to wait a couple of
months and it swings a different way. You
have to—it’s a terrible cliche—but to thine
own self be true.
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