INTERVIEWS
Interviews with Jane are few and far between – at least,
that I’ve been able to find. I’ve
actually only found two transcripts of interviews with her, plus one in which
she’s doing the interviewing (of her costar from Relativity, Poppy
Montgomery). There is, however, one
single interview on video, which you can access with RealPlayer at the
following site:
http://www.filmfestivals.com/cgi-bin/cannes/playvideo.pl?site=us&medi_id=5840
TRANSCRIPTS
This is the most recent interview I’ve found, relating to
her new role in the Broadway production of Enchanted
April.
Jane Adams
by Beth Stevens
It's
raining, she forgot her cell phone, her transportation to the theater suffered
a fender-bender making her late, and yet when Jane Adams arrives at the Belasco
Theatre to meet me, she is largely unruffled. Sure, she's apologetic, but the
Tony winner (for An Inspector Calls in 1994), who
recently took over the role of Rose Arnott in Enchanted April from the
pregnant Molly Ringwald, is one to takes things in stride. "What was I
going to do?" the big-eyed, small-boned actress shrugs about the minor car
accident. "I just sat back, lit a cigarette and waited." She's laid
back, but she's also incredibly considerate. Before settling into her dressing
room for a chat,
Tell me about how the opportunity to star in Enchanted April came to you.
I got a phone call from my manager in June, and I took a
cab up that night to see the production. It was really quick. The call came at
around six in the evening, and I saw the show at eight!
So, you had to make a quick decision to take over the
role from Molly Ringwald?
I did have to make a quick decision, but I don't think of
it as "taking over." I just think of it as stepping into it and doing
my own thing. Any reservations I had about going into the show so fast were
erased by seeing Jayne
Atkinson on stage. She's just so luminous. I guess the timing was right for
this one. Of course, I was planning on taking the summer off. (She laughs.) I'm very lucky, but I do miss the beach a
little.
Did you have concerns
about preparing for the role in such a short period of time?
I don't have a very good sense of what my major concern was other than learning
my lines fast. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't a liability to the rest of
the cast.
Too bad you couldn't
take a nice trip to
Oh, yeah! But now I feel like I'm going to
What specifically
attracted you to Enchanted April?
When I saw the play, I thought, "That's a journey I want to make!"
Rose gets to make a nice recovery... in a beautiful place.
It's obvious that the
audience is happy when the second act opens in
That random applause for the plywood!
You recently moved back
to
I moved back to
Do you have a vision of
what you'd like to do next?
Ideally?
Sure.
Ideally, I'd like to be a mom in some small place in upstate
Speaking of kids, you
were a nursery school teacher early on in your acting career. Tell me more!
I taught pre-school. I loved it! Kids are so raw. It was really just a way to
fill time when I wasn't working. There's a lot of downtime for actors, and it
was a way to hold onto my sanity. I always liked babysitting, and I was a nanny
for my professors at Juilliard. I remember when I was rehearsing I Hate
Hamlet, I was still working at the school. Sometimes I'd discover I had
sand in my hair from the sandbox while I was in rehearsal!
I Hate Hamlet was your Broadway debut, right?
Yes.
That must have been a
baptism by fire considering the controversy. [Evan Handler left the show
mid-performance after reportedly being struck by his sword-wielding co-star
Nicol Williamson.]
Oh, yes. It was crazy. I remember seeing it on the front page of the newspaper
when I was out getting coffee. I still have that paper somewhere.
Many of the characters
you play can be described as "quirky," but the character of Rose
Arnott is the opposite of quirky. Where does the real Jane Adams fit into the
range of roles you have portrayed?
That's a good question. I'm not sure. You know, I think I'm about 25 different
people. A lot of people assume I'm like Joy (from the movie Happiness),
but I'm not. I'd be dead if I were. I guess the only way to answer is like Lady
Caroline does in Enchanted April: "You can tell me."
I have a dumb question.
Aw, go on!
Where do you keep your
Tony Award?
Right now it's on a high shelf in the kitchen of my sublet downtown. You know,
I drove across the country with Sara and most of my stuff is still in storage
in
**************
Interview from Out magazine, Dec. 2000 issue
(Includes a few editorial comments, because, well, because I felt like it. :-P)
NO PLAIN JANE*
By Ronnie Radner
“It’s a great day… a great day…” says 34-year-old Juilliard alum Jane Adams, recalling the immortal words of the first character she ever played: Ramona Quimby from the Beverly Cleary children’s book series that includes Ramona the Pest and Ramona the Brave. And though Adams is perhaps best known for her role as shrinking violet Joy Jordan in the bleak Todd Solondz film Happiness, she takes a brave sapphic turn in this month’s Songcatcher, a Sundance favorite about strong-willed women living on their own terms in 1907 Appalachia – against a background of compassionate folk songs*** and radical social change.
When asked what it was like for a “nice straight girl from Wheaton, Illinois” to play fiery lesbian Elna Penleric** on the screen, she notes, “There are so few women’s roles. And here is this woman who isn’t doing what’s supposed to be ‘normal’ for then. She doesn’t care; she isn’t interested in that level of thinking. It’s a pleasure to play someone who isn’t. And that’s why I have no patience with my sister in the film [played expertly by Janet McTeer of Tumbleweeds]—I would not indulge her mindset.”
These days, Adams continues her recurring role on Frasier as neurotic plastic surgeon Mel and costars in the upcoming The Anniversary Party, codirected by Jennifer Jason Leigh and out bisexual actor Alan Cumming, whom Adams calls a “swirling disco ball of charisma.” Would Adams encourage other queer actors to be as out and proud as Cumming?
“I’ve been so immersed in the theatrical community since I was a little girl that it seems to me that everyone is gay, so it’s not an issue to me. Have I always been a fag hag? Absolutely!” she says emphatically. “All I know is, the times I’ve strayed from being that way, I’ve gotten myself into a shitload of trouble.”
FOOTNOTES
*Hey, they came up with the same lameass title that I did for my webpage!
**Elna? Fiery?
Hmmm.
***…yes. Sample lyrics from movie: “He took out his swo-ord and cut off her head, and he kicked it against the wall”; “she stabbed him through his heart – she cried out with a very loud cry, there’s a dead man in my house.” Yeah. Compassionate. Did this person see the movie?
* * * * *
The following interview took place in 1994, during the run
of An Inspector Calls on Broadway.
Inspector’s Daughter
Tony Award-winning Jane Adams walks through the rain
in Broadway’s high concept Priestly revival
BY JORDAN MANN
As printed in TheaterWeek Magazine June 1994
Jane
Adams recently won both acclaim and awards (including the Drama Desk and Tony
awards) for her featured performance as Sheila Birling in An Inspector Calls.
When I spoke with her she struck me as being far more modest and down to earth
than Priestly’s upper class debutante with the Cassandra complex.
She
came to
Two
years later she read for director Stephen Daldry for Inspector. Upon
hearing that she’d been cast she flew to
As for
her view of the character, "I think Sheila begins the play thinking she
knows everything and her world is perfect. Gradually, that all falls apart.
It’s challenging, balancing the style of this production. We all walk a
tightrope."
With
this show also come the demands of Ian MacNeil’s doll house set and, of course,
the rain: "The rain is cold. It’s so wonderful I don’t even have to act
like it’s raining, since it’s actually pouring on me. It’s beautiful, film
quality rain."
As for
the future, the young actress has already appeared in I Love Trouble
with Nick Nolte, and will be seen this winter in Father of the Bride II.
But even with
**********************
And
her interview with Poppy Montgomery – hey, okay, so *she’s* not being
interviewed, but, you know, you sort of get a sense of her personality. Or something.
Author/s: Jane Adams
Issue: April, 1999
Poppy cheers me up. I first met Poppy Petal Montgomery at
the audition for the TV series Relativity
(1996-97). I was instantly attracted to her exuberant, elfin quality.
Immediately after the audition, we were told we had the roles. I was feeling
both pleased and a little lest when Poppy led me to the bar in the ABC complex,
where we stayed laughing and talking for hours. I had no sisters growing up;
Poppy played my sister on TV - and in real-life she has become like a sister to
me.
The best way I can describe Poppy is to refer you to a
passage from David Malouf's novel An Imaginary Life (Vintage, 1996):
"Scarlet. A little wild poppy, of a red so sudden it made my blood stop. I
kept saying the word over and over to myself, Scarlet, as if the word, like the
color, had escaped me 'til now, and just saying it would keep the little windblown
flower in sight. Poppy . . . just a single poppy, a few blown petals of a
tissue fineness and brightness, round the crown of seeds. Where had it come
from?"
Poppy was Diane Keaton's daughter in February's The Other
Sister and is a blonde bombshell in this month's Life, starring Eddie Murphy.
She can also be seen in the forthcoming indie film The Space Between Us.
JANE ADAMS: Tell me about your brothers and sisters.
POPPY
JA: What's your mother like?
PM: My mum is a cross between the two characters in
Absolutely Fabulous. She says things like, "Sweetie, baby, not a good
look. It's very non you." She also says, "Stop talking about the
names I've given my bloody children, will you? It's getting boring."
JA: What's her name?
PM: Nicola.
JA: Hello, Nicola.
Sorry we discussed your children's names.
Poppy, what made you decide to go to
PM: It just happened. I was working for my dad at one of
his restaurants and he fired me because I was rude to a customer. My boyfriend
and I broke up, and I was like, That's it, I'm going to the States. I went to
JA: To me, you feel like a sister.
PM: I remember your audition for Relativity because you had to pretend you were on the toilet.
JA: Relativity
was the first time either of us had ever done series television. It was a great
learning experience, just to be in front of the camera every day no matter how
you're feeling, no matter what's going on, and to learn it's not something to
fret about. That show was unique. Most casts aren't friendly. We became each
other's lives.
PM: The schooling I got on that show was incredible. It
taught me to rely on my instincts. Because some of the best work I do is when I
don't have time to prepare.
JA: I think we all played mother roles to each other.
PM: You and I still do.
JA: It's so great when you work with other women and
they're supportive. All of my very close girlfriends are actresses I've worked
with.
PM: See, I have found there's never been such a feeling
of non-competition between women as there was with you, me, and [costar Kimberly
Williams] on Relativity. It's so
great when it happens. And it's so bittersweet when it ends.
JA: What are the pressures in
PM: The darker side is that it doesn't always come down
to how well does this person portray this character. It often comes down to,
Are her boobs big enough? Is her hair the right color?
JA: And yet, what I grew to respect and understand is
that a lot of those considerations are very real. If I was producing or
directing something, they are the same considerations I would have.
PM: But that's where the actor has to learn to
disassociate to a certain degree. I have to learn that it's not a personal
attack on me.
JA: You're required to be vulnerable and open, and yet tough
enough to withstand rejection after rejection after rejection.
PM: What helps me is reading people like Eleanor
Roosevelt - the things she said and wrote - finding strength in other people's
strength.
JA: What do you think about sexual stereotyping in
PM: I think that talent will win in the end. Initially,
yeah, you may lose roles because they want a girl with huge, perfect breasts
and an amazing body. But sexual stereotypes are surpassed constantly.
JA: Always, because what I've seen in my own life and on
the screen or on TV is that there's an idea of sexy - until there's a new idea
of sexy.
PM: If you're unique and you are comfortable within
yourself and self-assured - that is sexy.
JA: It's everything our grandmothers told us. See, I've
never fallen into the conventional idea of sexy. You do a lot.
PM: Physically I do?
JA: Well yes, you're a very sexy woman.
PM: But every man I know thinks you're the sexiest thing
on two legs.
JA: Oh, now, you know what? I'm going to turn off the recorder.
PM: No, you are not turning off the recorder because it's
true.
JA: Who influenced you when you were young?
PM: Molly Ringwald. I thought she was just fabulous
because she was so different. She made girls like me with freckles and red hair
think, Wow, I'm beautiful too. And Gillian Armstrong's films impacted me beyond
belief.
JA: Thank God for women like Gillian Armstrong who put
those strong women out there. Because you and I are not living the way our
parents lived. I don't have any road that's been paved for me, where I know,
Well, OK, if I turn here, this is the right thing to do.
PM: Right, so we find it in films and books.
JA: I want that woman's perspective because it gives me
support. It gives me strength.
PM: My Brilliant Career [1979] presented the epitome of a
headstrong woman who knew what she wanted and went after it, who didn't marry
and give up her writing. Hell yes. [both laugh]
JA: What are you reading lately?
PM: I just finished rereading The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien created this whole alternate universe.
JA: Well, you're sort of in an alternate world now.
PM: I am. In
JA: Yeah, but there's a lot of your mother in you. A
woman striding through the bush in open-toed sandals.