What’s the best book that turned into a great movie?
My first best book was made into a great movie: ‘Tess’, based on Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’. Nastassja Kinski is sublime as Tess; and my mom, who could be very critical of me but secretly adored me, noticed how much i resembled her, so that was an added attraction. I cried so much at the end and was furious at the injustice of the patriarchal world that contributed to its tragic flaw. She was doomed. And pure. And ultimately a murderer. I loved her. I loved the movie when I saw it on our small television, up close. My mother and I had already seen it in the theater and bought Jujubes during the intermission. I see a blood-soaked ceiling in my mind’s eye. And Tess lies like a sacrifice in Stonehenge.
What book would you most like to see turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t been adapted yet?
Of course, mine, “Mean Baby.” I have 50 years of her.
Of all the characters you’ve played across different media, did you feel the richest — the most romantic?
Both my turns with Todd Solondz. His writing is so clean, to the point, rich and sparse. One sentence tells a whole story.
The most immersive and by far the richest experience was Rajiv Joseph’s “Gruesome Playground Injuries.” I did it two-handed with Brad Fleischer at the Alley Theater in Houston a few years before my son was born. We’re in Samuel French as the original actors, which feels like something. And it was an amazingly heartbreaking and darkly funny production directed by Rebecca Taichman. Before and during the run in an overwhelmingly hot and sticky Houston, Rajiv, Brad and I stood in the pool of our apartment complex and played the play every day from start to finish. It was a huge task to dedicate to this piece and truly transformative. Imagine running lines to your favorite piece, all reflecting your own life, like a mantra as you wade in a pool day in and day out. It was a revelation and utterly terrifying to live what felt like my own life, from elementary school to being a woman. Every performance and rehearsal is a novel of quietly disturbing hope in coherence.
What character from literature would you most like to play?
Aunt Mame seems like a good starting point.
Do you count books as guilty pleasures?
The Bible. Preferably the Old Testament. You don’t just pull out a Bible somewhere… guilty and pleasurable.
What is the last book you read that made you laugh?
Melissa Rivers’ book about her mother, Joan Rivers. It was so good that I gave it to my own mother a few years before my mother died. I believe this was the last book that made her laugh out loud. It was excellent, we both wholeheartedly agreed. I have to read it again. Oh, drat, my mom still has my copy.
The last book you read that made you cry?
I cried reading Molly Shannon’s new book as she chronicles the final moments of the tragic car accident that killed her mother and sister. Her mother’s last words were questions about her girls. It just broke my heart.
The last book you read that made you furious?
Joyful Clemantine Wamariya’s “The Girl Who Smiled Beads” (written with Elizabeth Weil). Wamariya writes so purely about her incredible escape from the Rwandan genocide and her trip to the United States. The author’s strength and resilience are explored so beautifully. I felt helplessly enraged at the injustice and cruelty, but also comforted by the writer’s presence. Reading Elie Wiesel’s “Night” and Harriet E. Wilson’s “Our Nig: Or, Sketches From the Life of a Free Black” at age 14 were side experiences of reading.
