Stephen Holt Interview: Marisa Tomei

Marisa Tomei: Fair & Square
By Stephen Holt

Academy Award Winner Marisa Tomei has been dogged all her professional life with the annoying rumor that her Supporting Actress Oscar for “My Cousin Vinny” in 1993 was Oscar’s biggest mistake. That wacky ole Jack Palance, who presented her with the trophy, and announced her name to many pundits’ surprise, was actually thought to be a mistake by the superannuated octogenarian. The award was supposed to go to Judy Davis, or well, SOMEbody else in that unusual year, when there were four British and Australian actresses against Tomei, the lone American, and in a comedy no less.

But Tomei wants to put this rumor to rest, as she told me to go on “a mission” and say that she couldn’t possibly have walked away with the Little Golden Guy, if indeed Palance had made that much-hyped gaffe.

Price/Waterhouse/Cooper, Oscar‚Äôs guardian accountants, would have been out on the stage in two seconds flat to correct him. And AMPAS would‚Äôve released a press release re-iterating the winner, but they didn‚Äôt because the actual winner was — Marisa Tomei! Fair and square, as Palance had actually read.

Meanwhile, she was in New York at the swank, classic Gramercy Park Hotel to talk about her new film “Cyrus” which is just opening, in which she plays (choke, gasp) Jonah Hill’s overprotective, smothering mother!

SH: What a great performance! In a very unusual movie.

MT: I know. It’s so unique. (laughs) I’m really kinda bedazzled by those guys. (The Duplass Brothers who co-wrote and co-directed the movie.)

SH: So how did you get involved in such a – I mean, the casting is unusual. The film is unusual.

MT: I mean, for me, y’know, it just a lucky accident. I mean, as far as I know, they wrote for the part for John (C.Reilly) that he played,

SH: Yes.

MT: And they wrote the part for Jonah (Hill) that he played.

SH: Yes.

MT: And then they just had this other role available –

SH: Molly, Jonah’s mother.

MT: I just met with the guys, and they talked a little bit about how they liked to work. They tried to scare me off (laughs) but they didn’t! (imitating them) “I mean, like you know we DO improvise and we DO say ‘We don’t know the answer a lot! (laughs) We jump in.’ ” and I responded. I said “To say that you don’t know is music to my ears! Because I know that that’s a creative space. I know that in not knowing, ANYthing can bubble up.” And I also know that it takes a courageous approach to be able to say that, because people kind of want to hide that, and that to feel that they have all the answers. A director might feel that way. And then you get closed off to possibilities, and these guys were coming in like open-hearted and saying “We’re gonna play. We’re going to blow this open, and let’s SEE.” And “If you’re willing to just ‘Let’s see!’ then come join us.”

SH: Well, a lot of film school students take that approach, but when it’s a STUDIO involved, like Fox Searchlight, you wonder how did they let them have so much freedom?

MT: Well, exactly. That’s Michael Costigan, the producer.

SH: Is the script that we see in the movie? Is that very different than the script you saw in the first place? Or was there a script in the first place?

MT: At this point I don’t know where one ends and one begins. But the script that we were given was EXCELLENT. It wasn’t like a bare bones and we’re-going-to-just-wing this. I mean, not only plot and structure, but character development and dialogue were all really great and tight. On the printed page that they gave us. But they themselves wanted to treat it all as a blue-print. There were days that John and Jonah and Catherine (Keener) and I would come in and just say “Well, we love what you wrote, can’t we just go do this?” And they’d say, “Well, let’s throw it out today. And let’s see what happens!” And also, the characters come up against such, um–They are all about to have an emotional catharsis. They are changing their lives in a big way. John is changing his life. He is coming out of that cocoon that he put himself in.

SH: The divorce…

MT: Yeah. And Jonah is coming out of this stage where he’s couldn’t leave the house.

SH: He’s so good in this.

MT: Oh my god! He’s amazing! And my character is also growing into another stage of her womanhood and a relationship. And so you’d get into these improv moments where -(makes a sound with her knuckles banging against each other) the characters are like not only trying to communicate with each other, they could barely articulate to themselves what’s going on and then, we’d have to improvise that! So you have to articulate this inarticulate state that we’re in. (laughs) So they’d be like hours and hours and hours and hours, chipping away at different approaches.

SH: How long was the shoot?

MT: The guys could probably tell you better, but it was short. Probably like 26 or 28 days.

SH: Oh, that’s not a lot of time to figure out or to fool around like this…

MT: Yeah, but they used that Red Camera , and so we were able to —And they don‚Äôt spend a lot of time ‚Äì there‚Äôs not like lighting set-ups, and sit. I mean, you‚Äôre just basically on your feet. You might as well not walk away from that location, except to eat your lunch and come back. Which is great. You‚Äôre just all together, y‚Äôknow?

SH: I mean, like to me, as a critic, looking at it, I felt the performances, and I didn’t know that there was an improvised thing going on, were very, very strong and very, very interesting and very, very good, but I felt the script wasn’t as strong as all the performances, and now I know why. Because it was all improv.

MT: (laughs) But, yet I wish you could get a copy of the original script, so you could see what they had written, because it was great. It was really great.

SH: Had you known their work previously?

MT: Yeah. “Puffy Chair.” Yeah, but I hadn’t seen “Bag Head” at that point.

SH: You’re so young and beautiful to be playing Jonah Hill’s mother, for goodness sake! This is kind of an out-of-the-ballpark part for you.

MT: Well, she had him when she was young, that’s why they are good friends. Part of it. Because she was so young, when she had him, that the generations were closer.

SH: And it’s an unnaturally close relationship.

MT: (laughs)

SH: One sees that in real life, but not often in the movies.

MT: But I mean they’re unusually close in a great way, too. That they really enjoy each other’s company.

SH: It reminded me of Hamlet and his mother.

MT: Wow! ((laughs) Somebody asked me—They thought I was going to wind up dead at the end of the movie, and I was like— (laughs) “Really?? It was it that Shakespearean to you?” A lot of people have different reactions to it. It’s one of those movies that it’s a lot in the eye of the beholder, I find out. Everybody has a different reaction to however kind of strange or loving, their relationship (her character’s and Jonah Hill’s) is. And what each character is aiming for and who was trustworthy and who wasn’t is a lot in the viewers’ eyes.

SH: You’re an Oscar winner, and knowing you and knowing your work…there’s this RIDICULOUS story that has pursued you all these years – that it was a mistake that Jack Palance read wrong the name out of the envelope, when he announced the winner, and you won.

MT: Oh.(laughs)

SH: You’ve never heard that before?

MT: Yeah, once in a while but…

SH: But it couldn’t have been, right? Because the accountants would’ve come out and stopped him.

MT: Why don’t you make this your mission to be an end to this with this article?

SH: Because it couldn’t possibly have been. It couldn’t possibly have been. And you’ve given such great performances since then, and received more nominations.

So that’s it, ladies and gentlemen, from Marisa Tomei herself, who says it’s just not true. End of story. We hope forever.