Dianne Wiest: The Oscar Legends Interview

One thing Dianne Wiest is not is vain.

She is, however, a legend.

That term is bandied about too often and too recklessly nowadays, but it is most fitting for a 2-time Academy Award winning, 2-time Emmy winning, Broadway-celebrated actor who, in her fifth decade of working in the industry, seems to be taking on more eclectic and versatile roles in every medium. And that’s saying a lot considering her career to date.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Wiest began her professional acting career in theatre with the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Yale Repertory Theatre before landing an understudy role in Kurt Vonnegut’s Happy Birthday, Wanda June, both off-Broadway and then on Broadway.

Her Broadway debut came with Robert Anderson’s Solitaire/Double Solitaire, and from that point onward, there was no stopping her in all mediums.

Wiest made her film debut in Claudia Weill’s It’s My Turn (1980), followed by Jack Hofsiss’s I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982), both starring Jill Clayburgh. She was then cast in the indie Independence Day, the Herbert Ross hit Footloose, and the forgotten Meryl Streep-Robert DeNiro love story Falling in Love. In 1984, Wiest met Woody Allen and would go on to make The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, and September with him. She won her first Oscar for Hannah in 1986.

The artistry Wiest conveys in these films is magical from her ability to convey a legion of emotions via a three second close-up to the tremendous sensitivity and empathy in which her performances are rooted.

More diverse films followed such as The Lost Boys, Bright Lights, Big City, Parenthood (a second Oscar nomination), Edward Scissorhands, and Little Man Tate.

In 1994, she took on the role of Helen Sinclair in Woody Allen’s hilarious comedy Bullets Over Broadway. The film was the Centerpiece at that year’s New York Film Festival and received seven Oscar nominations. Wiest won her second Academy Award for her role as the towering diva stage actress. There are so many colors to Wiest’s Helen that watching her in Bullets is like unlocking a museum of lost Matisse paintings.

Wiest’s subsequent film work includes terrific turns in Drunks, The Birdcage, Practical Magic, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Synecdoche, New York, Rabbit Hole, The Humbling, and last year’s I Care a Lot and Let Them All Talk.

Throughout her career, she’s appeared frequently on television, winning Emmys for Road to Avonlea and In Treatment, and has been featured in The 10th Kingdom, Law & Order, Life in Pieces and, most recently, as the tough-as-brass mother Mariam McLusky in the Paramount+ series Mayor of Kingstown, opposite Jeremy Renner and Taylor Handley and created by Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon.

Wiest has also returned to the stage many times throughout her film career. She appeared on Broadway in a revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons with John Lithgow in 2008 and, most recently, starred in three productions of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days.

She is about to embark on filming Season 2 of Mayor of Kingstown.

Awards Daily had the honor of Zoom chatting with Wiest about her iconic career.