Jan Maxwell
How are you enjoying all the post-Tony nomination madness? Is it any fun, or is it totally overwhelming?
I really don't have much of a PR personality, so it was a little hard on me at first. The press junket, all the cameras—I'm just not used to that. Being in theater, I was kind of surprised that people on the red carpet are posing and twirling, and I thought, "What am I going to do? I can't do that!" And then we had the luncheon in the Rainbow Room.
Being among all that talent in that room was probably pretty affecting, too.
Have you gotten to see any of the other nominated shows?
How did your family react to all this?
And how about Chitty—are you having as much fun as it looks like you're having?
I think this qualifies as different from last season's dark drama Sixteen Wounded!
But you've done musicals before—The Sound of Music, all the way back to City of Angels.
How does your son like seeing you in a big silly musical comedy?
What's it like performing for, essentially, a house full of kids?
It's great that the show has adult humor, though. There's something for everyone.
I take it you like working with the kids—despite your character's views on children.
What play are they doing?
What does your son think of the business? Do you think he might want to be an actor?
Now, the important question: What are you wearing to the Tonys?
As long as you have fun with it—that's all that counts.
See Jan Maxwell in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Hilton Theatre, 214 West 43rd Street. Click for tickets and more information.
Marian Seldes got up to speak at the end, and I just fell apart. She quoted Tennessee Williams, and the thing that hit me so hard is he changed my life. When I was 16, I traveled from Fargo, North Dakota, to the Guthrie Theater and saw A Streetcar Named Desire, and I thought, "I want to be an actress." I didn't know there were people who wrote such plays and people who could move me so profoundly. So I'm sitting with these luminaries—Kathleen Turner, Joe Mantello, John Lithgow—and I was bawling like a baby. I was humiliated! [Laughs] I forced myself to grab the first elevator at the end and I thought, "Jan, you are such a wimp!"
It was so different from the press junkets and all the other things I'm absolutely terrible at. We were all just relaxed and talking. To be in a room with people you admire and respect and look up to—that's when it hit me. Oh my God. This means more than I thought.
It's kind of disappointing; you hear a lot of wonderful things and you've seen nothing. Bill Irwin was saying that they get every other Tuesday off [at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?], so they've seen some of the shows. Mario Cantone came to Chitty; I saw him afterward and he was very, very sweet. John Lithgow remembered my name from the day before. All this stuff shocks me. I've always been beneath the radar. I think, "Do I owe them money?"
They're just over the moon. When I heard the nomination on TV, I thought I was being delusional. My parents called and they were just ecstatic. My son and husband couldn't be more proud. They can show it more than I can. They're not afraid to show how proud they are and how much they love me.
It's a lot of fun; it really is. It's fun to be the villain in that kind of a show. And it's so different for me. That's one of my prerequisites—whatever I do, I want it to be different from the last thing I did.
All I did in that show was sit on stage and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes.
That was my first Broadway show; I was an understudy and then took over the role [of Alaura]. With musicals, because there are so many people, you develop some strong friendships. I still get together with a lot of women from The Sound of Music.
He couldn't be happier. Because of the adult content of the plays I do, he isn't able to see everything. At the opening-night party, they had clowns on stilts, jugglers, a chocolate fountain, popcorn, hot dogs. He looked at me like I had been holding back. Like, "This is what you do?" I had to tell him, No, no, darling. Opening nights don't usually look like this. It's usually a dark bar with a bottle of vodka.
I cleared a lot of it with him. Marc and I do a lot of the things I do at home with my son. We have this little patty-cake moment. Little things I say like "Don't make me count"—which I say to my son ad nauseum. Whenever Marc felt stuck playing a 9-year-old—which is essentially what he's doing—I'd say, "Well, what Will does…"
I'm amazed at how well-behaved they are and how engrossed they are in the story. When I got to New York, I started out with the Paperback Players, which was a children's company, and that experience loosened me up as an actress. Kids are a very honest audience. If they're not happy they let you know it! I do a lot of the adult humor, too, so sometimes I'm a little over their heads.
I think it's essential if you're going to have parents bringing their kids for the parents to be entertained. Because let's face it—they've spent a lot of money. That's one of the things I think about as I'm warming up and trying to get into a joyous mood. I think about the woman who has scrounged to come up with the money to get there and they're expecting a special time and I truly want to give it to them.
Right now I'm helping my son with his school play. The kids are so open and so talented. They're like sponges; they just soak up information. The teacher said, "Let's thank Jan for her time," and I thought, There is no place else I'd rather be.
It's an original musical, by their musical director. It's going to be at their final concert in June, which of course I can't see because I have a matinee!
When he came to the theater for the first time and he was watching me do my makeup, as soon as I started my eyebrows he said, "You're not my mother anymore, are you?" He met the kids, he saw the rehearsals and the camaraderie they had, and he said, "I might like to do a Broadway show." He'd have to drag me screaming to get into it! It's a tough profession when 98 percent of us are out of work every year. But knock on wood it's the best decision I've ever made.
What I feel the worst about is that when we're both in shows Will has no one. That we're not there to put him to bed. That's been my heartbreaker in theater. With Streetcar, my husband gets to sign in and leave, so he gets to go home and be with Will. And, of course, it's tough to get work. You want to do more interesting roles and bigger roles—maybe off Broadway, but that's becoming a celebrity-legitimizing brothel, too. The last place I worked was the Atlantic Theater Company, and though they're the loveliest people to starve with, you starve. But as far as being married to an actor I actually recommend it. If you had someone who didn't understand what you're going through and how much you care about it, they'd think you were crazy. It's so hard to be doing something that someone stupidly named a play way back when—because it's hard work!
[Laughs] I want to wear jeans and a T-shirt so badly! I'm not a girly girl. This is all so new to me. When people say Donna Karan called or Ralph Lauren called… We've gotten a few phone calls. It's like, All right, I'll go try on a dress, but you've got to pack my son's lunch!
You know, I said to my mom, "Maybe I should be saying this, or maybe I should be saying that." And she said, "Just be you. You've done all right doing that all these years." It's like, "It's crunch time, mom! I don't know what to say or who to be!" Just be you.