Judith Light
In the six years since she won glowing reviews—including a rave from The New York Times—for her performance in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, Judith Light has blossomed into an accomplished stage actress. Of course, everybody still mentions her long-running sitcom Who's the Boss? and soap fans haven't forgotten her Emmy-winning work as a prostitute-turned-heroine on One Life to Life, but Light has moved on to the likes of Athol Fugard and Ibsen, coming full circle since her first Broadway performance 30 years ago in Liv Ullmann's production of A Doll's House. Right now, the warm, down-to-earth 56-year-old actress is anchoring a top-flight cast in the American premiere of Laura Wade's Colder Than Here, an MCC Theatre production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. As in Wit, Light plays a woman coming to grips with terminal cancer. But this time, she gets to hide her hair under a wig rather than shave her head.
How did you decide to do Colder Than Here?
After Wit, [MCC Theatre Artistic Directors] Bernie Telsey, Bobby LuPone and I kept looking for something else we could do together. When they sent this play to me, my first thought was, "You can't really want me to read another play about a woman dying of cancer!" But when I did, I wanted to do it. The piece is really about family dynamics and how we as human beings deal with our feelings about dying. For the most part, we all live in denial of death. It's difficult for us to look at it and subsequently at our lives. I think we would live differently if we were able to face death. What's wonderful about my character is that she keeps trying to be brave and strong and find the humor in everything. That makes her heroic—it makes the whole family heroic—and that's why I think people will be drawn to it. The play is very funny, too; it's not didactic in any way. You're not sure at first if you should be laughing, but you do.
You're surrounded by quite a family on stage. First of all, Brian Murray is a rock.
Not only is he a rock, he's a theatrical genius. He is simply gorgeous, one of the finest, most glorious people I've ever had the opportunity to work with. He understands material and he has a director's eye, but he's able to put that aside to do his work as an actor.
And two hot young actresses, Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe, play your daughters.
If I could have been guaranteed daughters like this, I probably would have had children. [Laughs]
I did. Jason Moore, who directed Steel Magnolias and Avenue Q, is a good friend, so I saw Lily in the first preview of Steel Magnolias [as Annelle]. She's just extraordinary. And I saw Sarah Paulson in The Glass Menagerie [as Laura]. Wasn't she wonderful? I adore her. They're both sweet, lovely women. I was going to call them "my kids."
After you starred in Wit, which required shaving your head and appearing onstage naked, did you think, "Now I can do anything"?
You know what? I should have been able to say that, but I wasn't. I hadn't acted in a play in 22 years, so coming back to New York and doing Wit challenged me in a lot of ways. The more I continue to let that experience in, the more I feel that way—not "I can do anything" in terms of my ability, but having done one of the hardest things I ever could have tried, now I can relax a little bit.
So you decided to relax and do Hedda Gabler in Washington DC.
[Laughs] I really wanted to work with [Shakespeare Theatre artistic director] Michael Kahn. We used Doug Hughes's translation of the play, so it was pretty juicy. I did say to my manager, "I don't think I can do this," and he said, "You have to; it's one of the greatest women's roles in the history of the theater." It turned out to be a wonderful production.
Given your impressive theatrical credits in the past few years, including starring in the Los Angeles production of Athol Fugard's Sorrows and Rejoicings, do you lose patience when people still want to talk to you about Tony Danza or One Live to Live?
No. I lose patience if people say, "The only thing she's done is Who's the Boss?" It's been a long time since then, and I've worked very hard. But do I mind it? Never. I think the show was terrific, I loved working with Tony, and I loved making people laugh. I'm not ashamed of any part of my career. I did what came my way, and everything I did changed my life and my perspective on the business. I'm happy to talk about that stuff and I'm grateful that people remember. I mean, One Life to Live was 1977, and people still remember! I just did an interview for Soap Opera Digest. So, do you want to talk about Tony Danza? [Laughs]
No, I don't. But heck, he's done pretty well, too. He did The Iceman Cometh on Broadway with Kevin Spacey!
Oh, Tony transformed himself completely. I love Tony.
I was interested to read that you played Joanne in an L.A. concert version of Sondheim's Company. I didn't realize you are a singer.
I'm sort of getting back to that. I had stopped for years. When I started doing television in L.A., I put everything else away. When the opportunity to do Company came up, I was terrified. It's a mythic part, and it's very hard to come in when everybody in the audience has Elaine Stritch in their heads. It was a stretch for me, but I got to work with an amazing group of people [Richard Kline played Larry; Christopher Sieber was Bobby].
Oh yes. Definitely.
I see Mamma Mia! in your future!
Don't go there. [Laughs] Please! Let's just take one step at a time.
You and your husband, actor Robert Desiderio, have been married for 20 years. What's the secret to your success as a couple?
I have a wonderful, incredibly supportive husband. He is willing to talk about everything, which is really important, and I've seen him grow through the years. We also look to Herb and Jonathan, who are our closest friends and have been together as business partners and life partners for 25 years, and take inspiration from the way they relate to each other.
How have you avoided competitiveness in your careers?
We haven't avoided it. We've hit that wall head on, and we deal with it. Most of the time, it's easier for me because I am more successful than Robert in terms of people knowing who I am. But Robert is focused on screenwriting now. He's made a career shift, doing films and pilots, and he's getting some incredible response. He's got wonderful ideas, and he's a fantastic writer. And he has worked his butt off to keep making our relationship more important than the competitiveness.
Do you have any regrets about not having children?
No, I don't. It was a conscious choice. We said that if it ever came to the point where we wanted children and it was too late for us to have them, we would look at adopting. But our focus was our work. That was our service. Neither of us felt a deep, passionate draw toward having children. It's another career, and you've got to make a commitment to it. I wouldn't want to miss the first school play or the first date. My career took me in a direction where we had to seriously make a choice, and that was the choice we made. Sometimes I see a mother with her daughters or I have an experience like I do in this play—I look at these girls, and they feel like mine—and I think it would be lovely to have that feeling with one of my own. But when you're a grown-up, you live with the choices you make.
You've been very involved in AIDS causes. Did starring in the TV biography of Ryan White spark your original interest?
Yes. I had known that my friends were sick, but I didn't understand it to the degree I did once I made the movie.
Is it a challenge to keep people focused on the AIDS crisis these days?
Oh yes—trying to let people know that it's not over, and protecting our young people from becoming HIV positive. Because of the gift of protease inhibitors, you don't see people dying as much, and you don't see the ravages of opportunistic diseases. But it is there nonetheless. AIDS has become an international issue partly because of the way it was dealt with from the beginning in America. It was not looked at head-on. We had two presidents who never mentioned the word. The gay community moved into a level of power and cared for its own because it was getting nothing from the government. Had this been a good-old-boy white man's disease, it would have been handled immediately. The homophobia that lies beneath the surface was exposed.
As a straight woman, you're unusual in being so outspoken in support of the gay community. Why do you feel the desire to do that?
Because of my friends—my closeness to Herb and Jonathan, and also friends in the theater. They're no different than I am; they just happen to have a different sexual preference. I've been inspired by that community, and so I feel it's important to speak the truth. People say really ignorant things, like "Gay people could keep it to themselves." How would you feel as a straight person if you had to keep that to yourself? That's not kind or generous or Christian or loving, and if we're going to change the way we function in the world, we've got to start loving everybody. Not "love the sinner, hate the sin." Not that. We must respect and honor every single human being.
I come back and forth to New York for my recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I play the head of the unit, but I think we're going to change my position on the show. The people there are extraordinary: Mariska Hargitay, Chris Meloni, B. D. Wong; it's a very special place to work.
How many episodes of Law & Order: SVU do you do a season?
It depends on my schedule. I shot a pilot this year, a comedy-drama called Sold about the real estate business in L.A. for ABC, but it didn't get picked up. I was disappointed because I though it was a good piece, but if I had done that, I wouldn't be doing this play. To answer your original question, I happen to have an agency, the Gersh Agency, that believes in creating an overall career for their clients. The money I make here is not what I can make in television, but they operate on the premise that one thing supports another. I really try to listen to my heart and soul; I know that sounds a little Southern California airy-fairy, but if you're listening, you will choose wisely. And I have a lot of support. I've been with my managers, Herb Hamsher and Jonathan Stoller, for 26 years. We look at things I'm offered together. If I listened to my head and said, "I don't need to do another cancer play," I wouldn't be having this experience now.
See Judith Light in Colder Than Here at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street. Click for tickets and more information.
