Mamie Gummer
Currently: Making her off-Broadway debut as Lucy, a four-year-old girl who has a volatile relationship with her imaginary friend played by Michael C. Hall in Mr. Marmalade.
Hometown: "I sort of grew up in L.A. for a little bit and then primarily in Salisbury, Connecticut, which is a very small town," Gummer says. She still considers Salisbury her home. "I've been going up there every Sunday I can--because we get Mondays off," she adds. "It's a good place to decompress. I love it."
Tapping into Her Inner Child: Adults playing children on stage can be a sticky business. The audience has to suspend disbelief, of course, and the performer really has to tap into his or her inner child. Sounds like a challenging task. "It's easy," laughs Gummer. "It's like getting back to something very basic. To just be able to step into this most basic behavior is where I wish I could be most of the time. I can just let loose."
Once Upon a Tutu: Gummer's costume is basically pajamas and a tutu, and that's no accident. Playwright Noah Haidle had the tutu in mind from the beginning. Gummer says the character actually came from the Haidle's girlfriend. "When he first met her, she said something like, 'I've always wanted to be onstage in a tutu.' So, he had this idea of a picture of a girl in a tutu and a man in a suit. And thus this play was born!" This bit of whimsical costuming greatly added to how Gummer figured out her character. "I don't know if you've had a tutu on lately," she grins. "But something happens to your body when you're in one; you just sort of become a ballerina."
The Mother Factor: Gummer is the daughter of Meryl Streep. She is all too aware of how this fact may affect how she is perceived as an actress let alone as a person. She calls it "that parenthetical thing"--acknowledging that her name will forever be linked to her mother's in the press. "It's hard," she says. "It's a very unique set of issues. In a way I'm very blessed and lucky, but at the same time I'm faced with always being asked this question. There's a lot of self-doubt--like wondering whether I really earn things." Gummer notes that it's impossible to deny the legacy. "The nose tends to give me away," she says with a smile.
Getting to Know the Co-Workers: Gummer stars in Mr. Marmalade opposite Michael C. Hall, who is famous for playing David Fisher, the anxious, guilt-ridden gay undertaker in Six Feet Under. "You know when you're sick, and you can just totally indulge in it and camp out for a day or two and get a season's worth of DVDs?" Gummer muses about her introduction to her co-star's hit series. "He's so much more handsome in life than what they made him out to be on the show. That's the first thing I thought of him. Wow, he looks like a Ken doll, not like Frankenstein," she says referring to Hall's wan look on the show.
Workin' For a Livin': A recent graduate of Northwestern University, Gummer has found her off-Broadway debut to be somewhat different from her life on the college stage. "It's intense," she says. "I would get up in the morning and go to rehearsal, where I'd put on a tutu and dance around. It's all very strange." Despite the childish outbursts of her young character, Lucy, Gummer says that this job really makes her feel like a professional. "We don't all go out drinking after rehearsal," she says, explaining the difference between the Mr. Marmalade cast and her college co-stars. "There are no keggers here."