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I love Mary Steenburgen. She's one of those actresses who slips in and out of roles, seemingly with little effort and she brings a quiet, steely, strength to whatever character she plays.
Her latest movie, "Four Christmases" is about a couple, Kate and Brad (Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn) whose yearly plan to avoid family Christmases is thwarted by a blizzard. Since their parents are divorced, that means four visits with four sets of dysfunctional parents, siblings, step-siblings and significant others. Mary Steenburgen plays Kate's Mom, Marilyn.
Mary Steenburgen (pictured left) is an Arkansas native, an Academy Award winner---for the film "Melvin and Howard---and has done film, television and Broadway. But she's not only an actress, wife and mother, she's also partnered with two friends to open an interior design shop, Rooms and Gardens.
In addition to being politically active, she was an ardent supporter of longtime friend Hillary Clinton during the presidential election, Mary's involved in charitable work as well. Part of the proceeds from a special line of candles sold at Rooms and Gardens will be donated to Heifer International, an organization that fights world hunger.
She's a woman with a lot on her mind and that's why when I had the chance to interview her recently, I was very excited. Here are excerpts from our conversation:
Megan: This movie sounds like a lot of fun and covers a lot of things people go through with their own families. Do you and your husband, Ted Danson, have any particular traditions that you like to keep to every holiday?
Mary Steenburgen: Well besides all the obvious things like cooking way too much food and watching way too much football, we love just being with our kids and all their various boyfriends, girlfriends. Our kids are---we have four children and they are---well they are not really children but, our babies are in the mid twenties and they usually bring about at least one dog each and we already have three.
So the house is overrun with people and dogs and all I ask is that everybody cooks something so that it is not just me. And that everybody help a little bit cleaning up. It is just noisy and fun and crazy and my husband always has this red vest on that his great grandfather started wearing and then passed it to his grandfather, to his father and now to Ted. And every year I take out red thread and try to mend it because it is falling apart. But it is the Christmas vest, so.
Megan: What drew you to this role in particular?
Mary Steenburgen: I, you know, to be honest with you, it looked like just such a fun film to be a part of. I loved the script. It made me laugh out loud which I always pay attention to. That is always a good sign.
And then just the image of Reese and Vince (pictured left) standing next to each other made me laugh when I thought about it. And sure enough, on the first day of work when I saw the two of them standing there before they even opened their mouth I started laughing.
And there were so many extraordinary people that had already been cast and that they were talking about casting that I just very much wanted to be a part of it.
Megan: One of my favorite roles of yours was the mom in "Joan of Arcadia."
Mary Steenburgen: Oh thank you. I loved doing that series. We were very close. That was a very close group of people. In fact we are still very close. I saw Amber (Tamblyn) just not long ago.
Megan: I think she's wonderful.
Mary Steenburgen: Um-hmm.
Megan: The chemistry between you was great, and I wonder if there is anything in particular that you would look for in another television series if you were to do one?
Mary Steenburgen: Well I will be really honest with you, that one kind of broke my heart, and it took me a while to get over that because I did not understand, you know, our ratings were not bad, and we had been pre-empted a lot.
And rather than give us time to get back up and nurture us somehow it kind of was yanked. And it was such a labor of love for all of us that was on it. I felt like it was one of the few things I
