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April 20 - April 27,2003 |
In praise of sexy and older women
Frances McDormand sheds homebody image in Lisa Cholodenko's film Laurel Canyon
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2003-04-06
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Frances McDormand on the set of Laurel Canyon
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Cinema's favourite homebody has turned sexy seductress, a role Frances McDormand embraces gleefully and proudly. The 45-year-old actress, of course, is best known for her Oscar-winning performance as Marge Gunderson, the pregnant Minnesota police chief in the 1996 hit, Fargo, directed by her husband Joel Coen. She also played the protective, mother in Almost Famous, and the woman with powerful nesting instincts in Wonder Boys.
But in Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon, the leonine McDormand is changing that respected perception by portraying a different kind of mother altogether. In the film she plays Jane Bentley, a pot-smoking, champagne-swilling, free-loving Los Angeles record producer pushing 50 who's living with Ian (Alessandro Nivola), the thirtysomething lead singer of the British band she's currently producing. Jane's life is somewhat shaken when her uptight, conservative son Sam (Christian Bale) shows up with his fiancée Alex (Kate Beckinsale).
Tandem spoke to Frances McDormand when she was in Toronto.
Such an issue is made about the age difference between Jane and Ian. Does that bother you?
"I hated the fact the they kept bringing up that the lover was so much younger. At the end of the day, aren't you pleased that they are actually the only couple that seems to have any kind of substance in the relationship? I kind of love the fact that Lisa [Cholodenko] wrote it because she lets the audience tap into a lot of the clichés. Alessandro's Ian ends up a little bit wiser about it than Jane, and I think that when he says that she is ageist, he is right."
This is almost the opposite of your role in Almost Famous.
"Yeah, what a delightful thing. I was so happy I got to do it."
Don't you think it's too extreme for Sam to be such an opposite of his mom, Jane?
"No, I think that it is pretty psychologically sound. I think she must have had him when she was 15 years old. And given the numbers, I don't think that she really defined herself as a parent. I don't think that she was really an authority figure. He had to develop that responsibility early. I think psychologically it is really well founded, really well grounded."
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