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What is the best book made into a great movie?
My first best book was turned into “Tess,” a great movie based on Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.” Nastassja Kinski is as sublime as Tess; and my mother, who was very critical of me but secretly admired me, said how I looked like her, which was an added attraction. I cried at the end and raged at the injustice of the patriarchal world that contributed to its tragic flaw. She was convicted, she. And pure. And finally a murderer. I loved her. I loved the movie as I watched it closely on our little TV. My mother and I had watched it at the theater and bought Jujube in between. I see a bloodstained ceiling in my mind’s eye. And Tess lies like a victim in Stonehenge.
Which book would you most like turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t been adapted yet?
Of course, mine is “Bad Baby”. I have 50 years with him.
Among all the characters you have portrayed in different media, which one is the richest and most romantic for you?
Both rows with Todd Solondz. His writing is so clean, rich and spare. One sentence tells a whole story.
The most gripping and by far the richest experience was Rajiv Joseph’s Horrible Playground Injuries. It was a two-handed play I did with Brad Fleischer at the Alley Theater in Houston a few years before my son was born. We’re at Samuel French as creative actors who feel like something. And it was a surprisingly heartbreaking and darkly funny production directed by Rebecca Taichman. Before and during a run in an extremely hot and sticky Houston, Rajiv, Brad and I would stand by the pool in our apartment complex and run the game from start to finish every day. Participating in this game was a tremendous task and it was truly transformative. While swimming in a pool every day, imagine the lines running into your favorite game, all reflecting your own life, like a mantra. It was a revelation and utterly horrible to feel like it was my own life from elementary school to womanhood. Each performance and rehearsal is a quietly disturbing novel of hope in connection.
Which character from literature would you most like to play?
Aunt Mame seems like a nice break up for me.
Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?
Bible. Preferably Old Testament. One does not take the Bible out of nowhere now… guilt and pleasure.
What is the last book you read and made you laugh?
Melissa Rivers’ book about her mother, Joan Rivers. It was so beautiful that I gave it to my own mother a few years before my mother died. I think it was the last book that made him laugh out loud. It was perfect, we both heartily agreed. I must read it again. Ah, Drat, my mom still has my copy.
The last book you read and made you cry?
While reading Molly Shannon’s new book, I cried when she recounted the final moments of the tragic car accident that took her mother and sister. Her mother’s last words were asking about her daughters. She just broke my heart.
The last book you read that made you angry?
“The Girl Who Laughs at the Beads” by cheerful Clemantine Wamariya (co-written with Elizabeth Weil). Wamariya writes very naively about her incredible escape from the Rwandan genocide and her journey to the United States. The power and flexibility of the author is beautifully explored. I felt helpless anger at injustice and oppression, but at the same time, the author’s presence comforted me. Reading Elie Wiesel’s “Night” and Harriet E. Wilson’s “Our Nig: Or, Sketches From the Life of a Free Black” at age 14 were cousin reading experiences.
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