WHAT MAURA TAUGHT JEFFREY
Jeffrey Tambor on how playing a transgender woman has taught him about himself,
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for Season 2 of Transparent. NEW YORK— We’ve all been there: the dreaded family wedding photograph.
Frozen smiles in place, moms, dads, children, grandparents and other warring members of a wedding party cram together in one final show of unity. Creator, executive producer and director Jill Soloway captures the moment in all its dysfunctional glory in the very first shot of Season 2 of Transparent (premiering Dec. 12 on Shomi).
In the scene, shot in one five-minute take, a wedding photographer tries to get the extended members of the Pfefferman clan to stand together. All dressed in white, staring in the hot California sun, they’ve gathered for the wedding of Sarah Pfefferman (Amy Landecker) to Tammy (Melora Hardin).
Amid the chaos and snippy comments, Jeffrey Tambor’s character Maura — formerly Mort — Pfeffer- man asks the photographer if he wants her chin up or down. “Chin down for you, sir,” blurts the photographer. Whoops. “We’re done,” huffs Maura, who storms off, ex-wife Shelly (Judith Light) in tow.
Remarkably, it was all improvised, Tambor said recently in Manhattan. The actor playing the photographer simply said the wrong thing, although it turned out to be exactly the right thing. Tambor and the others went with it.
Tambor calls director Soloway “the true hero of the day because she didn’t yell cut.” Soloway, who won a Best Director Emmy for her efforts last season, says directing the show may be her favourite part of her many jobs on the series.
Tambor was always the one she saw in the role of Mort/Maura. He is playing a version of her own father, who also transitioned from male to female late in life.
At 71, Tambor’s life has been transformed by Transparent. When it is mentioned that Dustin Hoffman once said he learned more about being a man from playing a woman (in 1982’s Tootsie), Tambor nods.
“I understand that,” he says. “I would say I learned more about be- ing Jeffrey.” Tambor elaborates: “Maura is augmenting my life in a great way, making me more present as a person, as a parent, as a citizen and as an artist.”
He certainly augmented his trophy shelf. Besides accolades from critics, Tambor won a Best Lead Actor Emmy as Maura, his first win in seven nominations. He also won a Golden Globe and is nominated for another one, while Transparent is nominated for the Best TV Comedy Globe.
His career spans several decades, dating back to guest roles on Kojak and Starsky and Hutchin the late ’70s to a trip on The Love Boat. He shone as a judge on numerous episodes of Hill Street Blues. Along the way there were dozens of film roles, from City Slickers to There’s Something about Mary. While many remember him as head of the zany Bluth clan on Arrested Development, it was The Larry Sanders Show (1992-98) that made Tambor a household name as “Hey Now” Hank Kingsley.
Tambor recently had lunch with his former Sanders boss, Garry Shandling (and Judd Apatow, a writer on the HBO comedy). “He’s a big, big fan of the show,” says Tambor of Shandling. “Garry changed my life.”
Tambor’s not the only one making a dramatic transformation on Transparent. Light — a network sitcom star opposite Tony Danza in the ’80s on Who’s The Boss? — is almost lost behind her pant suits, short wig and oversized glasses as dotty matriarch Shelly Pfefferman. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe on Thursday.
At 66, Light says she doesn’t need props and costumes to feel a connection with Tambor. “We were in repertoire theatre together,” she says. “We throw ourselves into it. It’s really exciting. It’s like nothing we’ve ever done before.”
Like Tambor, she’s excited to play her age and older on television. “People our age are talking about people our age,” she says, happy to see the TV conversation shift outside the usual18-34 paradigm. “This is a revelation. The fact we get to do this is such an honour and such a privilege.”
Both are also proud to be “part of the conversation” when it comes to shedding light on the transgender community. “I’m proud of it and that’s a nice feeling,” Tambor says.
Light agrees. “This is a moment that is happening in the zeitgeist. “It’s a very, very potent moment.”