San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Tireless Tomei sees ‘a rebirth’ in new roles
It is nearing midnight, and Marisa Tomei huddles in the backseat of a car taking her home after a marathon day performing “The Rose Tattoo” twice on Broadway. She’s developed a method for staying fresh for the demanding role of Serafina, a Sicilian widow who rekindles lustful feelings when a rambunctious truck driver showers attention on her in Tennessee Williams’ 1951 classic.
“I just take a really deep, long nap between shows,” she says. To remedy standing onstage for hours, she lavishes her legs with CBD (the chemical compound in marijuana).
Still her long day isn’t quite over. Tomei committed to spreading the word about her latest movie, “Frankie,” in which she plays a hairstylist on film sets who bonds with a famous actress (Isabelle Huppert) and is invited to the actress’ family holiday in Portugal. With lastminute rehearsal calls for her Broadway show, the only remaining time for this interview was during her ride home.
Tomei, an Oscar winner for “My Cousin Vinny” in 1992, sounds remarkably lively considering the day she put in. “I’m half running on adrenaline and half exhausted,” she says, her hearty laugh resonating through the phone call.
In what she calls “a nice coincidence,” “Frankie,” which comes to Bay Area theaters on Friday, Nov. 1, opens the same
“Frankie” opens Friday, Nov. 1, in Bay Area theaters.
month as “The Rose Tattoo.” “I guess October is my new lucky month.”
Her characters in these two productions share a fiery spirit — Serafina actually means fiery. “The parts have rejuvenated me,” says the 54yearold actress. “I was not feeling much like a life force. I was feeling very much at a midlife low point, so it feels good to have these stories and the energy of these characters that burst with life and see a rebirth. The next chapters in their lives prove ‘It ain’t over until it is over.’ ” Though Tomei and Huppert’s characters haven’t seen each other in a while, they immediately pick up their deep affection for one another. Tomei has personally observed and been party to friendships between actors and the people who do their hair and makeup.
“They are really with you, and they are working on your body all the time. They know usually what you did the night before. They can tell on your face,” she says. “The privacy of the makeup trailer is usually when you can express your real feelings. The people working on you are so nurturing and very motherly, whether male or female. There is an ease so it can be very intimate.”
Huppert, one of France’s biggest stars, proved a compatible costar.
“What I found is she is really just such a gypsy. She has her suitcase packed and is ready to go and work anywhere at any time,” Tomei says. “You are jumping into a situation with someone who really cares about the scenes and about cracking our scenes together.”
Another pleasure of making “Frankie” was working again with director Ira Sachs. Tomei starred in his “Love is Strange” and the two became friends.
“There is a shorthand we have together,” Tomei says. “There is at least a grain of confidence that Ira has chosen you. That must mean he is happy with what you bring, and that is a good feeling.”
In his pitch to her, Sachs sent a note summarizing “Frankie.” “Then he threw Portugal in the mix. I had been craving being in Europe and it came at a perfect time. And of course knowing that Isabelle would be in it made it irresistible.”
“It seemed to me a very good idea to cast Isabelle and Marisa together,” Sachs says. In his mind, “Marisa becomes a counter drawing force of the film. There is a tension between Isabelle’s and Marisa’s narratives that gives the film its energy.”
In a scene where Marisa’s longtime boyfriend played by Greg Kinnear proposes, “you can see some of Marisa’s genius. She is able to convey so many variations. What I look for is an actor who can play contradictory qualities. I think Marisa manages to pull off an endless amount of contradiction,” Sachs says.
This ability also is demonstrated in Tomei’s portrayal of Serafina, who is initially confused by her sexual longing. Tomei believes Tennessee Williams was a master at conveying repressed sexuality. “The repression of women was something he could understand as a gay man in a situation where his own sexuality was repressed. He could convey the nuances.”
Playing a Sicilian helped Tomei appreciate her own onequarter Sicilian lineage on her mother’s side. “I didn’t really know that much about her side of the family. It certainly wasn’t honored; if anything it was a bit degraded. So it is wonderful to discover all the different cultures that make up Sicily,” says Tomei, who studied the country’s history and visited there. “It is a place that just has so much heart. It shows in the food and the people and the music. The culture is endlessly fascinating. It means a lot to know that is in my blood — that I could have actually been someone who worships Diogenes.”
Sachs sees in Tomei something of Anna Magnani, who won an Oscar as Serafina in the 1955 film “The Rose Tattoo.”
“Marisa is like a wonderful live wire. She can be volcanic and show a huge amount of emotion. You could say she is earthy. Some of her features are Annaesque,” he says.
Talking about fiery Italians, Lady Gaga has announced her choice of Tomei to play her in a biopic. Laughing, Tomei says, “It would have to be a very avantgarde piece. I would be playing someone a lot younger. But Lady Gaga loves the avantgarde.”