Debra Winger selects ‘The Lovers’
Debra Winger was a fixture on the big screen in the 1980s. She’s been nominated for the best actress Oscar three times — for “An Officer and a Gentleman (1983),” “Terms of Endearment” (1984) and “Shadowlands” (1994).
Since then, Winger has been working steadily, although selectively, in film and television. She’s back now, almost 62, sharing the lead in “The Lovers,” a sex comedy in which she and Tracy Letts, who plays her husband, are having affairs. They then begin a secret affair with each other. The premise sounds a lot more French than Hollywood.
“The Lovers” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22. Winger said that Gloria Steinem nudged the actress when the screening started and whispered, “The score is so Truffaut.”
Over an omelet in a Manhattan hotel, Winger reflected on how she’s become choosier about roles that she takes on.
“Selective,” she said, laughing at the word, “saying that would be so polite.”
“If only we could say that to our kids about not eating their vegetables. ‘You’re so selective about your food.’
“The truth is that I’m kind of selfish about my life. I always thought of acting as not separate from my life, not something that I did, and then came home from work,” she said. “So if there’s nothing appearing in front of me that has anything to do with what I’m interested in, I’m not going to explore it.”
Not that she’s thinking about retiring. “I am the age that I am. I still believe in love, sex and some rock ’n’ roll, although not that loud,” she said.
“The Lovers” is about Michael and Mary, who have dull jobs, a comfortable house and a son in college. Michael, on the sly, is seeing a younger tempestuous dance teacher who harangues him about disappointing her. Mary cheats on Michael with a younger writer, who threatens to leave her if she doesn’t leave her husband. The script, by director Azazel Jacobs, doesn’t make extramarital love look much more pleasant than the drudgery of a marriage that’s soured.
Jacobs and Winger, working together for the first time, have known each other for years. He came to her attention when she saw his latest film, “Terri” (2011), about an overweight teenager and a school assistant principal who protects him. “Momma’s Man” (2008), Jacobs’ previous feature, was a fictional portrait of an adult recluse who never leaves his parents’ Manhattan loft. The parents in the film were played by Jacobs’ own parents, in their own home. The director’s father is the experimental filmmaker and teacher Ken Jacobs.
With “The Lovers,” Winger said, “he wrote it with the thought that I might do it, and then Tracy came in.”
Jacobs, Winger stressed, was not an ordinary director, and “The Lovers” was not going to be a predictable romantic comedy, not least because romance wasn’t always part of the equation.
“I thought that we were heading for a rom-com for 50-year-olds, 60-year-olds,” Winger said, but Jacobs had other ideas.
“Somehow that safety pin in his ear caught on something and yanked him around,” she said, “Who wants a rom-com at 50 or 60? They look stupid. Sorry.
“I’ve seen those. We know what they are. They’re glossy and nobody’s life is like that, and it’s entertainment and escape. But this is asking a little bit more of the audience, and I think it’s giving a little bit more.”
And Winger saw more in “The Lovers,” especially the context of underlying financial pressures on a couple like Michael and Mary who try to escape that stress in love affairs.
“That house that we shot in is some interesting Americana,” she said. “It used to be what was deemed to be upwardly mobile, and now those people are white-knuckle. That’s what happened to America” said Winger. “Those people that we rented that house from, they needed that money. He’s an Iraq War veteran. They had a good life, and now they’re trying to make ends meet. I’d venture to say that for 80 percent of the neighborhood, that is the story.”
Without giving away the film’s resolution, Winger suggested that married couples watch “The Lovers” together: “There is a sadness in it. But it’s not a sadness that we’re bringing to it, it’s a sadness that exists in it. If you’ve been married as long as I’ve been married, there are rough times. If you don’t think there are going to be rough times, you’re either not going to stay married, or you’re in denial. It’s just the bumps in the road.”
“The Lovers” (NR) opens Friday, May 12, at Bay Area theaters. v To see a trailer: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=1stvXwxn_yE