‘Maid’ for the role
Andie MacDowell teams up with daughter on Netflix series
Casting Andie MacDowell as the mother of Margaret Qualley’s title character in Netflix’s “Maid” only seems like a nobrainer.
“Oh God, no. It was her idea,” MacDowell, 63, said matter of factly of Qualley’s influence.
“When they were casting, she started thinking and she knows I understand darkness. So she suggested me.
“I don’t think that anybody would have thought about me for this character — because until you do something, people don’t know you can do it.
“But I’ve always wanted to play a character like this. I was really grateful her asking for me.”
Qualley, at 26 the youngest of MacDowell’s three children, stars as Alex, a single mother with a lot of bad luck as she escapes an abusive relationship and overcomes homelessness to make a stable life for her toddler Maddy.
The 10-episode series is inspired by the NY Times best-selling memoir “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive” by Stephanie Land.
MacDowell’s Paula, an artist, has mental health issues. She’s certainly eccentric.
“She deserves empathy. I used the word ‘crazy’ to describe her the other day and regretted it because I don’t really think it’s the right term for her,” MacDowell said.
“We don’t really know what her complete backstory is but I don’t think that it’s good. She’s doing the best she can under the circumstances.
“She’s not on medication because she doesn’t have a doctor. She doesn’t have those kinds of luxuries in her life. She’s just barely getting by.
“Eccentric is a beautiful word for her. But she is also deeply troubled. I mean she’s got her demons and it’s not been easy for her. She makes life very difficult for her daughter as well.
“Her daughter is emotionally balanced and doesn’t have the problems that Paula has. It’s almost like she was born with this wisdom.”
MacDowell, long after box-office hits like “Sex, Lies and Videotape” (’89) and “Four Weddings and a Funeral” (’94), has survived, thrived even.
“My 30s were so easy — I was turning down work because I wanted to spend time with my children,” she recalled.
“And it’s true after 40, it gets really hard for women — where it gets really interesting for men — and jobs become much harder.
“What’s interesting now is that I can play character roles like Paula, which are honestly so much more fun and interesting. “You have the opportunity to do more complex and deeper work, like the things I had to look for in Paula.”