JENNIFER JASON LEIGH
THE ATYPICAL ACTRESS REVELS IN HER ROLE AS A MOTHER
The Atypical actress dishes on her most rewarding role — motherhood!
Jennifer Jason Leigh had just become a first-time mother in 2010 when she starred in Broadway’s The House of Blue Leaves. “She would do bedtime with her baby, then show up for work and be brilliant,” co-star Alison Pill told Closer at the Oceana SeaChange Summer Party. “She’s just a magical person.”
Now that son Rohmer (with ex-husband Noah Baumbach) is 7, the 55-year-old actress is pulling off her next trick: starring in the new Netflix sitcom Atypical as the mom of an autistic high schooler. The first season comprises only eight half-hour episodes, leaving Jennifer plenty of time with Rohmer. “I spend every moment when I’m not working doing things with my son,” she says. “You make the most of the time you have.”
Sadly, that’s a lesson Jennifer learned the hard way when her estranged father, actor Vic Morrow, was killed by a helicopter on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1982, the same year she broke out as a teen in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. “I always hoped we could work together and, through that, resolve whatever needed to be resolved between us,” she said at the time. “Now that chance is lost. That’s the real tragedy.”
After her father’s death, she grew closer to her mother, Barbara Turner, a screenwriter who penned Jennifer’s award-winning 1995 drama Georgia. “I’ve always had so much admiration for my mom,” she said shortly before Barbara’s death at 79 in 2016. “She’s so inspiring as a woman and an artist.”
Jennifer similarly hopes to inspire Rohmer. After taking time off to focus on motherhood, she’s staged a major comeback in the wake of her first Oscar nomination for 2015’s The Hateful Eight. She plays Lady Bird Johnson in Rob Reiner’s upcoming biopic LBJ, and after that, “I’d actually like to make a movie that my son could go see,” she says. “I’m very happy being a mom.”
“I love bringing my son to set. It reminds me of what I loved as a child.” — Jennifer