Life on the Homestead
Off the clock, Waterston is deeply content in a role he has yet to play on a screen or stage: farmer. He and Woodruff operate the Birdseye & Tanner Brooks Farm in West Cornwall, Conn., where they raise goats, Icelandic sheep and cattle. “Being connected to animal life is a very good balancing thing because it’s much less under your immediate control than a performance,” he says. He’s also the chairman of the board for Oceana, which advocates the protection of oceans. “It’s not an honorary position— they put me to work,” he says. He goes on to detail how the right kind of help can lead to immediate positive results and recalls that he and his Grace & Frankie costar Jane Fonda were arrested in 2019 for protesting climate change. (No charges were filed.) Waterston says it’s his responsibility as a public figure to speak up: “You can’t change minds but you can point. I don’t expect people to say, ‘Oh, Sam Waterston says this therefore I will.’ But they may just take a look. I recommend that everybody do something.”
In the summers, he and the family, which includes six grandchildren, convene in Duxbury, Mass. “My great-grandfather bought this big elephant of an old white house that’s tumbled down a little bit but can absorb a lot of people,” he says.
He hopes they’ll reunite for the holidays, but it will be challenging as all four of his kids have joined the family business and work in far-flung places on chaotic timetables. (His daughter Katherine, 42, is part of the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts series.) “My wife and I tried to distract them from acting but the trouble is that we were getting away with it,” he says. “It eventually became hard to change the subject.”
Besides, they learned from the master. And as long as Jack McCoy is going strong in his professional life, so is Waterston. “The work is interesting and I really enjoy working so I can’t see any reason to stop,” he says. “I think they’ll tell me when it’s time to leave. And if they don’t, I won’t do it.” has a special interest in protecting the world’s oceans.