O’Toole filling in blank slate of character on ‘Virgin River’
Annette O’Toole is reveling in her “Virgin River” role as the unpredictable mayor of a small town whose woodsy, peaceful setting belies its residents’ roller-coaster lives.
Her character is older but not always wiser, including in love. That goes against Hollywood’s tendency to view midlifeplus as past the sell-by date for nuanced storytelling, and O’Toole counts herself fortunate to play Hope McCrea.
Make that doubly lucky. When the actor chose to stay with her 97-year-old mother during the worst of the pandemic, that meant Hope was largely absent in season three. The fourth season was a comeback for both, thanks to series creator Sue Tenney.
“She called me and said, ‘You’re in the hospital. You had a terrible car crash,’ ” Tenney said of Hope’s in-limbo status. When O’Toole asked if Hope lives, Tenney let the actor decide: Did she want to return to the series? The series, with its fifth season now in production, stars Alexandra Breckenridge and is based on Robyn Carr’s novels.
“Are you kidding?” O’Toole, 70, replied.
Such eagerness is characteristic, as proven by her resume that includes few gaps and some 100 film and TV credits. She earned an Emmy nod for the 1990 miniseries “The Kennedys of Massachusetts.” She has emphasized theater work and, with husband Michael McKean, is a songwriter: Several of their tunes were in “A Mighty Wind,” including the Oscar-nominated “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.”
This interview with O’Toole has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: “Virgin River” isn’t sci-fi or fantasy, it’s simply human drama. Was that the appeal?
A:
Exactly that. It’s about people and their issues and in a beautiful community. And Sue Tenney was so generous because this character is not really in the books very much, so we kind of had a blank slate to draw this person together. You don’t do (a project) because you want it to be a big success. … You do it because you want to, and you like the people. And at this point in my career, it’s doing something that I haven’t quite done before. That’s why this character was attractive, because I could help form her into something a little more real than a lot of the stuff I read for characters my age, grandmothers and the sweet kind of homebody. That’s boring, I’ve done that.
Q: What did you want to see in Hope instead? A:
I just wanted her to be complicated, a woman who even at her age doesn’t have the answers. She doesn’t have, at the beginning, a relationship that is steady. It’s very rocky. … She’s impulsive and headstrong, and also very generous and can be very kind and loving. She’s just a person. I just wanted a full person.
Q: It’s a screen rarity for older characters to be shown other than in a long and loving marriage or widowed. Hope and Doc’s story isn’t the show’s central relationship, but it’s a focus.
A:
How interesting that he was unfaithful early in their marriage, and she cannot let him go. She never divorced him. … Tim (Matheson) is fantastic, and we’ve come up with a whole full life that they’ve had together. It’s not been a normal marriage at all. The way we look at marriage, I love that marriage can be whatever you want it to be or not be.
Q: Hope doesn’t bother to hide her age behind hair dye or heavy makeup. How is to play a character who says, “Here I am world, an older woman?”
A:
It’s wonderful. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had because when I started out, I was really young, and I was sort of the ingenue, and then I was the leading lady in some things, and then you start to age. Now I just find it so freeing. I don’t worry about it, and that’s in life, too. … It’s like, who are we trying to kid? Especially an actress, they can look you up (online) and see how old you are, see all the things you’ve done, look at all your pictures.