Acting an effective outlet for active imagination
PASADENA, Calif. — Award-winning actress Margo Martindale considers the colorful imagination she experienced as a child both a curse and a blessing.
“When I was a kid, my imagination led me to great fear of being blown away by a tornado, witches and ghosts. And throughout my life I got too far in it. It takes everything to get on a plane. I’m still afraid of most everything,” she said.
“The world I can go to in my head is so alive that acting is a perfect place for me. I can use my imagination, and it becomes real. I did it always in my backyard, but I didn’t know I was acting. It was playing. It was make-believe. It was being somebody new all the time.”
Fans of Martindale already know she’s somebody new all the time.
She’s portrayed a variety of roles — from a small-town bartender to a KGB agent.
Martindale was the selfish mother, Earline Fitzgerald, in “Million Dollar Baby,” and earned an Emmy for her role as matriarch drug lord Mags Bennett in “Justified.”
In her latest incarnation, she’s transformed into a canny bail bondswoman who knows more than she lets on in “Sneaky Pete,” now available on the streaming service Amazon Prime.
That little girl in her backyard tried on every persona she could think of,Martindale said.
“I was a hairdresser. I was the head of an orphanage. I directed shows. I became somebody else. I was a schoolteacher. I was really mean to some people,” she said. “These were who I became in my backyard.
“This imagination is wonderful, but it takes me down paths that I have to stop myself from thinking about because it causes debilitating fear — fear of bricks falling, fear of planes falling out of the sky, fear of terrorists, bridges crashing. There was a time when I thought people had guns in the front row (of the theater). I went onstage anyway, even if they were going to shoot me for what I was doing.”
For years, Martindale prospered in supporting roles — her face was familiar, but few people knew her name.
“There was a time when I thought I could do something else. What, I’m not sure,”Martindale said.
“I could be a research scientist, that’s where I’d always go — then another (acting) job would come along. I remember after I did a show on Broadway, this was 2004, and I had ‘Million Dollar Baby’ come out — which was a big step.””Good at math and science as a child, Martindale said her parents didn’t mind when she took a shine to acting.
“My brothers were famous athletes, and I was a girl so it didn’t really matter what I did,” she said. “I was going to get married anyway or something. … Then I got 22 scholarships to school and my daddy said, ‘stud fee,’ meaning he was going to be the stud for anybody who came along because his children were doing really well.”
Martindale credits her choir director for noticing her.
“I came from a very small town in Texas and was a cheerleader and the choir teacher said, ‘You have a loud voice; why don’t you come audition for the musical?’ ‘Done.’”
The musical was “Bye, Bye Birdie,” and she played Rosie Alvarez.
While she was struggling to work as an actress, Martindale held down almost as many odd jobs as the parts she played. “I always could make a dollar in many, many, many different ways: private investigator, spa consultant, waitress for a Weight Watchers restaurant, waitress at other places. I coached people. I worked in three offices. I was good at answering the phone and at private investigating.”