Plimpton builds her comedy rep in ‘The Real O’Neals’
NEW YORK — To children of the ‘80s, Martha Plimpton, 45, will always be known for playing precocious teenagers in films like “Running on Empty,” “Parenthood” and “The Goonies.” But in a four-decade career, Plimpton has shown she can do far more than play the plucky young heroine.
A turning point arrived in 2010, when she was cast as Virginia Slims Chance, the matriarch of a zany working-class family in Fox’s sitcom “Raising Hope.” Plimpton had spent much of the preceding decade on the stage, earning three Tony nominations, and had never really thought of herself as a comic actress.
“It was the easiest job I ever had,” she said recently between bites of a croque-monsieur at a quiet Brooklyn cafe. “I could be as ridiculous as I wanted to be, and it was fine.”
Plimpton’s funny streak continues in “The Real O’Neals,” an ABC sitcom loosely inspired by the experiences of sex columnist Dan Savage. Plimpton stars as Eileen O’Neal, a devout Irish Catholic mother struggling to accept her newly out-of-thecloset teenage son.
Her performance in “The Real O’Neals” has already been singled out for praise. (L.A. Times critic Robert Lloyd called her “the anchor here, as she seems to be wherever she goes.”) Not everyone is pleased with the series, though, as Plimpton learned during lunch via a text message telling her the Catholic League had taken out a highly critical ad in the New York Times.
Q: How do you respond to accusations that the show is anti-Catholic?
A:
When anybody hears that it’s going to be a show about a Catholic family dealing with their gay son, they assume that we’re going to be making fun of Catholics, and it’s just not the case. What we’re making fun of is the fear. The character I play is a homophobe, but she’s a homophobe because she’s based her entire value system on her faith, a thing that’s given her an enormous sense of purpose, stability and spiritual comfort. When you rely on something like that, and it tells you that anyone who is gay is going to burn in hell, you don’t want your son to burn in hell. That’s really where Eileen is coming from. It’s not coming from a place of hatred. It’s my hope that when people see the show, they’ll understand that we’re not out to humiliate anyone who is coming from this perspective.
Q: Did you have any reservations about returning to the grind of network TV?
A:
None whatsoever. I felt extremely “hashtag blessed,” man, to have been given another chance to make a living and pay my mortgage.
Q: Your parents, Shelley Plimpton and Keith Carradine, are both actors. Was show business always a given for you?
A:
It was kind of accidental. I was 8 years old. You’re not really terribly aware of career decisions at the age of 8, but I was a showoff and a pain … and constantly performing. My mother and her friend (theater director) Elizabeth Swados were working together when Liz said, “Maybe we should put Martha in one of my shows?” I think my mother sort of felt like, “Oh, good. It will give her a little focus and get her out of my hair for a second.” We didn’t pursue it really intensely. My mother was very insistent that I not become famous quickly and that, if I wanted to do this, then I think about myself as an actor rather than as a celebrity.
Q: But you did become quite successful at a young age.
A:
I was lucky. It spoiled me a little. I thought that I would be sort of a fabulous leading lady by the time I was 25, and that was not happening at all for so many reasons. If you’re working with all these incredible people like Ron Howard and Sidney Lumet and Marty Ritt, you start to think that you’re hot … but life’s got other plans.