By: debbie lynn elias
I vividly remember the first time I saw Kathleen Quinlan on screen. It was 1979 and “The Promise” had just opened in movie theatres and there I was opening weekend at the GCC Cinemas in the Plymouth Meeting Mall riveted to the screen. Directed by Gil Cates, thanks to Quinlan’s performance, “The Promise” set the bar for a specific type of emotional palette, a bar I still use as a base point today. It was also because of that performance that I have long followed Kathleen Quinlan’s career.
During the filming of Blake Edwards’ “Sunset” with James Garner, Bruce Willis, Malcolm McDowell, M. Emmett Walsh and other luminaries, I was fortunate enough to be on set and able to briefly meet Quinlan who was incandescent as the somewhat odd yet devious Nancy Shoemaker.
Needless to say, chatting one-on-one with Kathleen Quinlan is a trip down memory lane for both of us. Recalling her time on “Sunset”, Quinlan is quick to remember some of the cast and crew from wistfully remembering James Garner, “Oh, Jimmy. He was so wonderful.” to praise for the stuntmen like Neil Summers, Bill Hart, Allan Graf, Roydon Clark and Joe Dunne calling them “all those great guys”. And then there are her memories of Robin Williams. “I went to school with Robin. I used to see him every once in a while at some event or something. And I so looked forward to it, because he was from my childhood. . .I had a nickname: Quinny. So, [with very theatric overly emotive tones] I would say, “Robin” and he would say “Quinny.”
But Kathleen Quinlan isn’t just about the past. With indelible performances that range from Marilyn Lovell in Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13″ to Alex Aja’s “The Hills Have Eyes” to being a proud mother to Michelle Monaghan in “Made of Honor” to the world of strippers, exotic dancers and hookers in “Electra Luxx” under her belt, she is very much about the present. While very selective in the roles she takes, Kathleen Quinlan is as active and hot as ever. As mother to Daniel Radcliffe in Alex Aja’s upcoming “Horns”, Quinlan adds some dark comedic notes to her repertoire. On the hand, with her performance as Nora Valentino in the Pieter Gaspersz directed AFTER, Quinlan strikes with perfection, driving an emotional stake into the heart.
A classically styled drama from writer Sabrina Gennarino and director Pieter Gaspersz, AFTER is thoughtfully absorbing and beautifully acted, focusing not only on the dynamics of “family” but the ties that bind and the lengths family goes for one and another. Crediting director Gaspersz and writer Gennarino as “doing a really good job”, AFTER is predicated upon emotionally heavy subject matter, filled with intricacy and complexity within the story and the characters, most notably that of Quinlan s Nora. Walking a rapier line throughout the film where there is a deep dark secret floating of which Nora knows nothing about, Quinlan had her own technique for approaching the character.
“[T]hat’s how I approached it, especially since I‘m sure Peter [Gaspersz] and Sabrina [Gennarino] told you that there wasn’t a lot of time. It was, like, three days. So, what I chose to do with the ‘secret’ was just know that somewhere, because of this event in her brain, she just disassociated. She just had to survive for a certain period of time. So, in that respect, I assumed the disassociation and just played it from there. Everything was like it always was.”
Given Quinlan’s wealth of performances, she has had the opportunity to work with a diverse range of directors on film, tv and on stage for an equally diverse range of stories and emotions. With AFTER, first-time feature helmer Gaspersz and his cinematographer Jonathan Hall created a very metaphoric visual palette that spoke directly to the character of Nora; everything around her is light, bright, sunlit until the film’s climactic moment where Nora’s world becomes claustrophobic almost placing her in a stranglehold. So one has to ask about the visual metaphor and it’s impact on her performance.
Laughing, Quinlan notes, “See, you picked up on that. I didn’t. I was oblivious to all of that, but once I saw it, I thought Peter and Jonathan Hall certainly just did a beautiful job with the look of it. You don’t see a lot of films that look like that anymore. And I like it. It’s rich. It’s got a beautiful gray palette to it. . . Peter is very interesting. . .he lived a lot of this and Peter’s a ‘guy’ guy. And he had a very strong, but focused perception of what he wanted, but yet, he’s also an athlete and I was an athlete. So, he was like a coach who was there for me. He would say, ‘Go further. Go further.’ Or, ‘Would you try this?’. Or, if I went up to him and said, ‘Look, can I just have one for free? Can I just try something?’ and he’d say, ‘Yeah, go ahead. Do it. Do it.’ So, he was like my team, you know? He was rooting for me and I felt like he had my back. He wasn’t afraid to come up to me and say, ‘No, I don’t like that’ or ‘Let’s not go there.’ I just think it takes a tremendous amount of courage to jump on a horse like that for the first time.”
Written by Sabrina Gennarino, AFTER bodes very specific, very fine-tuned, very believable characters and emotional ranges that resonate deeply, requiring performances that master the family dynamics at play. According to Quinlan, “Sabrina and Peter picked really wonderful [actors]. I mean, Adam Scarimbolo. You know, Pablo Schreiber. . .Wasn’t he amazing? Pablo, who scares the hell out of me in ‘Orange is the New Black.’ I’m going to have to talk to him about that! [chastisingly laughing] ‘Now, Pablo …!’ And Darrin Henson. They were all so good. And whenever there was lighting going on or somebody wasn’t in the scene, we’d just hang out, outside or in the trailers, like a family. You just hang out. Literally, we were just in this one house for the longest time. So, there was nothing else going on.” Quick to point out that although playing mom in AFTER, Quinlan wasn’t asked to do any real cooking on or off the set. “Thank god Sabrina’s parents cooked one night! And they’re Italian. And they used to have a restaurant. We went over to their house for dinner. It was unbelievable. We just ate so well. I couldn’t stand!”
Different than on most sets where “you don’t always get close . . .a lot of people just run in their dressing rooms and lock the door” with AFTER it was a true family experience. The sad part, however, is that “you get very close and then ‘Poof’, they’re gone. It took me the longest time to understand that. Like I didn’t realize that that’s the way it went. I thought we were going to be in touch forever and ever, but it doesn’t work like that.”
So, just what was it about AFTER and the character of Nora, or any role for that matter, that entices Quinlan from the start? “I look for a story. And I look for a writer that can flesh out each character. So, I like to see that all of the characters are different and fleshed out. I look for myself, as an actor, something that I can challenge myself with, that I can push myself, and exercise what I have. Because I can’t just play somebody who washes the dishes and does the laundry. I say ‘I can do that at home! [laughing] ‘What do you need me for that?’ So, I look for a challenge and it’s fascinating now because the medium has opened up so much. The game – boy it’s completely changed…the rules are out the window. Anybody can be a filmmaker.” But at the end of the day, “Something just hits me about certain projects. I like to do comedy, because everybody, most people within the industry, don’t think of me as comedic. And the few times I’ve been able to do it, it’s been really fun. I’m not saying I’m certainly brilliant at it, but I get a big kick out of it and like to not take things so seriously. I tend to go watch a lot of comedies.”
Calling herself “spoiled”, Quinlan admits “I grew up in a great time with great directors – Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, you know. Just one after the other. I love that old school of just really fleshing out every department and everybody’s just trying to make a great piece of sculpture. But I do find that the younger people that are very film savvy are the same. They love that, so that’s fun.” And just where does Pieter Gaspersz fall as a director? “Oh my lord, [Pieter and Sabrina] have enough passion to light up New York City, I’m telling you! They’re relentless. They’re just relentless about getting this out there and I so admire that courage.”
Courage is the word with AFTER as it takes place in a post 9/11 world, tackling a very sensitive and touchy subject for so many, something what often creates trepidation for many actors. “I have a lot of trepidation almost on every project because really, you just get kind of thrown into this mix of people and you don’t really know who’s who or what’s what. But as far as the subject matter, [with AFTER] I felt a lot of responsibility. A lot of responsibility, especially being a California girl. . .New York gave me a lot as a young actor, so I always felt this sense that I wanted to give something back. And I felt that maybe I could pay some tribute this way [with AFTER]. Like Peter and Sabrina say very accurately, we have no corner on grief. The theme is loss. Everybody has some of that by virtue of being human, but there’s a responsibility. But I tend to gravitate towards real stories like that. I’m not even a good fiction reader. [laughing]” Unabashedly stating “I like to read biographies and history”, Quinlan astutely notes, “Oh my lord, I don’t need anything made up! This life is enough to bowl you over ten times!
Never one to take anything for granted, Kathleen Quinlan is grateful for the gifts that acting has given her. “The greatest gift has been an eclectic education. I wasn’t good in school. I tried really hard. I was dyslexic and didn’t know it. I don’t have, oddly enough, great storage and retrieval, so I was not able to spout off all of the history facts willy-nilly like some people can. So, school was not successful for me, but I loved to learn. And I didn’t know that you could be a different kind of a learner. So, in acting, whether you’re reading a play by Ibsen or meeting Marilyn Lovell or Jim Lovell, one of the great pioneers of our universe, or whatever it is. . .I’ve gotten a smattering of great education.”
As for what’s ahead for Kathleen Quinlan, the sky is the limit. “If I had my druthers, I would love to find a really well-written sort of cable series that sort of works three months out of the year. And then, I’d love to do some classical theater now, because there are great roles for women, for grown up women. . .Sabrina and Peter have another project they want to do that’s a comedy that I might get to do, so that should be fun. It’s just whatever really that strikes me at the time. . .[E]very now and then, something falls out of the sky and I get to go play.”
