By: debbie lynn elias
Oscar winner Sissy Spacek is legendary. Known to generations for her versatile and dynamic performances, from “Carrie” to a “Coal Miner’s Daughter” to “In the Bedroom” and even fighting for lead actress time with a mule in “Get Low”, Spacek has been there and done that more times than any of us can count. And yet, she still finds new and exciting challenges that inspire – and amuse her – the latest being THE HELP. As the fiery, slightly off-kilter, elderly Missus Walters, Spacek handily steals every scene from her younger co-stars.
With Spacek’s own lilting Southern accent providing the perfect ambiance, she describes Missus Walters as “a bit of a pepper pot, which I like, she’s just somebody who’s full of it…I think the Alzheimer’s affected that part of her brain that kinda keeps you more reserved. That part of her brain was [in hushed whispers] ‘destroyed.’” Not having yet read the book at the time of casting, “I read the script first. I read it and I thought, “I wanna read the book. There must be more of Missus Walters in the book.” I read the book and I was like, “Nope! There’s more in the script.”
On meeting with director Tate Taylor, Spacek expressed her concerns to him about playing Missus Walters, not the least of which was her age. “When I first met him I said, ‘I think I’m too [young] for this.’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s what the studio said.’ Of course I think I wore shorts and did everything I could to make him realize that I couldn’t play someone that old. But he said, ‘I knew Missus Walters and you can play her.’ Unfortunately, he was right. Fortunately and unfortunately. It’s very sobering. I’d find myself walking around town in the get-up and the glasses and I’d say to people, ‘Really, I’m much younger. I’m not like this at all.’”
Once past the “age” issue, and with the role already expanded beyond that in the book thanks to Taylor’s vision, Spacek’s concern was the elements of the part itself. “I said to him, ‘You know, I don’t know if there’s enough there for me to do her Alzheimer’s and be the voice of reason, this conscience, and to be funny. I don’t know.’” Seeming to already anticipate Spacek, Taylor was at the ready. “He said [to me], “You can improvise. We’re gonna improvise. Missus Walters is gonna improvise.’” Rolling her eyes at the idea of improvisation, “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, like everybody else does.’ But we did that. Which explains all my upstaging in the backs of scenes where they’re having a real important scene. I’ve improvised mine. And it was fun.”
Working with a first-time director, or relative first-timer, is nothing new to Spacek and it’s something she relishes. “I have had such good luck and great experiences with first time directors. Terrence Malick, Tate Taylor, Todd Fields who did ‘In the Bedroom’. There’s no accounting for somebody’s talent. You kinda know when you meet them. You know what I think sometimes? I think what I don’t know about them is a lot more exciting than what I know about somebody else…It’s like a young racehorse. There’s a lot of hope.” And with Taylor that hope was realized. “[Tate] was spectacular. He did not seem like a first time director. He sort of took me to new places.”
Spacek has only the highest compliments for Taylor and the tone of his set. “We never hesitated to say what we thought. He’s not threatened by that at all. In fact, he welcomes it. There was an amazing collaboration. He knew what he needed in every scene and if you could do your stuff within that, he pretty much let you do whatever he thought worked within the confines, the parameters of what he needed the scene to be. It was great. I was like a little puppy with Tate. He’s amazing. I had so much fun. It’s such a great book. It’s such a great project. Such an incredible cast. And I was really the last to come aboard. I just wanted to be a part of it.”
With Spacek scheduled to get behind the camera in March/April 2012 for her first directorial effort, what does she think people will say about her as a first-timer? “Gad! I-do-not-know.”
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