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Amanda Plummer Interview
You have found the October 14, 1995 interview with actress Amanda Plummer, aired on the Futurist Radio Hour in the San Francisco Bay Area. Capen: So, do you like the comparisons between you and Katherine Hepburn? Is that a fair question to ask of you? Plummer: Yes! (Laughs maniacally.) Yes, it is! You kidding? When Pauline Kael said that. And that was my first film, and -- Oh, I know I'm different, and I dive into my difference as I think all artists should. Because that is what we have to offer. The difference within each person puts a spotlight on an audience member that they hadn't seen in themselves before but maybe would liked to have experienced, rather than to imitate them. And anyway, you have to be sincere to yourself. With humor! So I dive into my difference. For her to say that, and because she was such an admirable critic, of the old times when you could learn things -- But that happened to be a compliment, so I didn't learn anything from it! (Laughs.) Can't learn from compliments, can you? Except feel good. Capen: Was it written in stone that you would be an actress? Because of your father. Plummer: Yes, it is stone. It is in the ground. Very much. Literally. (Laughs.) Capen: But you would never be an actress in a T.V. series. You are given to much more depth and eccentricity and such. "Joe vs. the Volcano," for example. How did you come up with the character? Where did she come from? Plummer: That was desperation. I was yet again, one more time, out of money, and Marion Doherty, that wonderful woman and casting agent, I called her up, and I said, "I'm out of money, and I've moved to California." And, becaus ethe character roles on stage had changed to comedy that I would have enjoyed being able to do, but is not within my capabilities. Like a Neil Simon, or Neil Simon-like comedies -- It's just not in my rhythm. Shaw's more in my rhythm. Ibsen -- More absurd comedy, rather than one-liners -- I can't do -- But absurd situations, surreal situations and the comic value of that I can, I have a sensibility for, and the desire. So, you're right. It ties in with T.V. -- they deal with the one lines. It is just not in my metabolism. And I would do, and have done, a poor job whenever I have been on T.V., I felt. Though I tried -- I worked my heart out to be good, to deliver. But it's hard; it's not in me to do it. No, it would kill me to repeat it over and over and over again. Capen: Have you ever heard of a Vonnegut story called, "Who Am I This Time?" Plummer: Yes! And they did a film of it, with the great Chris Walken. Yeah. Capen: Who are you, really? Plummer: This time? (Laughs.) I don't know. Did you know as a child I made up who I was all the time. Who I am! Who I be! What form am I taking -- I would change my form in my imagination. But of course when you have film and it comes back and you go see it, you see you are the same form. But see, in my mind, I have a different form. And I try to change my voice for each one, and I try to change my speaking patterns. Very hard for each role, so -- Capen: And is that character that you portrayed on screen the character you imagined it would be? Do they match? Plummer: Sometimes it surprises me it's more! Different. And sometimes less different than I had hoped. Sometimes so different that I marvel. Not at my....finesse, or agility in acting, but, rather that -- Oh my goodness! This does exist outside of myself. And I like that. Capen: It was also Vonnegut who said once he creates the characters, but he bears no responsibility for them. Plummer: Hmmmm. Capen: They're in the world. They belong to the world and there's nothing he can do about it. As well as along the way, as he creates them, he has only so much control. Does that ring a bell? Plummer: That does. It's amazing. Yeah. I must read more Vonnegut. For me, I do not say -- I am not judge nor jury of anything that I make out of my characters to fit the film, or story. 'Cause it's not just me -- I'm very story-conscious, trying to -- but I am responsible, I am to the honor, the respect and honor for whom you work with-- but the characters that I make for the camera are just for the camera. I feel -- Often I play people that I do not like, or they search for things that I do not like in them. They say, "Lydia." I didn't like Lydia [of "The Fisher King"]. As a person, I wouldn't hang two seconds with her. Amanda wouldn't. But I loved her. In a way that is -- as you love people that are so different from you. You know? Out of curiosity. That's a form of love, curiosity. To find out. To care enough to find out. Capen: Where do you disappear to when you get away from everything? I mean you're in the limelight quite a bit. It must be difficult. Plummer: Not really. I do this -- I'm very much a hermit. And I'm very much in love with my man, who is Paul. His name is Paul. And he's brilliant. And he's a writer and a director and he is a brilliant mind. (Softly) A brilliant mind. And a great writer, and director! I'm one of those people whose vacations are their work. That's where I disappear. But the older I get I have dreams of getting a place, a little, tiny place in Ireland, so that I can -- whether I'm rich or poor, or whatever, I can be fed, because people feed people, and when you're old there, they still talk to you, young and old -- Capen: I'm sorry, did you say Ireland? Plummer: Ireland. Yeah. Yeah. Connemara. Because in Connemara you have the mixture of the rock, and the mixture of the soft grass. Capen: So the "Secret of Roan Inish" would be something close to your heart? Do you know the film? Plummer: No. Tell me about it. A John Sayles film about the Selkie, the mythic Selkie, creatures who live in the sea and shed their skins and become humans. Plummer: This is it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, absolutely. I always lived underneath the ground. And if I prayed, I prayed to either cat-gods, or the underground, like the salamanders. I love what's underneath the Earth. Capen: What are you working on now? Can you tell us a little bit about that film? Plummer: Oh, yes. "Vampire Wars." And I am not a vampire, nor do I get bitten. I am-- Capen: You're not a vampire and you don't get bitten? Plummer: No -- I love! And it's a very rare film do I get a chance to be able to give love -- in a film -- if you've noticed -- So this is very exciting for me. And new for me. Capen: It must have been difficult as well to conduct yourself in that manner with someone like Robin Williams. Plummer: What manner did you pick up on? (Laughs.) Capen: Well, in the sense that it was difficult to give love -- the character had a very difficult time accepting it -- Plummer: She did, yes -- It is difficult. Like when I did Peter -- when Robin and I love -- and Peter O'Toole I love, and I was once dating with Peter for six months, and I'm playing Eliza Doolittle, and Eliza Doolittle is not supposed to like Higgins at first, and she falls mistakenly in love with this man. At first I asked my father -- he came to see a preview -- and I said, what do you think? "Well," he says, "you love him too soon!" I said, "I know, it's me!" (Laughs.) It's hard when you're working with such great actors, like Peter O'Toole, Alan Arkin, who you must have spoken to. I mean, oh my god, it is hard to not have that show. And you have to be terribly immersed so it doesn't crack through. It's a hard thing to hide love -- When it just wants to scream out. Capen: One more individual who's really, god bless him -- I'm so glad he's on the film scene, this most important art -- is Terry Gilliam. Plummer: Yes. God bless him. Capen: You take films like "Brazil" that are just -- there's so much to his work. I would imagine the mass of people think it's pretty bizarre stuff. Don't you think? Plummer: Well, that's because they find solace in each other's own lives by identifying -- by having a common thread, going well if -- because that's unusual -- I always think that mass, mass appeal -- mob appeal, or desires are not individuals. They are collected, and they become one mind. So they are not really thinking or feeling from them own selves, as an audience member -- but rather going -- thinking as a collective -- I use words badly. So they're getting kind of like of a -- solace -- Like "I'm okay!" because Marian Joe thinks that and if I think like Marian Joe then I have my niche in the world. But art is not the world. I think if they went to see it by themselves and took it quietly to their heart, and just listened to their own! You know the famous book, you know, Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." I would say, "Audience members! Stop talking amongst each other, and agreeing with each other. Rather just feel and think the film that you just saw." And, "Come to your own. What a quiet place you have to go to. Especially if you're used to depending on other people's opinions to validate your acceptance in society." (Laughs.) The end. Capen: Beautiful. |
