On balance, she's succeeding
Julianne Nicholson keeps finding rewarding work in films and TV
Julianne Nicholson has her most prominent movie role yet in "Two Weeks," which opened Friday . In it the actress, 35, plays a conscientious daughter whose mother, played by Sally Field, is dying of cancer. Nicholson, who grew up in Massachusetts, spoke to us from New York.
Q One of your first movie roles, in "Tully" [ 2002] was as an introverted, tomboyish rural girl in the Midwest. Was that a stretch for someone who grew up in Medford and now lives in New York?
A My dad lived outside Boston in Medford, and my mom lived in the western part of the state, in a town called Montague, where I lived in a cabin in the woods with no electricity and no running water. So it was not that much of a stretch. I spent a lot of time on various farms, and my first job was picking cucumbers.
Q Since you started showing up on the screen about 10 years ago, you've done almost a perfect balance of television roles -- like "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and "Ally McBeal" -- and both independent and Hollywood movies. Was that luck or strategy?
A I think a little of both. You can only really say yes or no to the things that are offered to you. I really didn't want to be stuck in one or the other so I have been really lucky to be able to do both. For so long I felt like I was taking advantage of opportunities that were given to me, but not getting credit for the things that I actually say no to, and how I have been in control of the work that I've done.
Q Do you have a plan to land a successful TV series, or get bigger roles in movies, or what?
A It's so hard to say, because there's so much good work happening on television now. At some point I think it would be great to just do film, because you get a variety of different roles that you can play, and the number of people that you work with grows, and to me that's exciting.
Q You were in "Kinsey" [ 2004], probably your biggest movie to that point. Was that kind of a breakthrough?
A You never know what people see and what they remember you from and why they would ask you to do something else. My role is quite small in that movie, though [ "Law & Order" writer and producer] Dick Wolf did tell me that he saw it. I don't know if that had something to do with his thinking of me for "Criminal Intent" or what.
Q A number of your characters are in tough emotional or romantic predicaments -- are those roles you look for, or do they just happen to be the scripts that have come your way?
A I feel like a lot of times those are the juiciest roles to tackle, and to be able to explore each of those, and why that person is in that situation, is to me very interesting. Not that I wouldn't love to do some really fluffy romantic Hollywood comedy someday, or sci-fi action thriller, you know. They all have their perks.
Q You did a small comedy, "Seeing Other People" three years ago, which was a little unusual. Do you have a preference between comedy and drama?
A I loved that movie. I have to say I wish that was one people could have seen. I like doing both. I felt like on "Ally McBeal" that was a lot of humor, and even "Conviction," a show I did last year, that wasn't a comedy, but I felt like there was a lot of humor in the role that was written for me. I loved playing somebody that has that to them. I mean you can't play them as funny people, but just having those predicaments going on.
Q How did you get into modeling, and was that intended as a path to acting?
A Somebody approached me in a supermarket when I was 15, and then I brought those pictures to an agency in Boston, the Models Group. For me it just felt like a fun thing to do during summer, holidays , and weekends. And living in Medford it was an exciting way to discover Boston proper. Somewhere in the back of my head I probably thought it would help me get closer to getting into acting. But ultimately I quit modeling and took a bunch of years off before I made the leap and took my first acting class. I was waitressing in New York and going to Hunter College just trying to get a degree, and basically just too chicken to get into what I wanted to do.
Q Were you confident you'd make it in acting, and did you have a backup plan?
A I was hopeful. When I decided to do it I made a commitment to myself and to acting. I said, "I'm going to do this for five years. At the end of five years I'll see where I am and decide from there whether I should continue on or try something else." Luckily that was 10 years ago.
Q "Two Weeks" stars Sally Field. Did you look at her earlier work, and how was it working with her?
A I'm already familiar with her work, as many people of all ages are, and I am just a huge fan. I used to watch reruns of "Gidget" when I was in high school. She seems to have done it right. She's had a career from when she was so young until now. I think that can't be easy in this business.
Q Did anybody make any jokes about, "You really, really like me," or whatever she said at the Academy Awards in 1985?
A It was funny, because we actually were filming while the Oscars were on, two years ago. At one point a bunch of us were sitting around in one of the actor's rooms, and I looked across and it just suddenly dawned on me, there was Sally Field, and we were sitting there watching with [a two-time] Oscar winner and with someone who had uttered those lines, famously, and it was kind of a surreal moment.
Q Aside from obviously being sad, "Two Weeks" had a lot of humor and some dark humor in the family situations. Were those tough to reconcile?
A You know, the cast was a group of really hilarious people -- Tom Cavanagh and Ben Chaplin and Glenn [Howerton] and Clea [ DuVall]. That was kind of just there, and it was also in the script. When I read the script for the first time I was going back and forth between crying and laughing, and hopefully we captured some of that.
Q Do the freckles win you roles, or do they lose you roles?
A I bet both. I kind of like 'em. 