Unbuttoned
The usually prim Joan Allen lets it all hang out in her latest roles
NEW YORK -- Sexy and sardonic aren't exactly the ways in which Joan Allen's characters have sprung to life on-screen. Instead, she's been praised for her performances as a starched symbol of wifely rectitude in movies such as ''Nixon," ''The Crucible," and ''The Ice Storm."
But in the new Mike Binder comedy-drama, ''The Upside of Anger," opening Friday, Allen gets to cut loose. She plays Terry Wolfmeyer, the boozy, depressed, angry, and abandoned wife and mother of four girls, who behaves badly as she tries to sort out her life while being romanced by a washed-up ex-Detroit Tiger (Kevin Costner).
''I hadn't really done that kind of thing in film before so it was really fun that someone gave me the chance to do something so different," says Allen.
''The character is outrageous. She's drunk. She's sad. She laughs. One day she's charming and the next day she's tearing her hair out. I got to try absolutely everything."
In a gold brocade jacket, gold hoop earrings, slim jeans, and heeled sandals that show off polished toenails, Allen projects an image younger than her 48 years. She's hardly as unhinged as Wolfmeyer, but she's got a lot more edge and hipness than audiences may know.
Actually the role was tailor-made for the actress by writer-director Binder, creator and star of the HBO series ''The Mind of the Married Man," who also plays a caddish radio producer in the new movie.
The two had earlier costarred in the 2000 political movie ''The Contender," which was also written for Allen by Rod Lurie. There, however, she played a more typical Joan Allen part: a tightly wound vice presidential candidate who fights against revelations of an old sex scandal. Binder played her chief of staff.
''Joan had asked me on the set of 'The Contender' when I was going to write a comedy for her," says Binder. ''And I told her to be careful for what she wished. When the idea for 'The Upside of Anger' came together, I was already thinking about what I could write for Joan."
''She's an amazing presence," Binder adds. ''What Joan Allen can do in one look, another actor needs two or three lines of dialogue to accomplish."
A new direction
''The Upside of Anger" isn't the only new film in which Allen gets to unbutton.
In the upcoming ''Yes" by British filmmaker Sally Potter, Allen crosses racial and religious lines, playing a Western woman who becomes enmeshed in a steamy love affair with a Middle Eastern man.
And in another independent movie, Campbell Scott's ''Off the Map," which opens in Cambridge on March 25, Allen plays a hippie whose loose-loving lifestyle lures an IRS agent visiting her family in New Mexico.
At first, she declined that wife-mother role. But Scott persisted.
''I was afraid that the character was too much of a caretaker," explains Allen. ''I eventually saw that there was something very different physically about her, but initially I had turned it down because I felt I've played the caretaker in my other films, like 'Nixon' and 'The Crucible.' I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to be the one who was falling apart. I wanted to be the one who was having a nervous breakdown. I wanted to be the one to have somebody else take care of me."
In fact, Allen's real-life role has changed dramatically as well. In 2002, her 12-year-marriage to actor Peter Friedman ended quietly with a separation that she calls ''amicable."
''Not just now, but throughout my career, how you live your life, how you take in the world and experience your friends, family, and situations becomes your material as an actor," says Allen, who went into drama in high school to combat her shyness. ''Now I think I'm experiencing an independence and a need to take care of myself."
The three-time Oscar nominee plays another role with much devotion -- that of mother to Sadie, her 11-year-old daughter with Friedman. ''I feel that my job is to watch her, see what she gravitates toward, introduce her to things, and be supportive."
As a mother, can she relate to Terry Wolfmeyer?
Not at all, says Allen.
''I think of Terry as a character who hasn't had any therapy, so her ability to self-evaluate isn't too strong," she says. ''She just reacts. I find that interesting, especially in this age when we're all looking at ourselves and being therapized."
How about all that unleashed anger?
''I'm not good with anger," she admits. ''Especially with other people, so I'll avoid it at all costs."
But surely there must be things that tick her off.
''Miscommunication. Being misunderstood makes me furious. Injustice. Injustice makes me furious. And, oh, technology," she says. ''When the computer doesn't want to do what you want to do, I can literally just throw it off the balcony," she says, laughing.
The good wife
The arc of Joan Allen started in Rochelle, Ill., a small town outside Chicago. She went on to Eastern Illinois University, where she met John Malkovich, who later recruited her to the fledgling Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. It was at the fabled Steppenwolf where she learned her craft. She came to New York in 1983, winning a Tony for starring opposite Malkovich in the 1988 drama ''Burn This," her Broadway debut. She never left New York.
Her first substantial movie part was tiny but unforgettable: as the blind love interest of a serial killer in Michael Mann's ''Manhunter" (1986). She played opposite Jeff Bridges in Francis Ford Coppola's ''Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (1988), but her screen breakthrough came seven years later when Oliver Stone cast her as Pat Nixon in ''Nixon," a role that won Allen her first Academy Award nomination.
She continued to play the wife in ''The Crucible" (1996), ''The Ice Storm" (1997), ''Face/Off" (1997), and ''Pleasantville" (1998). She got a second supporting-actress Oscar nomination for ''The Crucible"; ''The Contender" earned her a best actress nod for the first time.
Allen hopes to fill her impressive resume with new accomplishments. She's wants to coproduce a film, ''Pushers Needed," a story about five working-class Irish women who take a trip to Lourdes, France. She has a slate of golden actresses interested -- Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, Claire Danes, and Brenda Blethyn -- but financial backers are still being mined.
''Can I find any women better than these?" asks Allen. ''I just hope that we do get the money so it can see the light of day."
The last few years of film after film have certainly been hectic. But Allen is hoping that her latest work will allow directors to see her differently, or that she'll be lucky enough to have another writer create a role for her.
''I've always considered myself more of a character actor," says Allen. ''I don't live in Hollywood. I don't have a Hollywood career. So it was pretty wonderful when a writer like Mike Binder considers you for a role."
The admiration is mutual.
''There are some actors who light up a scene when they enter and you can only focus on them," says Binder. ''But Joan Allen has a rare quality. She can be absolutely mesmerizing in a scene, but the light stays on everyone else as well. Other actors always look good when they're playing with Joan Allen." 