What was it like playing Roz? [Series creator] Chuck Lorre promised me some really great wiseass stuff, which I adore, and Michael and I just fall into place. Sandy and Roz had a terrible marriage and ended up hating each other. A little bit of War of the Roses goes on, so who else would play her? That was very irresistible. What makes working with Michael Douglas special? I think there is some innate connection. I’m not sure why. Our lives are certainly extremely different. He’s moved back to the East Coast pretty much, but for so many years he was out in Los Angeles. I never ever tried living there. I just couldn’t imagine it really. What can you tell us about Roz’s visit to L.A.? She’s staying with Mindy, the daughter [played by Sarah Baker], and Paul Reiser plays Mindy’s fiancé. He is absolutely one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. So Mindy takes me to the Kominsky Studios to see the work that she’s doing and the work Sandy’s doing. And Sandy takes her out to dinner. They end up remembering what they saw in each other that attracted them in the first place. It’s really kind of sweet. And I said to Chuck Lorre, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You are telling me that you are writing a TV relationship with adults who change and grow? Are you kidding me?” I don’t do a lot of TV. I never wanted to do a series. But one thing that Michael pointed out that I didn’t realize was so unusual was that Chuck wrote every show. He didn’t pass it on to a writing staff. Chuck also convinced you to guest star on Mom. I did Mom for Chuck a couple times. He asked me to come do Mom, and I thought, God have mercy. Those women are wonderful, and I loved working with them, but the same character week after week after month after month, I would shoot myself. Body Heat launched your career in the 1980s, but it made you a femme fatale. Did you love or hate that? I was determined that there was no way I was going to get stuck in that [kind of role]. So my second film, The Man With Two Brains, was a spoof of a femme fatale. And in Romancing the Stone, she was more of a nerd. Each film is a contrast to the one before. I don’t have a body of work that you can absolutely say, “Oh, this is her type.” What’s your take on Body Heat all these years later? The trick with the character and the challenge that I loved was that you had to believe her while you’re with her in the passage. But there had to be hints, so that when the reveal comes you go, “Oh, yeah, of course.” It’s a hesitancy. It’s trying to find or use the wrong word. It’s looks that you give that you then hide quickly. Little hints that viewers don’t question while the action’s going but add up when you see the end. That was a great challenge to me and a lot of fun. Despite several hit films, you consider yourself a theater actress. Coming off of hit movies, was it hard to get roles on Broadway? I never left. I never went more than two years or so without going back onstage, because I was afraid to lose my skills, and to lose my nerve, I guess. So I would always go to a regional theater like Arena Stage [in Washington, D.C.] and kept up the stage work. Also, because that’s my real love. It really is. This was thinking ahead. I thought as I got older there would be less good work for me in film. But that’s when the great roles for women start in theater. So, I guess in 1990, right after Michael and I had done War of the Roses, I said, “Well, OK, I’m going to go back to Broadway.” My first job on Broadway was Gemini in ’77, I think. So I said, “I’m going to go back and do Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” You should have heard the L.A. actors. They were screaming, “No! No!” Jack Nicholson says, “Don’t do it, kid. You’ve got a target painted on your back, they’re going to try and shoot you down. You’re a movie star.” And I said, “No, no, nope. You guys are missing the point.” The thing is, I’m better onstage. And it went very well, thank you. The ’90s was a really tough time with your illness, the alcohol, and you had the bad rap about being difficult to work with. What strength did you call upon to get through it? Well, the rheumatoid arthritis was extremely serious and extremely threatening to being able to live my life how I wanted. I think a lot of the talk that hurt me came from the drugs—the prednisone and everything that I was on. The huge doses [I was taking] completely blow you up. But, also, I will confess, I learned the power of alcohol as a painkiller. It always has been throughout history. I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking. I wouldn’t touch any pain drugs. I thought they’d be addictive and dangerous. It never occurred to me that alcohol would be the same threat. So I had to stop that right quick. They say those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. But you can do, and you have taught. I love teaching. I taught almost every month on Zoom this year. At first, I was very concerned about doing it on Zoom, because I like to be in the room with my students. I like to see their entire bodies. I like to say, “What the hell are you doing with your right foot right now?” And, of course, I can’t do any of that on Zoom. Although, I do make them stand. They can’t just sit and recite something. Anyway, I take 14 students for three three-hour sessions. So working with Zoom was interesting in that, in a way, it helped focus much more sharply on words, on the text, on the script. I do a whole class on Shakespeare’s sonnets, which many, many people don’t know well at all. It’s just such a joyful session. By the end of the three hours, everybody’s going, “I love this stuff!” And I’m going, “Yes! Yes!” How did your family inspire you to give back? My father used to say that being a real citizen is like owning a home instead of renting it. If you’re just renting, if you just live there, you have no incentive to improve it. But if you own it, if you’re a citizen, a full citizen, then you work to make things better. I always thought that was a good analogy. Tell us about your activism. I’ve been a supporter of Planned Parenthood since I was in college. But the two major organizations that I serve on the board of are Citymeals on Wheels and People for the American Way, started by Norman Lear. In my family, it was expected that we would get involved and be part of making things better. How did your nonprofits hold up during COVID? Citymeals on Wheels were feeding about 19,000 elderly shut-ins about 2 million meals a year until the pandemic. And then, and quite honestly, I’m in awe of these women who work the organization, we jumped from 2 million to 20 million. Suddenly the need was so overwhelming, and people at risk who would have been able to get out, could not. So that expanded our role hugely. But they did it and they’re doing it. And, boy, anything I can do there, they got it. I’ve been on [the People for the American Way] board for 35 years. And that is for protection of the First Amendment and a watchdog of the religious right. We’re usually pretty busy, damn it. These are a huge part of my life. Really, they’re almost as important to me as my work. You’ve written two books. What did you want to say to the world? Well, the first one [[easyazon_link identifier=“0446581127” locale=“US” tag=“paradedigital-20”]Send Yourself Roses[/easyazon_link]], Gloria Feldt [the co-author], God love her, really had to work on me to agree. I didn’t want to seem self-aggrandizing or anything like that, but I do have good stories, and experiences add up. I was turning 50 and I thought, well, that’s the place to stop and assess. Of course, that was 16 years ago now. Then [[easyazon_link identifier=“B07NGKXXGJ” locale=“US” tag=“paradedigital-20”]Kathleen Turner on Acting[/easyazon_link]], I started working with this young professor of theater, Dustin Morrow, who’s out in Portland, Oregon. That’s really the way I work best, a series of conversations. Ask me questions and let me go. But as to my sitting down and writing, no. If you are doing this piece of material, no, no, no, no, no. That makes me feel terribly stuffy and pompous. It works for me to have a partner who says, “Well, what does that mean to you?” or “Why did you do that?” What did you learn about yourself during the lockdown for COVID? Well, I live alone except for my cat, and this has been a really tough year for everyone. But two days before New York City shut down, I had a spinal surgery. All my friends who were going to come help me, and the nurse who was going to keep an eye on me, all this was gone. It was just me and my walker. A nice neighbor down the hall would ask what necessities I needed and would leave them outside my door. So God love him. And when I was finally able to start moving and do some careful physical therapy and walk to the grocery store, those were gifts to me. It was like, “Great! I’m going to the store!” In any case, that got me through a lot of it until I had another back incident that they hadn’t caught the first time around. You keep thinking, But we got that fixed. And then I just thought, If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to lose it, I’m going to lose my head. So I ran away to Provincetown in Cape Cod, because I’ve got some good friends there. I rented a tiny little place with a private deck, since what I needed was to be outside. They had a friend with a houseboat, these lovely ladies. So they picked me up and took me out. They were right at the far end of the bay. You just jump in the water, and you’re in this salt water and it feels so good. It was so healing. It was so healing that when I came back, I was able to say, “OK, I can take on responsibilities again.” Now that you’re vaccinated, what was one of the first things you did? I had a dinner party for friends who are vaccinated. We sat there without masks, sipped wine and sat at the table like the old days. And it was weird because, in part, it felt so natural and the other part was, “I can’t believe we’re doing this!” Next, Michael Douglas on Coming Full Circle in The Kominsky Method
