Interview
(mars 2001)

Scans

Article

JULIANNA MARGULIES BY ROBBIE BAITZ
She survived the E.R. to shine onstage

Julianna Margulies and I are deep in the bowels of Lincoln Center, some four floors below ground, where the lights are fluorescent and the air is heavy. It's the end of the day, at the end of the first week of rehearsals for my new play « Ten Unknowns », which opens on March 8 at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, and the female lead and I are sprawled out on the stage. The other actors - Donald Sutherland, Justin Kirk and Denis O'Hare – have cleared out.

Going through the first rehearsals are my favorite part of being a playwright; all about porcess, not at all about product. Or rather, this is the lie you can still afford to tell yourself. For a few more days, at least, before the reality of audiences, critics and finances set in.

Robbie Baitz : Ten Unknowns is the first play you've done with the exception of a turn –amidst many revolving actresses – in The Vagina Monologues, in how many years?
J.M. : I would say it's my first proper play since doing the talented Mr. Robbie Baitz's The Substance of Fire down at the Aoslo Theatre in 1993.

RB : We'll get to that later. First, to satisfy the folks at Interview, some Dragnet-type questions. College?
JM : Sarah Lawrence. B.A.

RB : Why?
JM : I figured with a B.A. I could tell my dad I studied French, English and Psychology as well as theatre.

RB : Did you start acting there or before?
JM : I had always sort of acted, toyed in it. But in my fresman year, I was cast in David Rabe's In the Boom Boom Room, and I knew there was no going back. Then I did Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead and everyone was shocked that the director cast me as Darlene, because, of course, she's ablonde. But he just made me this big brunette.

RB : That's the Sarah Lawrence way. (laughs)

RB : So how does it feel to be working on a play after some time away?
JM : I love the process of rehearsal. I've missed it tremendously. Right now I'm loving waking up the morning and going to rehearsal for 6 hours and coming home at night and being able to think about what I did.

RB : Did you miss that, those years on that show of yours (E.R.)?
JM: Yeah, A lot. As an actor, especially on a television show, you've got to come in already well-oiled. You don't get a chance to explore and find out what the character is doing. And after a while you don't even need the oil because you've played the character for so long. It's a wonderful training ground.

RB : For what?
JM : Discipline. If you really want to keep your work fresh and alive, constantly discover things about the character and make her three-dimensional, you have no choice but to work your ass off when you go home at night. There are 20 million people watching a show like E.R., and those people get something from it every week. I appreciated that and I got it. But I think it's the hardest medium for any actor to do, because there's no beginning, middle or end – it's just a constant train ride.

RB : So, how did we meet? Was it up at Vassar, at New York Stage and Film?
JM: I'll never forget it. You came to see the little play I was in. Afterwards we all went to this dive called the Beach Tree, and you walked in with this huge manuscript in your hand. You put it down on the table where I was sitting with my dad, and you said, « I've been working on this play for a long time and I finally realized who I want in the female role ».

RB : It's so true. I remember that.
JM : And I said to my dad, « That's the guy who wrote The Substance of Fire! That was two years ago. And then I had a sort of semi-audition for Danny Sullivan…

RB : You did not! That wasn't an audition. Actors always think that they're being auditioned when, in fact, people are dying for them to come do it. This actor – I won't name names – is doing a movie I wrote, and he flew in for a table read the other day, and all he kept saying was, « Are you sure you want me? Are you sure ? »
JM : We're such a sorry lot. We're all so insecure and pathetic! Earlier this week I went home after rehearsal and basically cried on my pillow, saying, « What have I gotten myself into? I'm not good enough to do this play. »

RB : Wait! When did you say that?
JM : The thrid day of rehearsal. I came back the next morning and Donald Sutherland looked at all of us and said, « I've been vomiting ». Wow! I thought, OK, we're all feeling that way. We're all just a bunch of insecure puppies.

RB : You know what? Me, too. I was sitting there going : I can't answer any questions, someone else wrote this, please don't look at me, please don't talk to me.
JM : But that's the best thing about this whole process – realizing that.

RB : What do you think draws you back to the theater?
JM : Well, there are many different reasons. But the first and foremost is having the audience right there with you, and being in control of you performance. No one's cutting, editing or doing anything to my final performance. I actually get to experience it as a whole, rather that in little bits and pieces, cut and snapped and put together.

RB : It's recuperative to your psyche.
JM : Totally. It's completed in one evening, and there's nothing like that in the world for an actor.