COMING of AGE P r e s e n t e d b y C o u n c i l o n A g i n g o f We s t F l o r i d a
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FALL 2009
An
e v i lus c th i x E W w v ie r e Int
a n n y a d Jo ssi a C
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An
Exclusive
Interview With
Joanna
J
Cassidy
By Kelly Oden
oanna Cassidy’s unforgettable smile, piercing blue eyes and considerable acting chops have earned her much deserved respect in Hollywood. Her filmography is prolific and diverse. She has appeared in numerous high profile television, film and stage roles. Before becoming an actress, Cassidy spent a year in college as an art major, was married and then divorced, and modeled in San Francisco. She first entered films through small roles in Bullitt (1968) and Fools (1970) then continued modeling while also working in television commercials. Cassidy had her first real part in the police drama The Laughing Policeman (1974). Though it wasn’t a large, role, it did lead to her being cast in two more films that year: The Outfit and Bank Shot, in which she received prominent billing. Other notable roles from the 70s include The Stepford Wives (1975) and Stay Hungry (1976). Her film career continued too, but it was not until she played Zhora, the snakecharmer in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) that she made her biggest impression. Through the ‘80s, Cassidy appeared most frequently on television in series such as Buffalo Bill (1983) — where she played Dabney Coleman’s girlfriend — and in guest-starring roles and in various telemovies and miniseries, though she also continued getting supporting roles in various features, notably as Bob Hoskins’ long-suffering barmaid girlfriend in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Since then Joanna has juggled a number of quality film and TV assignments, a definitive highlight being her Emmy-nominated recurring role as a quirky, capricious mother/psychiatrist in the cult cable series Six Feet Under (2001). Off-camera Joanna is devoted to her art (painting, sculpting) and is a dedicated animal activist as well as golfer and antique collector. She presently resides in the Los Angeles area with her dogs. 22 COMING
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COA: You are the Renaissance woman. You do a little bit of everything. You’re an actor by trade, but you’re also a painter, a sculptor, a photographer, and a model…it’s a pretty amazing list of talents. What do you think allows you the most creativity and freedom of all of the arts? JC: Yeah, it’s been quite a life. And you know, on one hand, it’s great to be a dilettante…I suppose you could call me that because I do a lot of things. And on the other hand, you’re so all over the place because it’s like having bad ADD. It’s hard to grab onto something. And because you do have some interests, your mind tends to wander. I guess by all means, being an actor is the most freeing because you could wear all those hats; you could be somebody some day and somebody else entirely different the next day. COA: You are also an avid art collector; you’ve been collecting since you were a teenager. Do you have some favorite contemporary artists at the moment? JC: That’s true. It would be kind of unfair for me to name off names. I do like to collect California artists. I want to name a friend of mine because it’s interesting in the art world as in many of the worlds, but probably more so in the art world. Men always seem to have an upper hand. It’s interesting; I was going shopping with my daughter the other day, and we were looking at antiques and there was a piece that I saw. It was very interesting, a desk. And I asked who the artist was, and she said, well we think it’s a French woman from the 20s. But the thing that makes her so famous, if indeed it is her, is the fact that she was married to Corbusier, who made all those fabulous chairs and couches and so-on that we love so well. And I thought to myself, isn’t that interesting…the man’s name is so memorable, and she’s so gifted and such a genius, but she didn’t make a name for herself in many respects. I have a friend of mine who does contemporary art. Her name is Judy Stabille and in fact, she’s a fabulous artist,
but she competes with many of the male artists inCalifornia—her contemporaries in the art world. And it’s really hard, once again, even in this day and age for a woman to make her name more notable than a male’s. It’s a very interesting phenomenon. COA: You’ve spoken before about your luck in transferring from television to film and back and forth and how not a lot of actors are really able to do that successfully, and you have done that successfully. But I was wondering if there was one you enjoyed more than the other and if so, why. JC: Well, of course film is—you know, they both have their positive aspects because with film, you have the luxury of taking more time in most cases. Unless it’s a small budget film, in which case you’re jumping into your clothes, you know, one leg at a time as you’re running and learning your lines (laughing). I mean, it can be that fast. But most of the time in movies, you do have more time to develop a character and work on a character and get into that character. But the positive thing about television is that you can move it along and you can show people stories about who you’re playing and it gets on every week and if the show is hot, boy, you’re being seen. COA: Have you ever tried the stage? JC: I have. I did a play about three years ago called “Three Feet Under.” It was very funny. Lily Tomlin produced that and it was a really crazy, crazy play. It took place in the 60s and I was wearing a beehive hairdo and very, very funny clothes. Big leg jumpsuits, that sort of thing. I did have a very good time. I very much got a kick out of it. It’s a little odd when you are waiting to come on and the audience of the evening is not laughing when they’re supposed to be. It’s like, oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen here? But you’ve gotta grab yourself and go out anyway, you know, and just do the best you can. FALL 2009 LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE FOR SENIORS 23
COA: Let’s talk about your break into acting. It came via a pretty bold move on your part, right? You called a director whom you didn’t know and pretty much cold called for a specific part in a movie, is that correct? JC: That’s right. She was casting a woman, and I heard she was casting this movie and yes, I called her up out of the blue. COA: Were you nervous or was just it a sort of matter of fact thing for you to do? Are you just a courageous person in general? JC: Courageous and stupid. You’re not supposed to do that, but I just did. It didn’t seem out of the norm, I think when you’re innocent like that—we’ll say innocence is bliss— you kind of don’t think of the things that could go wrong, as you’re not aware of them at all. And I just was—there’s a telephone; she has one telephone, I have one telephone, so I’ll call hers. And it seemed to be okay. COA: It worked out quite well for you. I’m sure you’re never interviewed without someone asking you about Blade Runner, which is an iconic American sci-fi movie. You played a great role in that movie— as Zhora the snake dancer. Many people argue it’s the greatest science fiction movie of all time. Would you agree? JC: Well, I think it is. And I love science fiction writers; I’ve read many, many of them and started reading them when I was a young girl; I’ve always loved science fiction and as we know, many of the stories have come true. And then you look today—I don’t know if you’ve been to the eastern countries recently, but certainly when you’re in Japan and China, it couldn’t be more realistic with the moving billboards, the sounds coming out of them and the street noises and the street scenes, the food on the streets, et cetera. It couldn’t have been more predictably true. And I just think that’s amazing that people were writing about it, Ridley [Scott] filmed it, and there you have it. It’s here, it’s now. COA: Do you consider that one of your favorite or most important roles that you’ve played? JC: Well, I think it’s a memorable role. I don’t think it’s—and I guess it’s important in terms of one’s career to be—let’s put it this way, if anyone wanted to be remembered for being on screen, it certainly has done that for me. I don’t think it’s the most important movie I’ve done. I think “Under Fire” was a very important movie, I think my role in “Six Feet Under” was very important and certainly is memorable. And I mean I’ve done—I’ve been in the business a 24 COMING
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long time and I did a show—you wouldn’t remember it, I think you’re too young—but I did a show called Starsky and Hutch years ago where I played a—and I didn’t have a publicist and I probably would have won an Emmy for this performance—when I played a pathological transvestite on that show, and it was quite extraordinary. COA: You won a Golden Globe and were nominated for an Emmy. How did both of those, particularly the Golden Globe experience, change the way that you approached choosing your roles? I’m sure that hearing your name called in that moment was pretty incredible? JC: I really didn’t…you know, before “Bill,” the show that I won for, was sold off the charts at the time. And in fact, it had been canceled, so it was canceled and then it was brought back half a year later for another 13 shows. It was so out there and I was so kind of naïve in the business at the time…I really didn’t—I don’t think I could even add “at the time”—I didn’t put together how much…nowadays people use those experiences to catapult onto the next thing. I just didn’t have the savvy at the time…“Hey, listen, I’m just from New Jersey.” COA: Well, we’re Coming of Age magazine. Our audience is primarily baby boomers and seniors and we always like to ask our cover interview about aging. You’re a very beautiful woman and seem to be very healthy and wondered if you had any secrets to staying fit, feeling young, and aging gracefully. JC: That’s great, thank you for the compliment. I do feel really good, I’ve always taken care to exercise every day…doing something intensive, mostly to get my breathing going. That’s one of the most important things, is to get your heart rate up. And right now what I’m doing is these intense stairs and we do that here in California, we live in the hills so they’ve got all these old stairs that have been built years ago to take you from street to street. So I run those in the morning, and in the evening, actually. So that’s great to get me breathing heavily, so that really works, and I’ve always eaten very well. I eat a lot of sprouts and that kind of thing, you know, good breads. I eat vegetables and fruit; I prefer that over meat, certainly one has to have protein, but I take protein in many different ways. But I eat really well and I eat light. I don’t like a lot of food. COA: I know that you do a lot of charity work on behalf of older citizens. How did this interest come about and what specific groups do you work with? JC: Well, it came about as a young child when I have just always loved the older people. Now that I’m falling into
that myself, I think it’s…and there’s so many of us baby boomers. I used to walk the neighborhood and when I collected butterflies and go visit older people—I’m talking about people probably at that time when I was 10, people who were in their 70s and 80s, because I know Mrs. Gerard wore her lipstick a little bit higher than her lips and her eyebrows, too … so I know she has to be up there. I just loved them, I loved their stories, I loved … I guess their stories were the greatest things ever to me. Listening is very important. I think that’s quite a gift. And I started going to retirement centers where I could be a listener to elderly people because I think that seems to be what goes on in this country … we kind of shuffle our older people to the side and don’t pay attention to them anymore, don’t really care about them. And over the years I’ve gone to the various hospitals and centers and just listen to the stories. COA: You have some new projects coming out. There’s The Human Contract, the Jada Pinkett Smith project. You also have Stay Cool and Blue Skies as well. Can you tell me about any of those? JC: I’m working on Jada Smith’s television show this year, “Hawthorne.” I don’t know whether the public really knows because she directed a movie before this called “The Human Contract.” Jada directed it, wrote it, produced it, and I played her mother in that movie. And then she’s very good about keeping people on board. And she very graciously gave me the part of her mother-in-law on her television show. The Human Contract is out on DVD. Stay Cool is hysterically funny. Winona Ryder asked me to—after 20 years, I did a movie with her 20 years ago—and she asked me, she was very gracious, she called me up and said, “Would you play my mother in this movie? I miss you, and I would like to have you play my mother.” And I just thought that was great, so I did. It’s about a young man who goes back for a high school reunion and how he always had the love of his life in high school and he tries to get that back on track again. It’s very, very funny. And that was directed by the Polish brothers. And they’re every bit as good as the Cohen brothers. COA: What’s your idea of a perfect day? JC: Oh, exercise, good friends, and a good night’s sleep. I think one thing that people can think about in life, which I think is very important, I think gratitude is very important. You know, just getting up in the morning is kind of a wonderful thing and I think if you remain in a mode of that, gratitude and awe, you can have a really good day as a result of that. FALL 2009
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