E-mail a friendCynthia Nixon
airdate April 4, 2005
Theater fans know Cynthia Nixon for her award-winning work on Broadway, including Philadelphia Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Nixon also won critical praise - and an Emmy - for her role in the HBO hit series, Sex and the City. A founding member of the NY-based theater company Drama Dept., Nixon has worked on the stage and screen since her teens. The busy actress stars in HBO's Warm Springs, premiering in April, and the Broadway revival of Talley's Folly. She's also set to headline the indie film, One Last Thing.
Cynthia Nixon
Tavis: Cynthia Nixon is an Emmy-winning actress who will forever be part of TV history courtesy of her role on "Sex and the City," the show, of course, was set in her hometown of New York City. Among her off-camera passions, bettering public education in New York. Later this month, she's back on HBO in the role of Eleanor Roosevelt for the film "Warm Springs." The movie premieres April 30. Here now a scene from "Warm Springs."
Eleanor Roosevelt: I have indulged him. He's a grown man who makes his own decisions.
Older Woman: But he doesn't have to buy it.
Eleanor: If it's any comfort to you, I agree. Man: And I'm against it as well. It will take up too much of his time and energy.
Woman: Then it's settled. We tell him no.
Eleanor: No, it is not settled. We must hear him out. Louis and I must see for ourselves the work that he's been doing. Then we will all discuss this further, then tell him no.
Woman: Perhaps I've underestimated you.
Eleanor: Perhaps you have.
Tavis: Cynthia Nixon, nice to have you in L.A. for a New York minute.
Cynthia Nixon:
Tavis: I was expecting to talk to you on a satellite feed 'cause you don't hang out here very much.
Nixon: Not very much, but I enjoy it when I come. And particularly, oh, it's very rainy in New York right now. It's nice to be here with the palm trees and the sunshine.
Tavis: You are one of those New Yorkers, though, and there are a lot of them as you well know, who really, really love your city. You're like New York through and through.
Nixon: I am. I'm born and bred, and I even, you know, I didn't even go away to college. I stayed in New York for college. I love New York.
Tavis: Not that "Sex and the City" was easy work, I mean, you guys had a pretty hectic schedule, but it could not have been easy, I suspect, playing Eleanor Roosevelt. I was telling you during the clip, that obviously, you know well...courageous woman, but certainly in the African American community, here is a white female who is revered for her courage, for her conviction, for her commitment. How did you prepare to play a role of someone so courageous?
Nixon: Well, I'd never played a historical character before, and certainly what you're saying, you know, a woman who is revered by millions in this country and across the globe and hated by certain other segments. I did a lot of things. I read a number of biographies. I watched all the documentaries there are of her. And I went to the Museum of Television and Radio, and I watched a lot of both television footage that there is of her in her later years and listened to her on the radio because, you know, it's a fine balance. You want to invoke her a bit, but you don't want to be doing a living caricature of her, so you want to steal what you can of her intonation and her spirit but have it still be you.
Tavis: OK, I don't want to diss Eleanor Roosevelt, but the teeth. Talk to me about the teeth.
Nixon: Well, Eleanor is known for her teeth.
Tavis: Yes, she is.
Nixon: She's known for her outspokenness. She's known for her teeth.
Tavis: You can take it any way you want to take it. She's known for her teeth.
Nixon: And she has that very distinctive way of speaking, which is largely to get out of the way of her teeth, I think.
Tavis: Was there anything about her that you learned that surprised, that shocked you, that took you aback? Anything about her that you learned in preparing for the role that you said, "Wow"?
Nixon: There were millions of things, but I guess one of the main things that I was interested by was...you know, we think of them as this incredibly powerful political couple, which they were. But there was such division...You know, she was so far to the left of Franklin, and particularly as you're saying, on race relations. I think Franklin felt like he couldn't push it too much, that the South, the Dixiecrats, would just, you know, walk. And I think she just pushed it again and again and again. And I think it was one of their main, you know... She really wanted him to take up the baton of race relations, and when he wouldn't, it was just this incredibly bitter thing in their relationship, but she still pushed it, you know.
Tavis: I should mention this movie premieres right on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of FDR's passing.
Nixon: Yes. On April 30.
Tavis: A great president.
Nixon: Yeah.
Tavis: I was in New York around the time that you were arrested...
Nixon: Yes.
Tavis: ...for protesting out in front of City Hall.
Nixon: Yes. We blocked an entrance to City Hall.
Tavis: Yes, you did, protesting budget cuts for education. You were very, very passionate about education in New York City. And your kids go to public schools.
Nixon: Well, my older one does. My little one is too young. But I also, I grew up in New York and went to public school. My children's father grew up in New York, and he went to public school. We always knew we would send our kids there, you know. I mean, I got arrested, but I was one of 36 parents that got arrested that day. And I think when you're a public school parent, you are an advocate. And funding is always an issue and always something to fight for.
Tavis: Why does one who could afford to send one's child to a school that isn't in the public school system, since everyone bastardizes and demonizes and scapegoats the public school system...and clearly there are some challenges in New York and beyond.
Nixon: Yeah. Yeah.
Tavis: Why does one who has the means to otherwise send their kid to another school decide to send one's child to a public school anyway in New York City?
Nixon: Well, I really like the mix of kids you find in a public school. I think the teachers are very, very talented. They're really paid well, which I think is important. And I just...you know, it's what I always wanted for my child, and I think there is a kind of a partly a white flight and partly just a middle class flight from the public schools, specifically in New York City, and all over, but I'm talking about New York because that's what I know. And I feel like when people with money and influence leave the schools, I think the funding goes through the basement. And I think we need to be there, and we need to...There's so much going on, I'll just say this one thing, which is, you know, a lot of the times public schools get a bad rap, and I think it's largely undeserved because if you look at, for example, public schools and parochial schools. If you look at them in an affluent or middle class neighborhood, they're about the same with the public schools doing a little bit better with their population. And also, the public schools can't choose who they take, whereas the parochial schools can. And parochial schools or private schools in poorer neighborhoods, they're really on a par. So I think to me, parent involvement is a big thing, and funding is a big thing. I think so many of our public schools are doing good work, and we need to support them.
Tavis: I couldn't agree more. There seems be a disconnect, though. Everybody seems to talk a good game about how important education is, I mean, as Americans. This is not race or gender.
Nixon: Yeah.
Tavis: But everybody talks about how important education is and yet there does not seem to be the commitment to improving our education that one would think would come as a result of that.
Nixon: Absolutely.
Tavis: There's a disconnect there.
Nixon: Well, I mean, I think it's interesting I'm doing this movie about the Roosevelts, and they really believed that government should pay for a lot of stuff. And I think our government now feels that, if you can pay for it yourself, that's great, and that there's less of a commitment to public education and public health than there's ever been. I also feel that, you know, when Brown vs. the Board of Ed. happened, it was an attempt...You know, the black people that brought around Brown vs. the Board of Ed. weren't looking particularly for integration. Integration was such a ring to be grabbed that it got moved in that direction. But they were really looking for equal funding.
Tavis: Mm-hmm.
Nixon: And I think we've, you know, 50 years later, we've come back to a thing where our schools are to some extent, you know, certainly more integrated than they were. But I think you still have...whatever the color...you still have schools in poorer neighborhoods drastically underfunded than schools in wealthier neighborhoods, based on property taxes or whatever. So I feel like the stuff that's just happening in New York, these lawsuits happening all over the country, that we're in kind of the second phase of Brown vs. the Board of Ed., that has to do with, not with integration per se, but with parity in terms of money spent.
Tavis: I know when you heard that Cynthia Nixon was coming on, you thought we were gonna talk about sex. But I gotcha, didn't I? Anyway, the new movie "Warm Springs" premieres, HBO, April 30, on the 60th anniversary of the death of FDR. If you're like me, you're still catching Cynthia and all the crew on all the "Sex and the City" reruns, which I still love, even though I've seem 20 times apiece. Nice to see you.
Nixon: Nice to see you.
Tavis: Be right back with a few words about my meeting with Pope John Paul II back in 2000. Stay with us.
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