E-mail a friendMarisa Tomei
airdate January 6, 2009
Actress Marisa Tomei began her career in TV—first in daytime drama, then in prime time, as a regular on the sitcom, A Different World. She's since had plum roles on stage and in indie and mainstream pictures. She's also been nominated twice for the Oscar, winning for her performance in My Cousin Vinny. A Brooklyn, NY native, Tomei was drawn to acting after seeing a Broadway production of A Chorus Line as a child. She's currently winning rave reviews for her role in the critically acclaimed film, The Wrestler.
Actress explains how her Golden Globe nomination for The Wrestler differs from her previous nominations. (3:34)
Full interview. (10:23)
Marisa Tomei
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Marisa Tomei to this program. The Oscar-winning actress has starred in a number of notable films, including, of course, "My Cousin Vinny," "Slums of Beverly Hills," and "In the Bedroom." Her latest project though is the critically acclaimed new film "The Wrestler," which also stars Mickey Rourke. Marisa has been nominated for a Golden Globe award - congratulations.
Marisa Tomei: Thank you.
Tavis: Here now, a scene from "The Wrestler."
[Clip]
Tavis: Marisa, nice to have you on the program, and congrats on the nomination.
Tomei: Thank you.
Tavis: This is old hat for you now, huh? You've done this before.
Tomei: (Laughs) I've done it before, but not - it's not old hat, really. It changes.
Tavis: In what way?
Tomei: Well, every cycle it gets kind of more intense, in terms of publicity and things like that.
Tavis: More intense in terms of?
Tomei: I don't know, like the first time I just showed - picked out a dress and showed up. (Laughter) And now you have to, like - there's a lot of events. A lot of events build upon other events and appendage events and satellite events.
Tavis: What does - pardon my naïveté on this question, but what does this kind of recognition for a project do for the project?
Tomei: Well, especially with this, this film was made for $6 million, a relatively small budget. And we joke around that our producer made it look like $6.5 million on the screen. (Laughter) And it's just - it's when you put so much heart and so much effort into something, and especially when it's smaller and it doesn't have - you want every movie to get as much attention as you possibly can, so it's like -
Tavis: But does it mean more when it's a smaller project, though? The recognition?
Tomei: Well, it does, because you don't have a budget to push it yourself. The producers wouldn't and the studio wouldn't, so that really helps bring attention to it.
Tavis: So when you get a script, not that the quality of a script is determined by the budget that's connected to it, but you get a script for a project that's $6 million, what is it about the script that gets your attention? Why do you want to do a project like that?
Tomei: Well in this case it was mostly Darren Aronofsky, because I knew his work and we had met a couple times. And I felt there was, like, a good connection there.
Tavis: So tell me about your character in the film.
Tomei: Well, she's a dancer, stripper dancer, that kind of dancer, (laughter) and she kind of mirrors - Mickey Rourke plays a character who's a wrestler; he's named "The Ram." And my character parallels his character in the way that we both use our bodies to make our living, and we both love what we do.
I believe that she really loves the dancing part. I don't think the rest around it she's so thrilled with. And he loves wrestling, and they're at a crossroads in their lives and they're being pushed out of their livelihood. And more than that, even, their identity.
Like, that is who they are - they are performers, and aside from the money - and I don't think my character can get out of it because of that performance high. Even though those two minutes in that, like, tawdry little roadside bar in Jersey, it's still a high and it's still a level of applause that she's just used to getting, and a level of some kind of empowerment, and that's the same with him and his wrestling arena. He was a big star in the '80s, and that has fallen off.
So they're both trying to find a way to - who am I anymore at this point in my life? How do I go on? Are my relationships - have I tended to my relationships, or am I just this performing thing?
Tavis: It may not be important, it may not be a requirement - is it easier to play a character when you read it on paper and you can familiarize yourself with it, or are you turned on by doing stuff that has no connection to Marisa Tomei and you just want to get outside of who you are?
Tomei: Mostly I like getting outside of who I am. I can speak about it with you in terms of what is it that I relate it to, because there are threads that I kind of - I hook into and bring up and maybe exaggerate inside myself or that help me to relate, but in general, I like - as a rule, I like to be challenged and do different things, so.
Tavis: To your point about being challenged and doing different things, are you finding those kinds of challenges, those different things at this point in your career, or are you struggling more and more to find that kind of stuff?
Tomei: Well, I think - I don't think it's a matter of time, I think it's just you're always looking for really the best material, and always kind of breaking down other little boxes or trying to stretch them out (unintelligible) get a little more elbow room and do something else that's more and more different.
Tavis: Is there something you haven't done yet that you are still waiting for to come across your desk that you haven't seen yet?
Tomei: Well, I'd like to do a lot more period pieces and I'd like to do a musical.
Tavis: What turns you on about the period pieces? Why is that a craving for you?
Tomei: There are some - for some things, some eras I just have a fondness for and I think it's really interesting to learn the history, put yourself in another different head about exactly what people - how people were perceiving the world at that time. So that alone, besides the costumes, which is always fun in period things.
Tavis: To your point, I thought I read on this project you picked out your own costumes and did all your - your hair -
Tomei: Oh, on this piece? Yeah.
Tavis: - your costumes, and all that stuff.
Tomei: We did a lot of not-costuming in this movie. (Laughter) Yeah.
Tavis: What do you - to your point about the things you learn when you do projects like this - just humor me on this. So I'm just curious. What does one - because I suspect there are some things one could take away - what do you take away from a movie like "My Cousin Vinny?" As a person, as Marisa Tomei, what do you take from the experience, personally, from having played that character, done that part? What do you take from that movie? There are some fascinating lessons in that movie, but what do you take away from it?
Tomei: She was really a woman who had a great sense of humor and a great sense of standing by her man, in the sense that she was there to support him even when he was just, like, just being foolish.
And she had a way of letting that roll off her back, but also saying, "Hey, come on - wake up," and also, "We'll do this together." And that helped me, or that gave me something in my own life from her.
Tavis: When you go from project to project - so whatever your next project is - are you deliberately trying to find, are you aggressively trying to find something different from the most recent one?
Tomei: Yeah, if it worked that way, I would. But it's what comes across at that point in time, what comes across my desk at that point in time. And sometimes there are more choices than others, or more variety, but generally, I like to do something different.
Tavis: Does the acting thing for you mean - I want to go back to the character you play in the film now, to one of those parallels we were talking about earlier - parallel between your life and the character. Does the acting thing turn you on the same way? Does it mean the same thing for you? Do you get the same thing out of it after all these years of doing it?
Or like your character in the film, is there a piece of it you like and the rest of it's just totally changed for you?
Tomei: No, I still - I still love it. I love it like - I love it like I loved it in the beginning - with ebbs and flows, but not big ones. I really love it, and it's almost like a heartbreaking love affair. I love this so passionately and you're so bad to me sometimes. (Laughter)
Tavis: You've been more fortunate than most, though.
Tomei: And I have, I've been really fortunate. I'm just - I'm being honest about how it can feel at times.
Tavis: I appreciate that. How did you - take me back to the beginning right quick. How did you get into the acting thing? How did you know this was what you were born to do, as they say?
Tomei: I didn't know there were - as a little girl, I didn't know. There were a few things I always thought I wanted. I wanted to be an archaeologist very badly. Left field. (Laughter) And we had a lot of community theater in the summers where we spent the summers upstate, and it was truly a small community with a barn, and it was one of those community barn things, and I got bit. (Laughs)
Tavis: And the rest, as they say, is history.
Tomei: Yeah.
Tavis: Marisa Tomei is in "The Wrestler" opposite Mickey Rourke. She's already been nominated, as has been Mickey, for that matter, for a Golden Globe award, so congrats again on that.
Tomei: Thanks.
Tavis: At a theater near you - go check it out. Marisa, nice to have you here.
Tomei: So nice to be here.
Tavis: It's good to see you. Glad to have you on.
Back to January 6, 2009