Marsha Mason

Actress and former member National Council on the Arts
Headshot of a woman.
Photo courtesy of Arena Stage

Music Credits: “Renewal,” composed and performed by Doug and Judy Smith.

Jo Reed: Is comedy harder than drama? Or is--

Marsha Mason: Oh, god, yeah!

Jo Reed: It is.

Marsha Mason: Oh, yeah.

Jo Reed: Can you explain why or how it is harder?

Marsha Mason: Well, I can't actually. <laughter> I can't.

  1. Reed: That’s actress Marsha Mason and this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced at the National endowment for the Arts. I’m sephine Reed. Marsha Mason may be a four-time Academy Award nominee and a Golden Globe winner but she never sought a career in film. Her eye had always been on the stage—but due to a series of fortuitous events, Mason’s cinematic star shone very brightly indeed in the 1970s and early 80s. And then just as suddenly it receded. After separating from her husband playwright Neil Simon, Marsha Mason moved to New Mexico and became an organic farmer. Although she continued to act in television during those two decades, acting was not her main focus. But that changed a few years ago, when Marsha Mason returned to her first love, the theatre, both as an actor and as a director. Marsha Mason is now performing in Washington DC, as part of Arena Stage’s Lillian Hellman Festival—in the suspenseful play Watch on the Rhine. Mason plays Fanny Farrelly, a mother whose grown daughter has fled fascist Europe and has returned to a United States on the brink of World War. Marsha Mason herself is no stranger to Washington, DC, a long-time advocate for the arts, she served on the National Council on the Arts in the 1990s...and, in fact, working in Washington and particularly at Arena Stage was a big draw for the actress.

Marsha Mason: Well, it was The Arena that it originally attracted me and Molly Smith. And she and I <laughs> have been trying for, I think, the last seven years or something. She called me years ago, and we kept trying to put something together, and it didn't work because of our schedules and stuff. So when she called me about Watch on the Rhine, I perked up immediately and Molly arranged a reading in New York City one afternoon with a full cast, all the children and everything, and we read it to see how it would sound. It was amazing! So I got very excited. And we did that about a year-and-a-half ago. So I made the commitment early-on, which I generally don't do, because I hate to disappoint people if I'm offered something that pays me more money. <laughs> So basically, you do television and film to support your theater habit. <laughter>

Jo Reed: Just as a thumbnail, can you just give me a sketch of the plot of Watch on the Rhine, what is the play about?

Marsha Mason: Watch on the Rhine, I think you could call it a thriller. It is also political and it is heroic, and that's part of the complexity, I think, of the play that makes it so interesting. And it is about the rise of Fascism in Europe in 1939/1940. And really a warning, I think, Lillian Hellman was trying to warn American audiences of the rise of Fascism in Europe, and what that would mean for us. So she was foretelling the situation that led us into World War II.

Jo Reed: Now, you have done so much with your life, and you always return to acting. Had you always wanted to act, even when you were a kid?

Marsha Mason: The earliest recollection that I have is this big desire to be in a play or a production when I was a freshman in high school. And the passion was huge. When I –once I had that initial experience in Saint Louis at Nerinx Hall, I just was hooked. And so I focused everything on getting into some kind of college or situation where I could learn about the theatre.

Jo Reed: And you did.

Marsha Mason: And I did.

Jo Reed: And then you decided from Saint Louis to go east, to New York, rather than west, to Los Angeles.

Marsha Mason: Yeah, no, I never planned the movies, ever. I never imagined myself in film. I adored film. I loved the actors on film, but I never thought I was going to do it. That was just sheer destiny. And that story is quite unusual, too, because it really did just happen to me. I didn't go out and work hard for that. I worked hard as an actress. And I was at A.C.T fully expecting to go back for a second season.

Jo Reed: And A.C.T is the American Conservatory Theater.

Marsha Mason: Yes, actually it was even before I joined the full company, I did a summer package of Private Lives for A.C.T. While I was doing the summer package I joined the full company, and I then finished the package, and I went to L.A. actually because I had auditioned for a movie that I didn't get. Somebody else got it. And the casting people at Warner's called me and said, "Would you come out for an interview? We just want to meet you. You did very well in the audition," so forth and so on. So my agent said, "You really should go. You finished up in San Francisco, just go down to L.A." I was terrified of L.A.! The streets were too wide, there was nobody on them. <laughs> It was awful! <laughs> And you had to drive everywhere, and that was awful! So I went to the interview, and in the middle of being introduced to the casting people, they called me upstairs and they said, "Well, the part has become available, and Paul Mazursky's pulling his hair out, so would you go up and audition again?" So I did, and they offered me the role…

Jo Reed: That was Blume in Love?

Marsha Mason: Blume in Love. And then went charging over to San Francisco and A.C.T, and went into rehearsal playing Roxanne in Cyrano. And I wound up that season doing Abigail in The Crucible; Alice in You Can't Take it With You; Jessica in Merchant of Venice; and Nora in Doll's House. And then--

Jo Reed: What a season!

Marsha Mason: I know, it was extraordinary! So I was ostensibly their leading lady that season. And I worked really, really hard, and I honestly believe that that experience of doing repertoire in those plays with the caliber of the production that we had in all of them, prepared me for "Cinderella Liberty." Because I was there and Mark Rydell called me,

Jo Reed: And Mark Rydell was the director…

Marsha Mason: That’s right, yeah.

Jo Reed: Of Cinderella Liberty.

Marsha Mason: And he had seen rough footage of mine for Blume in Love, because Paul, on a whim, had just said, "Listen, I've got this rough footage from a young actor who's up in A.C.T." So Mark came and Jimmy Caan came, and I read for them, and I got Cinderella Liberty. Who knows how that all happens. You just have to be ready.

Jo Reed: Yeah.

Marsha Mason: I remember, there was an article in a paper that a friend of mine in Saint Louis sent me, and I kept it in my wallet. Elia Kazan thought that actors get three or four lucky breaks in their entire career, and the only responsibility they have is to be ready for them when they come. And you don't know where they're gonna come from. So I think that's really what happened. And of course, it was 20th Century Fox who rushed out the production of Cinderella Liberty, because I really believe that they thought that Jimmy had a possibility to be nominated for an Academy Award. Normally, that picture would have come out in the spring, instead of a week before Christmas so it could be eligible. And it was a shock and a surprise to all of us that that was my first nomination.

Jo Reed: And it was your first nomination.

Marsha Mason: Mm hm, mm hm.

Jo Reed: And the chemistry you had with James Caan.

Marsha Mason: Yeah, he was great to work with!

Jo Reed: -- palpable. He had just come off The Godfather.

Marsha Mason: Yeah.

Jo Reed: You know, so the timing was just--

Marsha Mason: Very much.

Jo Reed: -- very good for both of you.

Marsha Mason: Yes, totally, totally. I think also, too, along with A.C.T and the training I got there, it was also because Paul Mazursky and Mark Rydell had acted. As directors, they understood. And I always feel to this day every director should act once. And every writer should direct and act once. And every actor should try to write and direct once. You have a much better understanding of the whole process, if you do. And you learn invaluable lessons in terms of how to communicate if you do that.

Jo Reed: There you're going from A.C.T to film, what's the difference? What kind of different skill set do you have to draw on in film as opposed to theater, and theater as opposed to film?

Marsha Mason: I think part of it is that my natural inclination was always to be truthful, or be honest, whatever that meant to me, in terms of the character that I was playing. So I never thought of it in any other way. And I think because of Paul and Mark, perhaps, they just created an intimate environment, so I had basically the same technique that I use to this day is the same technique I use for both experiences. I just have an understanding, because of those years at A.C.T, and the Geary Theater, of understanding that I have to expand the thought process. Not even the sound necessarily, but the thought process-- to the back row. And I learned early-on, putting somebody that really means something to me, depending on the kind of production, or the character that I'm playing, in that back row, so that it just naturally gets extended to fill the theater. I think that's the hardest thing to try and communicate to an actor is size. Because it can't be just acting louder, or quote/unquote "bigger" physically. Your intention has to be more powerful.

Jo Reed: In some ways perhaps that’s even more true when you’re acting in front of camera because it has to be intent and acting bigger just makes it seem phony and inauthentic.

Marsha Mason: That's right, yeah. And in a way, it's wonderful, the camera. Excepting, what I find very interesting is I learned early-on, the camera either likes you, or it doesn't.

Jo Reed: I was gonna ask you about that.

Marsha Mason: Yeah, it either likes you or it doesn't. I had an experience that sort of, I think, exemplifies this in Only When I Laugh. There was a scene that all of us were in the scene, and I had to come in-- I was upset-- and another piece of dialogue and everything is taking place in front of me, and I'm just in the background. And I thought to myself, "Oh, I don't think the camera will necessarily pick up what I'm doing," but I made my thinking very, very specific, and very clear. And when I went to see the dailies, you read everything. Even though it was in soft focus, you read everything.

Jo Reed: You watch the dailies? Some actors won’t do it.

Marsha Mason: And I have, fortunately, the ability to have been able to watch my own work quite objectively. Now a lot of actors can't do that. They get too upset and they are self-critical. Strangely enough, I don't know why, it was just something that naturally came to me, and I remember Dustin Hoffman saying, "If you don't watch your own dailies, you're a fool." And so I know that some actors can do it, but I also know that some can't. And I remember Tony Richardson was a director who said, "Oh, no, you're not going to watch the dailies." And I thought-- I was so shocked. But I find that it's all about the thinking. It's all about how specific and clear your thinking is

Jo Reed: But you're right about the camera liking--

Marsha Mason: Yes, because I've seen people -- I mean, they can be on just on the other side of the camera in a close-up, and you see everything, it's really great. And then you go and you look at the dailies and not all of it is reading. And I don't know why.

Jo Reed: Or the opposite. You can be on the other side of the camera, and it's like, "Okay"? <laughter> And you look at the dailies and it's, "What just happened?!" <laughter>

Marsha Mason: Yeah, right, yeah. It's a mystery. Yeah.

Jo Reed: Yeah, it's interesting how there are some act-- like James Dean.

Marsha Mason: Mm hm!

Jo Reed: When he's on the screen, you can't-- I can't take my eyes off him, wherever he is, I’m certainly following him.

Marsha Mason: But I think it's because of the level of his intensity. His ability to bring his emotional life as a being. It's sort of "being" instead of "acting," if you will.

Jo Reed: Yeah.

Marsha Mason: It's getting into it in a such a deep and visceral way that you're not acting it. You are it.

Jo Reed: You were married to Neil Simon.

Marsha Mason: Mm hm.

Jo Reed: As you know. I'm not telling you something you don't know. <laughter> And you starred in four movies that he wrote. How hard is it to play comedy? And especially to play his comedy? 'Cause he's fast. I mean, he's-- there's a lot of tempo.

Marsha Mason: There is a lot of tempo. In fact, it's a funny story, because he told somebody that he didn't think that I was-- could be good in his material, because our rhythms were very different. So of course, I set out to prove him wrong, but-- <laughs>

Jo Reed: And you got three more Academy Award nominations <laughter> in the bargain.

Marsha Mason: But he did write The Goodbye Girl with me in mind. And he also wrote Only When I Laugh with me in mind, which was a reworking of Gingerbread Lady. But the picture that turned out to be quite good which was The Cheap Detective, Lily Tomlin was supposed to do the role, and at the last minute-- at the last minute her schedule changed with her one-person show that she had the-- the famous one that she did. And um she had to drop out of the picture. And I turned to Neil and I said, "Let me audition." And so I auditioned, and I got the role. And he said to me, "You know, I was wrong! That's really cool." And then years later, after we divorced, they wanted to do Prisoner of Second Avenue with Richard and I in London.

Jo Reed: Richard Dreyfuss.

Marsha Mason: Dreyfuss, yes. And he came, you know, for the rehearsals and everything, and he came towards the end of the run We had the best professional relationship. We had such mutual respect for each other. I think that's why we worked so well together. A lot of married couples can't work together, but we did. We worked very, very well together. I was very understanding of the rhythms of various writing. So I knew that with say, for Prisoner of Second Avenue, I knew I had to talk fast. I knew I had to find a different rhythm than my own. And right now, I'm trying to find Fanny's rhythm. I mean, that's as much part--

Jo Reed: And Fanny is the role you play--

Marsha Mason: The role in Watch on the Rhine, yeah. Because the sentence structure is a little bit different than what we would normally hear in contemporary language today. It's a little more arched, it's a little bit more staccato at times. And yet I have a more languid sort of rhythm. So I think it's really important to know what your own sounds are, and then how to change them.

Jo Reed: Is comedy harder than drama? Or is--

Marsha Mason: Oh, god, yeah!

Jo Reed: It is.

Marsha Mason: Oh, yeah.

Jo Reed: Can you explain why or how it is harder?

Marsha Mason: Well, I can't actually. <laughter> I can't. I think what it is is a sense of timing. You either have that or you don't. And everybody has a different kind of sense of timing. I remember, for example, watching the auditions for Chapter Two in New York City, in the New York Theater.

Jo Reed: And that's another play that Neil Simon wrote and that you starred in and got an Academy Award nomination for.

Marsha Mason: And I was up in the balcony. Nobody knew I was there. I happened to be there by accident and I tiptoed in, 'cause normally I wouldn't do that. And there was a wonderful actress, Annie Wedgeworth, who was Texan, and she had a kind of drawl, and she was kind of flousy and wonderful and sexy. And the part was actually a sort of Eve Arden staccato, Rosalind Russell, "Ya-da-da-da," "My Girl Friday" kind of rhythm. So when she came out, she was 20 minutes late. She had had a car accident, she was beside herself. They were calming her down and everything. And she said, "Oh, I know I'm not right for this, but I'll just go and do it." And so she did. And her sense of timing was so rich and wonderful, they gave her the part. And yet, it was a completely different rhythm, but her sense of timing, she knew how to land--

Jo Reed: A joke.

Marsha Mason: The jokes. Yeah.

Jo Reed: Interesting. You had four Academy Award nominations in the '70s, and then just three film roles in the 1980s. What made you step away?

Marsha Mason: Well, I didn't step away so much as the film industry stepped away from me. In the '80s, there was this huge, huge push for the youth. And all of a sudden, the parts were just drying up. I remember Jane Fonda saying she hadn't worked for three years. A lot of us, suddenly there just wasn't material out there.

Jo Reed: But it's not like you were old.

Marsha Mason: No! No, no, no. We were in our 40s, you know? So, it was tough, but everything got very youth-oriented, and there was a big shift in the business as well. For example, all the films that I did were made for a reasonable amount of money. I think the most expensive one was around 25/35 million dollars. That whole middle range of pictures wound up disappearing, because the studio began to change. They would have a certain amount of money. There were the ten box office people, and always in general, there was only one woman on it. It was either Barbra Streisand, or maybe Julia Roberts. So there was the hundred million dollar picture, and that, of course, would be for all of the men that could open a picture. But that 20 million dollar picture that Paul Mazursky and Mark Rydell and a lot of directors were interested in doing were no longer viable, because there was a whole shift in the financial aspect of it. Because you now had corporations running the studios, as opposed to individual movie makers. I mean, Ray Stark was probably one of the last, you know, great guys in that period. And Sherry Lansing really tried. She explained to me what had happened in that period between, you know, say the mid-'80s into the late '90s.The business changed, and it became harder and harder for the studios. And the pictures just kept escalating. So there's a whole completely different corporate push and shift and shape to the industry that happened during that period that just made everything very, very different.

Jo Reed: And you ended up moving to New Mexico?

Marsha Mason: Yeah, yeah!

Jo Reed: Did organic farming!

Marsha Mason: Yes! <laughs> Well, I just-- I was divorced. I tried to live in L.A. for five years. I had a lovely house that I built there. But I just felt like I had to throw all the pieces of my life up in like a kaleidoscope and see if they would come down in a different pattern. And it was on a whim, really. And my friend, Shirley MacLaine mentioned to me that she was moving to New Mexico, I said, "Oh, I've been thinking about that." And she said, "Well, c'mon!" And then a couple years after I moved there, Jane Fonda moved there, so-- <laughs>

Jo Reed: It's a beautiful state.

Marsha Mason: It's a gorgeous state, so we had a good time.

Jo Reed: And you were a professional racecar driver.

Marsha Mason: Yeah, I was. <laughs>

Jo Reed: I mean, that was the thing that just stopped me cold. How did that happen?!

Marsha Mason: I didn't have enough to do in the '80s and the early '90s, I think.

Jo Reed: Oh, but what fun!

Marsha Mason: It was. It was great. It was my pal, Paul Newman, got me started. I traveled with Paul's team for about eight months or so, whenever I could. And then he said to me, "Well, why don't you go to school?" And I didn't know there were any schools. So I wound up going to four different schools. And I met Mike Lewis, who was a championship racecar driver in GT3, and he was driving the Mazda, too. So he called me one day and he said, "You – would you like to do an arrive-and-drive?" And I said, "God that would be great!" And we did it for about seven years, and I made the Valvoline Runoffs four or five times for the Southern Pacific Division. And it was great. I had a great time. I had a great time!

Jo Reed: You sold your farm in New Mexico. Had you missed acting? 'Cause you came back East.

Marsha Mason: It was more that the farm was 250 acres. I had a lot of men working for me. It was costing a great deal of money. And I was actually I'd been doing it for about 18 years, so -- and I still worked during that period, but more television. And I had to give up the racecar driving, because the farm took over. And I loved it! I had the best time doing it. I learned about soil fertility and all kinds of stuff. I went off and I became a biodynamic farmer as well as the Chairperson for the New Mexico Organic Commodities Commission. So I really threw myself into it. I seem to throw myself into whatever I'm doing! <laughs>

Jo Reed: But you threw yourself back in acting at full time.

Marsha Mason: I did. Yeah, I wanted to come back to it. I was missing it too much. I was missing it, and I wanted to downsize and simplify. So I thought to myself, "I'm going to go back East and see if I have a career left."

Jo Reed: And what was it like really throwing yourself into acting again?

Marsha Mason: It was easy. I mean, I welcomed it.

Jo Reed: Did it feel like coming home?

Marsha Mason: Yeah! Yeah, it did. And the other benefit was I'll always thank Robin Goodman, Producer of Avenue Q and Cinderella, and all that. She and her partners took over Bucks County Playhouse, and I had just done a play there. And she said, "We're taking this over, why don't you come and direct?" Because years before, in the '80s, she and Carol Rothman of Second Stage had given me an opportunity to direct a new play called Juno's Swans with Betty Buckley and Mary Kay Place. And I did it very well, and we had a good experience. So I wound up directing at Bucks County several times. And then that's how the directing sort of thing got started again as well. So the theater sort of welcomed me back in a kind of two-fold manner, both acting and then also in directing.

Jo Reed: You've done a lot of regional theater.

Marsha Mason: Some, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jo Reed: Some. And what's your sense of the vitality of theater? 'Cause it has such competition now.

Marsha Mason: Well, yes, and it has very hard financial and fiscal issues, because it gets harder and harder and more and more expensive to do full-out productions. I was just at Arizona Theater Company where I directed basically a three-person show called, An Act of God, with a woman as playing God, thank goodness. <laughs> All the theaters, I think, struggle to some extent, but on the other hand, they do absolutely phenomenal work when they can. I mean, you're very fortunate here in Washington D.C. to have so many vibrant and successful and truly professional caliber productions from several different theaters. Having worked at the Shakespeare Theater here, and now the Arena, what Molly has done here, what Michael Caan has done for the Shakespeare Company. And Wooly Mammoth and The Studio, and all these smaller theaters, it's a vibrant community here, and it's thrilling to work here, consequently. And the same was true of A.C.T when I was there in San Francisco and – And the audiences in Arizona, they are very open to see a production. And they support it. So it's really terrific.

Jo Reed: With a role like Fanny Farrelly, in Watch on the Rhine, how do you approach a character like that? How do you begin to become that character?

Marsha Mason: You know, that's really hard, 'cause it depends on the individual piece of material. First of all, I suppose I look for what's maybe different from me, and then see how to get into that. But the more I work on <laughs> material, if it's good now, if it's good, the universality in the writing and in the character starts to come through, and you realize, "Oh, okay. You know, I understand that as a human being, they have the same set of emotions, the same set of attitudes. It's just, what is their background? Where did they come from? What formed them?" And they don't really exist until you start to inhabit them. And so she's a matriarch, so I have daughters, so I have grandchildren, I have a great grandchild. So, I understand. And I realized, pretty quickly on, Fanny reminds me a lot of my mother. So, I'm pulling on a lot of that, you know?

Jo Reed: Do you like to come in with a strong sense of the role, or do you prefer to develop it in the rehearsal process?

Marsha Mason: I usually, if I have the time, if I'm afforded the time, I like a four-week rehearsal. If it's a two-week rehearsal, then you just have to kind of do a slap-dash, and then hope that in the playing of it you will really get a lot of out of it.

Jo Reed: What's the rehearsal for this?

Marsha Mason: This is four weeks.

Jo Reed: This is four weeks. Yeah, rehearsal time--

Marsha Mason: It's huge.

Jo Reed: Yeah, and it's been shrunk, though, hasn't it?

Marsha Mason: Oh, my god, yeah, yeah.

Jo Reed: And do you prefer to get on your feet and off quickly, or--

Marsha Mason: <laugh>If I could just stay and rehearse, I'd be happy and never have to perform.

Jo Reed: Would you?

Marsha Mason: I would, I would. <laughter> I love the exploration of it all.

Jo Reed: I would imagine, with theater, doing the same thing night after night, might be trying-- not trying, but you know, challenging as well.

Marsha Mason: You know, it isn't for me. Because every night is different. And I often just let the lines come out however they're going to come out. I mean, they're said the way they're written-- but the intention behind them isn't necessarily always the same, because you're coming on and as if it had never happened. And if you're working off of the other person, which is the way I like to work-- now some actors don't. Some actors have a complete sort of sense of who the character is, and what they want to do, and it doesn't matter what anybody else is doing on the stage. But that isn't the way that I feel comfortable working. So I am very keyed into what is happening at that moment. And you know, the audience shares a big portion of that, because their energy, which is a real energy, is different. It's different every night. Rain can affect them. You know what I mean? Sometimes they're quote/unquote "dead," sometimes they're very alive. And you have to work with that energy. So it's different every night.

Jo Reed: Do you know what's next?

Marsha Mason: Yes, I'm going to do a workshop of a um -- play, called Swimming Upstream by Anthony Fingleton. It was a movie. It was autobiographical that he wrote. He and I are old friends. We're going to do a workshop in Montreal with a wonderful group called Sept Doigts de la Main, Seven Fingers. And I'm going to be directing it. And I'm investigating a unique sort of interesting way to do swimming without water. That's all I'll say. <laughter> But I'm very excited about it! <laughter>

Jo Reed: Marsha, thank you so much!

Marsha Mason: You're welcome!

Jo Reed: That’s actress Marsha Mason—you can find out more about the Lillian Hellman Festival and Watch on the Rhine at arenastage.org

You've been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out how art works in communities across the country, keep checking the Art Works blog, or follow us @NEAARTS on Twitter. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.

Living a full life on and off the stage.