Mia Farrow "Widows Peak" 4/29/94 - Bobbie Wygant Archive

speed okay we're just sitting here talking with mia farrell about ireland the country as you well know i love a lot it's my heritage i'm 50 irish and 50 french and my husband who is deceased used to say that they they should not allow the french and the irish to merge it was far too volatile yes but anyway my maiden name was connolly okay much more i know than that and so i have spent some time in ireland and i love it and county wicklow one of the places you shot yes i know well yes what what sort of feelings do you have when you are in ireland what is it what does it bring to you i should preface this by saying my mother was born in ireland and came to this country at the age of 19 leaving behind her mother her father her brother and her three sisters so every time we went back throughout my childhood i kept up with my cousins and my aunts and so forth and in my adult life you know i've been back a few times but this last trip coming back and plugging into my family in this way for for a substantial amount of time was really wonderful because i i i've reached an age where that's a significant thing for me that i've i felt that as a first generation american i've been moved around so much throughout my whole life that i need a sense of place of of knowing where my roots are of just feeling part of of of some place and i hadn't realized how much i needed that until this summer and i thought it's a gift you know i'm among my people in my place and and i hoped that that didn't sound pretentious or presumptuous but it was just i was flooded with a feeling of affinity for that place and those people could you see yourself making that your home absolutely i i see myself i picked out my graveyard even yes in glendalough saint kevin's i i see myself eventually spending my late years in ireland as soon as i can get over there i mean since the movie i've been back twice and i'm just waiting for the next chance to go back i've made so many friends there and such good friendships that i know i'll never leave for long and one day i'll go back and live there with all that you have been through in recent years and months amir was getting into this film a therapeutic thing for you getting back to work well it would have been a gift under any circumstances because i had this wonderful script by by hugh leonard who's one of ireland's great dramatists i had um john irvin to direct and i had just seen tinker taylor soldiers by so i was really excited at the prospect of working with john i had joan plourite who was a friend and and and i'm a fan and you know just all of the auspices and in ireland anyway you know i i you know it was a perfect package it was a treat and i i saw the movie and and i'm really proud to be in it because i think it's it's a movie of of real integrity and very entertaining it sounds very funny very entertaining it's eccentric right strange eccentric movie and funny right funny people very irish was your mother terribly disappointed that she didn't get to do it after all it was written with you and your mother and mom yes um i think she really wasn't eager to get back to work you know at this point at that point in her life i don't know if she'd feel different this summer but i called her and i asked her how she felt about it because i was going to be playing her part which i thought was the best part even though i mean the three women parts are pretty equal but i just liked that part the best and i asked her how she felt about it and she said great because she's a friend of you leonard she said wonderful it's going to be made but you know go for it if she had any disappointment she she she's too great a lady to have shown me that and so once i had her permission then i had to just put it out of my mind that she she was ever going to play it because um it would have been too daunting to think how would mom have done this and i couldn't have opened my mouth whenever anybody writes a profile of you they always talk about this quality you have this fragile quality on the one hand and this very strong woman on the other hand now do you agree that that's a fair assessment of mia pharaoh now i don't have enough objectivity to to define myself you know i'm still trying to figure out everything else in the world you know i guess i must be strong um fragile what does it mean that you fall apart easily um i guess that's some of that too i mean yeah but i think everybody you know has strength and fragility but not everybody can portray it that doesn't come across with everybody usually one or the other dominates what comes across and you do have that on screen i mean in this role particularly sometimes she looks so wisple and so fragile and then other times you know she's just the iron butterfly and that's good yeah it's great it's great it's a mystique have you ever thought of yourself as having mystique no i hardly ever think about myself at all well work on it all right mystique that's a good one not very helpful though it doesn't get me very far do you have another project you're looking forward to i just did another thing another movie in miami very far from from ireland um and i i i'm supposed to do one in the fall um so i and i don't know that i'll do anything in between i'm hoping to do another picture with john irvin next summer um that's what we're we're hoping another one in ireland which would be great by the same writer by hugh leonard so i'm keeping my fingers crossed about that and about everything else i'll keep mine crossed for you because i'd love to see you and john urban and ireland in another picture thank you so much thanks what a pleasure to be sitting here talking with you and i think i almost missed it oh gosh circling around up there you know in the wild blue young we were waiting for you you're sweet thank you okay thank you and god bless thank you the irish always say yes but they do yes we're just sitting here talking with mia pharaoh about ireland the country as you well know i love a lot it's my heritage i'm 50 irish and 50 french and my husband who is deceased used to say that they they should not allow the french and the irish to merge that it was far too volatile yes but anyway my maiden name was connolly much more i know than that and so i have spent some time in ireland and i love it and county wicklow one of the places you shot yes i know well yes what what sort of feelings do you have when you are in ireland what is it what does it bring to you i should preface this by saying my mother was born in ireland and came to this country at the age of 19 leaving behind her mother her father her brother and her three sisters so every time we went back throughout my childhood i kept up with my cousins and my aunts and so forth and in my adult life you know i've been back a few times but this last trip coming back and plugging into my family in this way for for a substantial amount of time was really wonderful because i i i've reached an age where that's a significant thing for me that i've i felt that as a first generation american i've been moved around so much throughout my whole life that i need a sense of place of knowing where my roots are of just feeling part of of of some place and i hadn't realized how much i needed that until this summer and i thought it's a gift you know i'm among my people in my place and i and i hoped that that didn't sound pretentious or presumptuous but it was just i was flooded with a feeling of affinity for that place and those people could you see yourself making that your home absolutely i i see myself i picked out my graveyard even yes in glendalough saint kevin's i i see myself eventually spending my late years in ireland as soon as i can get over there i mean since the movie i've been back twice and i'm just waiting for the next chance to go back i've made so many friends there and such good friendships that i know i'll never leave for long and one day i'll go back and live there with all that you have been through in recent years and months was getting into this film a therapeutic thing for you getting back to work well it would have been a gift under any circumstances because i had this wonderful script by by hugh leonard who's one of ireland's great dramatists i had um john irvin to direct and i had just seen tinker taylor soldiers by so i was really excited at the prospect of working with john i had joan plourite who was a friend and and and i'm a fan and you know just all of the auspices and in ireland anyway you know i i you know it was a perfect package it was a treat and i i saw the movie and and i'm really proud to be in it because i think it's it's a movie of of real integrity and very entertaining it sounds very funny very entertaining it's eccentric right it's strange eccentric movie and funny right funny people very irish was your mother terribly disappointed that she didn't get to do it after all it was written with you and your mother in mind yes um i think she really wasn't eager to get back to work you know at this point at that point in her life i don't know if she'd feel different this summer but i called her and i asked her how she felt about it because i was going to be playing her part which i thought was the best part even though i mean the three women parts are pretty equal but i just liked that part the best and i asked her how she felt about it and she said great because she's a friend of you leonard she said wonderful that it's going to be made but you know go for it if she had any disappointment she she she's too great a lady to have shown me that and so once i had her permission then i had to just put it out of my mind that she she was ever going to play it because um it would have been too daunting to think how would mom have done this and i couldn't have opened my mouth whenever anybody writes a profile of you they always talk about this quality you have this fragile quality on the one hand and this very strong woman on the other hand now do you agree that that that's a fair assessment of mia pharaoh no i don't have enough objectivity to to define myself you know i'm still trying to figure out everything else in the world you know i guess i must be strong um fragile what does it mean that you fall apart easily i guess that's some of that too i mean yeah but i think everybody you know has strength and fragility but not everybody can portray it it that doesn't come across with everybody usually one or the other dominates what comes across and you do have that on screen i mean in this role particularly sometimes she looks so wistful and so fragile and then other times you know she's just the iron butterfly and that's good yeah it's great it's great it's a mystique have you ever thought of yourself as having mystique no i hardly ever think about myself at all well work on it all right mystique that's a good one not very helpful though it doesn't get me very far do you have another project you're looking forward to i just did another thing another movie in miami very far from from ireland um and i i i'm supposed to do one in the fall um so i and i don't know that i'll do anything in between i'm hoping to do another picture with john irvin next summer um that's what we're we're hoping another one in ireland which would be great by the same writer by hugh leonard so i'm keeping my fingers crossed about that and about everything else i'll keep mine crossed for you because i'd love to see you and john irvin and ireland in another picture thank you so much thanks what a what a pleasure to be sitting here talking with you and i think i almost missed it oh gosh circling around up there you know in the wild blue yeah we were waiting for you you're sweet thank you okay thank you and god bless you thank you the irish always say yes that they do yes you