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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Parker Posey calls from Starbucks to talk about "A Mighty Wind" and her hipster career as low-impact movie star. But don't call her the Queen of Indies.
Apr 22, 2003 | Rebecca Miller's debut feature, last November's "Personal Velocity," came off as a high-rent version of the glowy, woman-friendly teledramas that buttress the Lifetime Network. Composed of three distinct vignettes, the film is worth seeing only for the performance of Parker Posey, who portrays a Manolo Blahnik-shod book editor in the film's most fully realized segment.
Married to an exceedingly nice fact-checker who's been laboring for years on a bloated dissertation, Greta comes to realize that she's "rotten with ambition," both personally and professionally. And so her eye starts to wander.
At one point, she gets coquettish with a cutie in a coffee shop, tossing off a meaning-laden "Bye" on her way out the door. Posey infuses the casual farewell with plenty of flirty possibility, revealing once again that she's capable of doing more with one syllable than most actors are with spotlight-focused soliloquies.
The Mississippi-bred actress, named after '50s-era cover girl Suzy Parker, snagged her first big break back in 1991 as the odious Tess Shelby on the soap opera "As the World Turns." But it was her brief turn as authoritarian cheerleader Darla Marks in Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused" that won Posey critical notice -- and established her as a supremely watchable screen presence.
Since then, Posey has zinged barbs in more than 40 films, including "Clockwatchers," "The Daytrippers" and "The House of Yes," in which her performance as a batty Jackie-O worshipper earned the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Though few have honed the art of cinematic sarcasm quite as adeptly as Posey, she always conveys far more than just snark and sass. Indeed, her performances in films like Hal Hartley's "Henry Fool" have revealed Posey's dramatic depth, her ability to invest virtually any role with nuance and complexity.
But what has proven most revelatory about Posey's career in recent years has been her work in the Christopher Guest mockumentaries. In "Waiting for Guffman," a sendup of the cutthroat world of community theater, Posey played a starry-eyed Dairy Queen waitress. In "Best in Show," a spoof of the canine competition circuit, she played a high-strung yuppie with an equally high-strung pooch.
And in "A Mighty Wind," which opened last week, she portrays a formerly troubled teen enlisted to play mandolin in the folk world's only "neuftet," the New Main Street Singers. The film follows the color-coordinated ensemble and two '60s-era groups -- the tradition-bound Folksmen and the sweetheart duo Mitch & Mickey -- as they prepare to perform a memorial tribute to the late legendary manager Irving Steinbloom.
Like "Guffman" and "Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind" relies heavily on improvisation. Director Guest and co-scripter Eugene Levy provide the actors with a detailed outline enumerating key plot points; within the boundaries of that outline, the cast is free to improvise dialogue. In all three films, Posey has shown she can hold her own against celebrated comic geniuses like Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard.
Posey is nothing if not ambitious; she recently took a break from the film world to star in an Off-Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson's play "Fifth of July," for which she earned a Lucille Lortel Award nomination. I spoke to Posey by telephone last week.
Did you have any background in improvisation prior to your appearance in the Christopher Guest films?
No, but when I went to college at SUNY Purchase we did these Sanford Meisner exercises that are all about forgetting. They're these repetition games where you describe something the other person is doing or wearing and the other person has to repeat back exactly the way it was said to them. The idea is that if you repeat what you're hearing you're not thinking about how you're going to say something; you're just repeating what you hear. It's a game about instincts and forgetting.
I don't think I could do the kind of improv where you have to respond to audience suggestions and think of funny things to say on the spur of the moment. I'm just not that kind of actor. I'd rather just react.
How much leeway did you have within the outline Guest and Levy provided to improvise dialogue or shape your character?
We had all the freedom in the world. What you bring to these films is a particular psychology you've developed about the character. That's what makes it all so interesting.
Could you talk about how the Guest ensemble has evolved, from "Waiting for Guffman" on through "A Mighty Wind"?
It's the most relaxed set I've ever worked on. People bring their cameras and sneak around and listen to what everyone else is doing; we're all interested in seeing how everyone is working. When we weren't acting we were all hanging around outside, listening to music.
I'm sad that this is all going to be over someday. These movies are all about flying by the seat of your pants, yet Chris is the most trusting director I've ever worked with. A lot of directors want to get their hands into your performance; they want to have input, they want to have power.
