Marisa Tomei; she is the study of a career in reverse: early on, she won an Academy Award and widespread recognition. Now she's showing everyone what she can do

Interview, May, 2003 by Patrick Giles

Marisa Tomei won the ultimate actor's prize--a Supporting Actress Oscar--for her performance as the definitive Brooklyn girl in My Cousin Vinny (1992), before a lot of audience members had had a chance to get to know her. To triumph that early in a career may seem a blessing, but it often leads to premature pressure and early obscurity. Tomei has risen to this challenge by giving original, passionate performances in as wide a range of films and plays as she can secure, from the romantic Untamed Heart (1993) to the tragic In the Bedroom (2001)--for which she was honored with another Oscar nomination--and the new comedy Anger Management. This month, she ups the risk factor even further, stepping onto the Broadway stage alongside Al Pacino (and directed by Estelle Parsons) to play (and dance) one of the most sexy and unsettling roles ever written: Oscar Wilde's fated temptress Salome.

PATRICK GILES: Hi, Marisa!

MARISA TOMEI: Hi! How are you?

PG: Great. Have you been rehearsing all day?

MT: Yes, I just got back. Salome's such an intoxicating piece of writing that even on a rainy day like this--when you don't feel like getting out of bed, let alone going to rehearsal--there's such an amazing amount to discover in it!

PG: What is it about the play you find so fascinating?

MT: It's spiritual, political, personal, and sexual. It's also mythic, and very powerful. Of course, it parallels Wilde's own passion for Lord Alfred Douglas--when he wrote the play, he was consumed with all his feelings for Douglas. For instance, my character's love for John the Baptist foreshadows how this sort of sexual feeling, coupled so powerfully with love, can lead to disaster--which, of course, is exactly what happened to Wilde himself. And then it also mirrors Victorian society--a man like Wilde was not free to live out of the closet as a homosexual, and women in general were not able to be truly themselves; there was no place for a woman's voice to be heard or for her to express her sexuality. The same thing was going on when the play takes place.

PG: It's interesting to look at Salome in terms of sexual politics. Gods up to the coming of Christianity had been male and female.

MT: Yes! As Jesus was coming to be known, all the cults of women goddesses--fertility and nature goddesses, and so on--were starting to be swept aside. For me, Salome became a very personal journey, because these are all issues we deal with today.

PG: Salome is known to many through Richard Strauss' opera; the text by itself is regarded as hard to stage. How will you be doing it?

MT: In terms of our production, we are approaching the play almost as a piece of music: We have a row of music stands on the stage, and copies of the text [that we read from]--although we have memorized it--because the poetry of the piece seems to reach the audience more directly that way. It is a very hard play to do, because productions of it can become--

PG: --Unintentionally campy? [both laugh]

MT: It's almost better to imagine all the decadence than having me come out decked in feathers and doing the hoochey-coo.

PG: But will you be doing the dance of the seven veils?

MT: Oh, yes. But it's not choreographed; I'm making it up every night. I'm pretty obsessed with that dance, actually--it's completely terrifying. [laughs] I've sought out several dance teachers--shaman like women dance teachers--to get in touch with the mystical through movement. It seems to be a great way to stay connected to the sexual root that the dance is all about. I'm really excited, because I'll be able to dance with snakes soon! [laughs]

PG: At first, Salome's this maiden in a violent, decadent place, King Herod's court. Then she takes one look at John the Baptist, and she's born as a woman--yet that birth ultimately costs her her life.

MT: What costs her her life is her femaleness, her belief that her deep, passionate love and sexuality can exist together. And then there's the fact that the sheer power of female sexuality is so horrifying to the men around her. They can t handle it, so they have to kill her.

PG: That's such a rich array of insights into the play and the role. But it strikes me that you've never been one of those performers content to offer five or six charming or photogenic moments per performance--you come up with fully developed characters.

MT: I appreciate your saying that, because that is something I aspire to, and I really don't often feel that I've achieved it. Unfortunately, very often in roles you're only wanted to stand there and be sweet. That's why I'm drawn back to roles in theater, and not only this one. Also, I am really not of the school of naturalism. I like style, and you can use more style in theater than in film roles. I love to sink my teeth into a part--that's how I get to learn other things, about dance, myth, Oscar Wilde, for instance.

PG: But I think something that attracted people to your work in My Cousin Vinny was your giving a very theatrical performance. You understood that your character, Mona Lisa Vito, comes from a culture where performing one's emotions: is a vital part of life.