Jane Anderson's name may not be immediately familiar to gay audiences. However, a quick glance over just a few of the credits on her resume ( playwright-screenwriter-director-executive producer ) spark instant recognition: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, The Baby Dance, When Billie Beat Bobbie, Normal, It Could Happen To You, How To Make An American Quilt, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, 1961 and the heartbreaking segment of If These Walls Could Talk 2. Those highlights from Anderson's work history also serve as a reminder that she writes marvelously complex womencharacters that resonate long after the curtain has fallen or the credits have rolled.
Anderson, who lives with wife Tess Ayers in New York ( with teenage son Raphael attending Columbia College in Chicago ), has done that once again with Olive Kitteridge, the HBO miniseries premiering Sunday, Nov. 2, and Monday, Nov. 3. Anderson beautifully rose to the creative challenge of adapting Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novelwhich is written as a series of short storiesfor Frances McDormand, who plays the title role.
In crafting for the screen the character of Olivethe no-nonsense, socially dismissive math teacher who seemingly lives at the periphery of the lives of everyone around her in the Maine town she inhabits with her pharmacist husband ( played by Richard Jenkins ) and sonAnderson, who also executive-produced the miniseries,makes a great addition to her gallery of memorable female characters. I spoke with her almost a decade ago about The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio and had the pleasure of discussing the genesis of the project and much more with her in this interview.
Windy City Times: How rare is it to stay with characters this complex for such a long time? I'm gobsmacked because I just binge-watched the whole thing.
Jane Anderson: So Olive is fresh for youwonderful. Isn't Fran [McDormand] divine?
WCT: She is, absolutely. I know that Frances made Laurel Canyon with [director] Lisa Cholodenko [who also co-wrote and directed The Kids Are All Right] but I'm wondering how you got involved?
JA: Fran and I were actually first. Fran and I are longtime friends. We both adopted our boys from Paraguay literally a month apart. Her son Pedro is the same age as our son Raphael. So Fran and Joel [Coen, her husband] and my spouse Tess and I have known them for a while because of the connection of our sons and we both have places up in hippie land in Northern California [laughs] so we kinda share a geographic area. I had read "Olive Kitteridge" for pleasure and then Fran called me up one day and said, "I just bought the rights to this book, do you want to turn it into something?" and I said, "Yeah!"
WCT: You commented that subtext is a major part of the piece and that everyone can identify with thatwhich I think is so insightful but of course, writing from a queer perspective, I'm going to immediately suggest that subtext particularly resonates with me and with Our People. It's been a huge part of our lives. Would you agree?
JA: Sure! As a gay woman, I grew up totally immersed in subtext. [Laughs] Our generation, when we were kids and teenagers it was unspeakable. The gay kids nowunless they're growing up in the South in a really religious homecan just talk about it because of the media and the exposure. But I always felt that my need to closet in the very beginning of my life and to play the role of something else made me the writer that I am because I always had to step into the shoes of other people.
So I always took the straight world's side because I didn't have a choice. I think that exercised my writerly point of view. When you feel that you're an outsider early on you develop a very objective eye and that's what's needed as a writer. In a rather perverse way, I have no regrets that I grew up in a very difficult time because it [gave me] hyper-empathy.
WCT: It made you who you are. I don't want to give it away but there is a lesbian character who is mentioned at almost the 11th hour that gets a defense from Olive that is a bit unexpected. That is going to be a lovely moment for Our People.
JA: The thing about Olive's character … I think her defense of the gay daughter in saying, "Don't be ridiculous to Jack [Bill Murray's character] that is really consistent with her character. Olive might be unpleasant and judgmental and cranky and impossible but Olive consistently stands up for people who are the vulnerable of society. That is a certain kind of Yankee character. ... She hates religion, she hates conservatives; it's a certain type of person who will always buck society when she feels that injustice is being done. And that's what I love about Oliveshe's impossible but she's infinitely just and infinitely decent.
WCT: Right. Just a quick question outside of Olive Kitteridge. Everyone's abuzz over the new series Transparent. It's so great to see trans characters and situations come to the forefront but I want to give you a shout-out because there you were a decade ago with Normal.
JA: I absolutely adore Transparent and I think Jill Soloway has done an incredible job. Not only because of the study of an older transgender family man but she also makes it about the entire family and how dysfunctional they are. I think it goes way beyond the subject of transgenderism.
When I did Normal I wanted to go beyond the subject by not just making it about a man coming out as transgender; I wanted it to be a portrait of a marriage and, to me, that movie was about when you love someone and you feel they're your soulmate and partner.
What do you love about them? Is it their body? Is it their gender? Or is it their very heart? I think whenever we do a queer subject it also has to have a universal theme as well.
WCT: What are you working on next?
JA: My spouse, Tess, and I have a documentary coming out on HBO in June. Edith Wilkinson was a great-aunt of mine who was gay, and she painted in Provincetown around 1915 and was this marvelous artist. Then she was put away in an asylum by a family lawyer who then ripped off her inheritance; her partner, Fannie, disappeared and she was in an institution for 33 years. My mother found all of her paintings in trunks in my aunt and uncle's attic in the '60s and I grew up with those paintings. I finally have decided late in life that I need Edith to have her day. So that's what the documentary is about. If you go to the site you'll see her beautiful work and her story: www.EdithLakeWilkinson.com .
WCT: That's so touching to hear that. I so love that you're honoring her and I can't wait to see it. I love this groundswell of activity now focused on preserving our queer heritage. Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us, Jane, and congratulations on this new piece.
JA: Until the next time, please enjoy autumn in Chicago for me!
www.hbo.com/olive-kitteridge .