
After all the success Mary-Louise Parker has had giving life to conflicted, seemingly doomed but somehow lovable widowed-suburban-mom-turned-pot-dealer Nancy Botwin, it’s easy to forget how much she’s already accomplished in her career as an actress, both on screen and on stage.
Her impressive résumé includes hard-hitting AIDS film Longtime Companion, Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon, The Client, Bullets Over Broadway, Boys on the Side, Reckless, Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady, The Five Senses, Red Dragon, Saved! and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. She’s appeared in Broadway plays like Prelude to a Kiss and Proof, and TV series like The West Wing and Angels in America. She’s won two Golden Globes, an Emmy and a Tony. Somehow, though, when you talk to Parker, it’s as if she’s unaffected by it all.
With a but a few days to go until Weeds’ Season Five premiere, Parker—who’s also a diehard music aficionado—spoke with Paste about the show, her all-time favorite albums, her new film Solitary Man (co starring Michael Douglas and slated for a late-2009 release), the undeniable appeal of Josh Ritter, her Esquire bedtime-stories project, and her appearance in singer/songwriter Charlie Mars’ new video.
Paste: I just watched the new Charlie Mars video you were in, “Listen to the Dark Side.” I guess with you having been in high school in the late ’70s, the whole “getting stoned and listening to The Dark Side of the Moon” thing was probably familiar territory.
Mary-Louise Parker: Not really, only ’cause I was such a geek.
Paste: Oh yeah?
Parker: I really wanted to be the person who got invited to parties where you got high and listened to Dark Side of the Moon, but I was the girl who sat at home, reading under [the covers] with a flashlight.
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