411mania Inteviews: Margaret Colin (Gossip Girl, The Missing Person)

Posted by Al Norton on 11.30.2009

411's Al Norton sits down for an exclusive interview with Margaret Colin to talk about her 30 year career, her Gossip Girl role, and her new movie, The Missing Person.



Margaret Colin has been a steadily working actress for 30 years, starting with stints on Edge of Night and As The World Turns (where she met her husband Justin Deas) and moving to big screen appearances in Three Men and a Baby, Independence Day, Milk Money, and First Daughter and TV roles on Magnum PI, Chicago Hope, Now and Again, and Law and Order: SVU. She can currently be seen in theaters in The Missing Person and Monday nights on The CW's Gossip Girl.

Al Norton: I want to start by telling you that I had a conversation recently with some friends about our favorite shows that only lasted a season and Now and Again came up early and often.

Margaret Colin: It was gorgeous television, it was beautiful. Glenn (Gordon Caron, the show's creator) made beautiful, beautiful television in a pre-9/11 New York City. We shot all over the place, and we swung from the roof tops. The magical quality that he gave Eric (Close) to do was so much fun and so beautiful when set against New York. It was so much fun to do and a really great idea.

I always thought they should have focused more on the romance – him trying to get back to her, to Lisa – and less on the training.

Al Norton: One of the things that came up was that if it were on now, with all the cable options available, it would have had a much longer life.

Margaret Colin: I think so but Glenn is doing really great with Medium. He didn't hand the scripts in that often. Everybody had to wear a beeper or a pager because we never knew when the pages were going to come in. He'd write, we'd show up. You were never quite sure what the day was going to turn out like. With him working closer to the studio on Medium I think it works out better. He's a brilliant writer and he's very hands on; he'd act it and shoot it if he could (laughing).

Al Norton: When you got you're first Gossip Girl script was one of your thoughts, "who are these kids and what world do they live in?"

Margaret Colin: Yes, and it still is, but I think that's part of the outrageous charm of the thing. It's more than a little tongue in cheek but yes, I had no experience with these people.

Al Norton: How great was it when they cast Wallace Shawn as your new husband in season two?

Margaret Colin: Wally is adorable, he's just wonderful. People get a big kick of it, I think mostly because it was a sight gag. I am tall, he's short, and all of the other physical things that come to mind. I kept saying to the writers, "can you write it? The sight gag is good, we got it, now we're just sitting around so can you write us some dialogue." Occasionally they would and it was fun.

He had a play that he had written that was being produced in London and oddly enough my old college buddy Rob Weiner was one of the producers, so we had started to become aware of each other before Gossip Girl. He had sent me the script before to see if I would be interested in any of the roles. Of course I loved Wally' s movies for years, decades; he's brilliant and a never ending, really fun conversation.

Al Norton: There's been a decent amount of tabloid coverage of Gossip Girls stars over the three seasons; how have you found the overall maturity level of the group of young actors?

Margaret Colin: I think for the level of responsibility they have, to carry that show, and for the exposure and the insane hours, it's incredible. They sometimes shoot two episodes at the same time. Some of them have been at it for years and some are new but there is a strong work ethic throughout and I find them ridiculously beautiful to work with.

I am frequently auctioning off set visits to benefit the theater company that I work with and they are so charming, so gracious. They'll pose for pictures, sign autographs, stand around and chat. I think the world of them, they're a really terrific group of young people.

It's nighttime television run by The CW so it's all over New York, two shows at once on two different soundstages. A lot of people are depending on them and they all really rise to the occasion. They're having the time of their lives, and why wouldn't' t they be?

Al Norton: Are we going to be seeing more of Eleanor this season?

Margaret Colin: I certainly hope so. In the books Eleanor gets pregnant, so we'll see what happens.



Al Norton: Tell me about The Missing Person.

Margaret Colin: It's a terrific film noir with Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan. I play this sort of film noir woman; she's a scammer and under the thumb of one of the people Michael Shannon is responsible to. Michael Shannon is a private eye hired to find this man who disappeared on 9/11 and he goes around the country looking for him. He's got a lot of problems himself; he's an alcoholic and desperately needs the work. People are connected in mysterious ways and I'm one of the things that gets in his way. He has a strong connection to the person he is hired to find and then the movie turns again. It's a film noir detective movie and I'm the femme fatale, which is kind of fun for me.

Al Norton: Almost everything I've read about the movie mention 9/11 in the first sentence or two. Does that give people a false impression of what the movie is really about?

Margaret Colin: I think it's the backdrop to tell the story but it's not a movie about the terrorist attack and the change in the country since then. It's very much a New York story and the case wouldn't exist without 9/11, and it's handled very respectfully, but it's not really a 9/11 movie.

Al Norton: The cast is excellent but they're not a group of household names, so is it harder to get attention for a movie that doesn't have a huge star? Is it a lot of promotional work to get people to see it?

Margaret Colin: I think it is but we do have two Academy Award nominees (Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan). Last spring people knew them and what clothes they were wearing. Michael doesn't do a lot of promotional stuff but I think people would be surprised at just how much work he has done. Amy is brilliant and did get a lot of exposure.

The guy that wrote it and directed, Noah Buschel, it is a kid. He's made a couple of other movies but in my opinion it's amazing these movies get made at all. Dollars are tight. He found these producers to back it but he's young with no formal education at all so it's shocking.

I think they are trying very hard with very little budget to make people aware of what a great movie this is, to get it out to people.

Al Norton: Is there ever a worry working with someone who doesn't have a ton of experience directing?

Margaret Colin: There is a little bit of worry and so you ask around about them. If the part fits into my schedule and it's a departure for me, something that makes me stretch, I am more inclined to give it a show. I was thrilled to death when I met him. I had read the script three times and thought it had an awful lot going for it. That was they highest selling point. When I met him he was fantastic.

Al Norton: There is this line of thinking that says once a woman gets to a certain age, the only parts available to her are Moms, or Grandmothers. Have you found that to be the case, have you had struggles trying to find quality roles?

Margaret Colin: Yes, yes I have. This is what I do for a living, this is what pays for my life, along with my husband's lucrative career, so not every job is something that you choose because it's the best of a plethora of choices. Sometimes you take a job for the paycheck and the exposure. This part in The Missing Person I was happy to take because it was such a departure from the Mom roles.

I do a lot of theater so I get to break away from the Mom department quite frequently because they write great roles for women of all ages on the New York stage. There is nothing wrong with playing a Mom. It's a huge, multi-dimensional role to play in life, they just don't frequently write it that way. They only write it as a supportive part without the dimension that she should have so then your job is to remember that the character has this whole life other than the scenes you are doing.

I do find that there are fewer and fewer roles but there are fewer and fewer roles for everybody as they get older. It's always been that way and we knew it going in; it's a youth driven market.



Al Norton: Another old Hollywood adage is that entertainment industry marriages don't last but you and Justin are closing in on 21 years now.

Margaret Colin: It's going to be 22 years in January.

Al Norton: Wow. Any sort of explanation of how you two make it work in an industry where so many other fail? Any tips?

Margaret Colin: I love the one that I heard about the way to make a marriage work, "just don't get divorced." I picked a good one, I picked a really good one. He's an amazing man and I if I didn't have him I'd have to go find him, which is what it pretty much boils down to.

Don't miss Gossip Girl, Mondays at 9:00 pm on The CW.

For more information on The Missing Person go to www.missingpersonmovie.com