At the age of 80, Mia Farrow is preparing for her very first Tony Awards ceremony. “I’ll be Alice in Wonderland,” she says. “Oh my gosh, I followed the white rabbit—and look where I am.”
Although Farrow’s been a film legend since her unforgettable turn in Rosemary’s Baby nearly six decades ago, she’s somehow never been nominated for any of the awards under the EGOT umbrella. At least, she wasn’t until she returned to Broadway last fall to star in as Sharon, a lonely Iowan who lives with a ballsy New Yorker (Patti LuPone) in Jen Silverman’s The Roommate. Farrow is now up for best leading actress in a play, against talents like Sarah Snook and Sadie Sink.
“She’s a true friend,” Farrow says of her brassy co-star. “She’s somebody you can really, really count on. She’s a very loyal person, and truthful and wonderful in every way.”
Though she’s known primarily as a film actress, Farrow was the first American actress to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. Even now, she says her heart belongs to the theater. “There’s just no better community,” she says. “Everyone is so supportive of each other.” And she feels that support even though Farrow—who’s done five Broadway shows—considers herself relatively new to the Broadway community. “Unlike me, many have already worked together,” she says. “If you’re Audra McDonald, you’ve worked with countless, countless people over time. Or if you’re Patti, or Jonathan Groff. Everybody knows each other. Everybody respects each other. Everyone understands the challenge and the joy and the privilege of being there.”
Sharon, a freshly divorced senior citizen, could certainly use a support system at the beginning of The Roommate—and finds one, at least temporarily, in LuPone’s Robyn. Throughout the play’s limited run, Farrow conveyed both the fizzy lightness of falling in love and plumbed the depths of despair and loneliness.
But unlike Sharon, Farrow receives plenty of support from her children—specifically Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow, who encouraged her to take a risk by doing the play in the first place. “I asked my son, Ronan, who is one of my very closest friends, and he read it,” she says. “He said, ‘I think you should do it. No question.’”
While she’s certainly happy she took his advice, Farrow also knows she’s imparted a lot of wisdom to Ronan over the years. “I try to teach my kids that you’ve got to stand for what’s right, no matter the cost,” she adds. “And you hope that the cost will never be that great. But in cases in history, the cost has been that great. Look at Raul [Wallenberg], look at Martin Luther King. You stand for something.”
Below, Farrow sits for a long chat about her career, her thirty-year friendship with LuPone, and the one line she got added to The Roomate’s script.
What was The Roommate’s rehearsal process like?
There was only a three-week rehearsal.
That’s not that much time.
Well, no. I read about the olden days when there were out of town tryouts, and you got six weeks rehearsal—or two months even. So, I did learn the play before we started rehearsal because it’s a lot of talking.
We began rehearsals in New York, and I was thrilled that it was Patti. Honestly, by the time we opened, that was just the beginning because the discovery process continued. Some family members, including Ronan, saw the play opening night, which I never wanted. I never invite anyone.
Really?
I have never invited anyone to any play I’ve ever been in. I don’t want to disappoint them. I’m too nervous.