InDepth InterView: Lily Rabe Talks MERCHANT OF VENICE, CHARACTER APPROVED, A DOLL'S HOUSE & More

Today we are talking to one of the biggest and youngest sensations of the season, Al Pacino's highly-lauded Portia to his Shylock in the sold-out MERCHANT OF VENICE, as well as a recurring star on THE GOOD WIFE and MEDIUM - following an unforgettable appearance on NIP/TUCK last year - this year's recipient of USA's CHARACTER APPROVED Award for Theatre, Lily Rabe. In this enlivened discussion, Rabe and I dissect her work on stages and screens large and small as well as what the future holds for her on Broadway, in Hollywood and beyond - including starring in a new independent film, LETTERS TO THE BIG MAN, and a revival of A DOLL'S HOUSE co-starring Hamish Linklater at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Be sure to visit USA's official website for further information on 2011's CHARACTER APPROVED Awards and be sure to watch the ceremony tonight at 11 PM on USA.

Buddha To Beethoven; Shaw, Shakespeare & Back

PC: Congratulations on receiving this year's CHARACTER APPROVED Award from USA. Your Broadway resume is simply astonishing for someone in their mere twenties - Shakespeare, Shaw, Greenberg and, also, STEEL MAGNOLIAS.

LR: (Laughs.) Aww, that's so sweet. Thank you. I really can't believe I did it, actually, when you list it all out like that.

PC: But, before we get to Broadway: first your TV roles. I interviewed Richard Levine earlier this year about writing and directing NIP/TUCK and working with you on it.

LR: Oh, really? I loved doing that show so much.

PC: I will never forget your character - or your mom's [actress Jill Clayburgh] from the first season, either. The best.

LR: She was so, so amazing on that show. I know.

PC: Tell me about filming your cannibalism storyline. What was working with Ryan Murphy like?

LR: He's a genius. He's just a genius. It's like David Milch, like we were talking about before. These are the greatest creative brains on the planet, so to get to work with them - "Sure, I'll play a cannibal! That sounds great!" (Laughs.)

PC: Do you enjoy working on episodic TV like you've done on MEDIUM and THE GOOD WIFE?

LB: Yes, I love doing arcs and recurring roles. It's a great gig because you get to come and go and still do all the other things you're doing. But, you still get to work on these great shows with these great people.

PC: So it's fun to drop in from time to time?

LB: I love it. It can be a really great job.

PC: Do you think TV is where the best writing is now? THE SOPRANOS, MAD MEN, BOARDWALK EMPIRE and DAMAGES are better than most Hollywood films these days.

LB: There is incredible, incredible writing in television today. Also, there is incredible writing for women in television, which is very, very important.

PC: Definitely.

LB: Those are all great, great examples that you gave. I still believe that there is great writing in film, certainly, but I love doing it all. Actually, I'm doing more TV this spring.

PC: THE GOOD WIFE?

LB: Yes, THE GOOD WIFE I will be filming more episodes for this Spring.

PC: What else is coming up?

LB: I am doing this wonderful pilot where I have this great part where I get to sort of come and go do this part but not be a regular.

PC: What do you watch on TV yourself?

LB: I don't watch a lot of television, to be honest - but, I do love GLEE.

PC: Oh, really?

LB: Of course! It's an incredible show - plus, one of my dear, dear friends is on it.

PC: Who would that be?

LR: Matty Morrison!

PC: He's A real BROADWAY baby - remember him in ROCKY HORROR 10 years ago?

LR: (Laughs.) Oh, he's definitely a Broadway baby! The show is so, so great - and he is so great on it. I would watch it even if he wasn't on it, but it's more fun when you get to watch your friends that you love.

PC: The PROMISES, PROMISES stuff was so great last season. I'm sure your mom would have been pleased.

LR: Yeah, it was so great.

PC: Has it passed down in the genes - do you sing?

LR: (Trepidatious Sigh.) Yeah, I can sing. But, I don't know... I don't know.

PC: Put it out there on YouTube.

LR: I don't know about that! I like to sing in the shower and at karaoke.

PC: What do you like to sing? What's on your iPod?

LR: I've been listening a lot to Mumford & Sons.

PC: Were you a fan before the Grammys with Dylan?

LR: Oh, yeah. I think the album is so amazing and, now, after the Grammys, they are doing so well and they are the biggest deal ever. It's really exciting.

PC: What else?

LR: Arcade Fire, I love. I'm also kind of having a bit of an obsession with Nicki Minaj.

PC: "Right Through Me" is incredible, right?

LR: Incredible. Also, there's this band called Tristan that I love and this new band called Group Love. I think they just have an EP right now, but it's really, really good. I've been listening to that non-stop all week. It's like folky-rock.

PC: What have been some of your favorite performances you've seen - besides that of your co-star Al Pacino, of course?

LR: He is the very best. No one is better.

PC: What roles have stuck with you that you have seen recently?

LR: Definitely Geoffrey Rush in DIARY OF A MAD PLAYWRIGHT. He's just breathtaking in that. I loved it so much.

PC: What do you think of the Juilliard track versus the British training versus self-taught acting?

LR: I don't know. I don't think much about it. I know my track was the right track for me, but it's different for everyone and there are so many ways to do it.

PC: Shakespeare doesn't come easily to most, yet your performance seemed so effortless. You are so young to be doing the role - it has been cast much older in the past.

LR: Well, she is really my age - Portia. (Long Pause.) I don't know how to answer that question. I am just so glad that I got to play her and I got to play her this year and at this stage of my life. I think that, with theatre, you can really the bend the rules of age.

PC: Undoubtedly.

LR: So, with these really great parts, of course everyone wants to play them - so, they should be able to play them. I think that you can play younger and play older with quite a lot more breathing room onstage than you can on film or on television, where it becomes trickier.

PC: What was your favorite moment onstage every night?

LR: (Sighs.) Oh, it changed every night!

PC: You did it three hundred times, at least - give me an example!

LR: Sure! I guess I would say that the experience of doing MERCHANT in the Park - I had never done the Park. There is just nothing like that, like being a New Yorker and walking onto that stage on a beautiful night - or even on a cold night or rainy night or whatever it is. To be in the middle of the Park playing this show for people who have been camped out since you left the night before - and they are so excited to be there!

PC: What a great description.

LR: It's so beautiful - and magical. It's real magic. You can't believe it - you just can't believe it.

PC: It really is magic - you're conjuring something out of nothing.

LR: (Laughs.) If you don't enjoy doing Shakespeare In The Park and you are an actor - something's wrong!

PC: There is just something special about the Park, then?

LR: Oh, it is just amazing. Amazing. Plus, with MERCHANT, it was sort of the beginning of the whole thing. I hold the experience so, so, so close to my heart - though, the run on Broadway was one of the most incredible things I've ever had the privilege to do. It was the most incredible job. I can't imagine a better job.

PC: What was the atmosphere like in the Park versus on Broadway?

LR: Since we were in rep over the summer, we weren't doing it consecutively - we'd do two nights and then have two or three nights off.

PC: With THE WINTER'S TALE.

LR: Right. That production was so beautiful. But, all in all, we ended up doing it seven times most weeks.

PC: What about the natural aspect versus in a theater?

LR: The intimacy of the space on Broadway - normally, you move from a smaller space to a bigger space - but, we actually cut our stage in half in the transfer. The diameter of the stage was almost exactly half of what it had been in the Park. So, to have that experience - to have been playing it in this massive space and then being able to find all this new intimacy, because we were much closer to each other, in this new space - was just incredible.

PC: I just interviewEd Barry Edelstein about Shakespeare In the Park and his new production of TIMON OF ATHENS - have you seen it?

LR: I just saw it!

PC: What did you think?

LR: It's great. It's really, really great.

PC: What do you think of that play and Timon's fall - particularly through the lens of having just done Portia in MERCHANT, which touches on similar themes?

LR: I didn't know the play at all. I had never read TIMON before having seen it. (Pause.) It's a strange play, in many ways - a strange, wonderful play. I think what Barry did was so clear and precise. Barry is just so, so smart. Barry was such a big part of MERCHANT from the beginning and I am so, so fond of him.

PC: And Richard Thomas?

LR: Richard Thomas is just... awesome. He did a Richard Greenberg play with my mom, actually. He's such a great guy.

PC: A NAKED GIRL ON THE APPIAN WAY? With Matt Morrison?

LR: Yes! That's how I got to meet Matt!

PC: Tell me about working with Richard Greenberg yourself on THE AMERICAN PLAN.

LR: Oh, I loved that play so much.

PC: It could make an interesting film, I think.

LR: It would be an amazing film! Oh, I loved doing that play so, so much. I love Richard's writing. (Pause.) I think he is just beyond brilliant. With that play, he actually mentioned it to me a few years before we actually ended up doing it.

PC: What was your first reaction upon reading it?

LR: I remember it just got under my skin. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't shake it. (Pause.) There is something so harrowing about it; about that relationship. I just love working with Rich and he writes such heartbreaking plays - and, I also love him as a human being. He's one of my favorite, favorite humans.

PC: How do you respond to a script?

LR: I think that if you read something - a script, a play - and something inside of you feels like, "I know her. I know who she is." I also like to feel terrified. If it's something that makes me uncomfortable and scared, it's something I should do.

PC: So it comes out of you relating to the character?

LR: Not necessarily. I think, in a lot of ways, all well-written characters give you something to relate to - because they're just a human being. (Pause.) If I can't stop thinking about her - that's also a really good sign. You know, it's sort of the rule I use when shopping: if I don't buy the pair of shoes and I cannot stop thinking about them, then I go back and get them. (Laughs.)

PC: What a brilliant analogy!

LR: (Laughs.) A lot of the time I may really want them for a minute, but I leave the store and my brain moves on to something else very quickly and I'm no longer thinking about the shoes - and, then, I know I really didn't need them. So, I can make my career decisions in the same way I make my shoe decisions.

PC: What do you think of red carpets and doing press?

LR: I still get very... you know, having your picture taken is so surreal. I still get a little... it's not the easiest thing in the world, that's for sure. It's a whole different thing. You know, when you are a character you have this tremendous freedom. I love being able to walk out of myself and go onto stage.

PC: What about presenting at award shows - like the USA CHARACTER APPROVED Awards coming up?

LR: I get very, very nervous. I mean, I do get nervous every night before a performance, but it's different - it's a much healthier kind of nervousness, I think. So, doing press can be fun, especially for films when you get to see the people you haven't worked with for a while - so, that's always great to all come back together.

PC: Such as?

LR: I did this movie called ALL GOOD THINGS and I think we shot it like two years before it was released.

PC: It had a great cast - Ryan Gosling, Frank Langella.

LR: I loved the movie. I think Andrew, the director, is just incredible. I am so proud to be a part of that film. I am really proud of that movie and, actually, a lot of people from that movie have become my friends in real life. Of course, you do lose touch with some people.

PC: You and Kirsten Dunst are perfect casting for sisters - it's uncanny, really.

LR: We don't in the movie, but we keep talking about wanting to find a play to do together where we play sisters.

PC: How about AS YOU LIKE IT - Rosalind?

LR: Oh, yeah - I would love to do Rosalind. I think that she is at the top of my list.

PC: What about TAMING OF THE SHREW?

LR: That's a great one.

PC: Lady MacBeth?

LR: Definitely - but, she's in a little while, still.

PC: PERICLES has an amazing role in it for you, I think.

LR: I haven't read or seen that one yet, but I'll keep an eye out now!

PC: What does Shakespeare mean to you in light of having performed Shaw and the great authors and performing it with Pacino, one of the finest actors of our age?

LR: Daniel Sullivan is the most responsible. He's like sent to us from the Shakespeare gods or something. (Laughs. Pause.) I think he is just the greatest director, period. To get to do Shakespeare with Dan - it does not get better. His understanding of Shakespeare is really astonishing and inspiring - he just lifts you up. It's an amazing, amazing thing to get to work with him.

PC: And Shakespeare in general?

LR: To get to do Shakespeare on Broadway - it's staggering to me. Just staggering. Of course, there's this conspiracy theory that it wasn't one man because it's so impossible to believe one brain could hold so much - it is God-like. He's like Buddha or Beethoven. But, my God, I believe so strongly he was who we think he was - just one man with one brain.

PC: But, the real thing - genius.

LR: The real thing. What he created is just the most beautiful thing in the world. To get to do these plays and to see how people react - these plays just hold up.

PC: Eternal.

LR: It's timeless because what he does and how he gets into the human existence and the human brain and our emotional lives with these absolute truths and univerals - no matter what kind of life you live, whether you are a man or a woman, no matter what your race or religion is; everything is all-encompassing, whatever it is. I just have to say that there is something I would hear anew every single night and understand in a different way. Every night - for two hundred performances or whatever we did.

PC: Is it the same feeling for you as an actor, then?

LR: As an actor, to perform Shakespeare is the greatest privilege you can have. That's all there is. He's just... (Long Pause.)

PC: Everything.

LR: Yes! Everything! He's just... everything. I mean, I would have friends who would come back time and time again throughout the run and they would just say, "I've thought about it and this line means this! And that line means that!" (Laughs.) You know? The amount of people who would come and leave with these stricken looks on their faces and weep - and not really know why they were weeping!

PC: This production was so conducive to that intimate theatrical experience.

LR: I think it's also because that play does something to you if you get to experience it - there is no way as a living breathing human to not have it effect you in a very big way or in a number of very big ways.

PC: MERCHANT, WINTER'S TALE, TIMON, AS YOU LIKE IT, MACBETH - just to cite five we've been discussing - what breadth and scope.

LR: It's simply astonishing to believe one man wrote any of them, let alone all of them.

PC: What do you think of the process of film versus theatre - doing a film that could turn out much different from the script, versus a theatre piece with a verbatim text? Is it frustrating as an actor in the former experience?

LR: I think it becomes about choosing to work with wonderful directors and directors that you trust and feel held by.

PC: Could you elaborate on that relationship?

LR: As an actor, when you have a director that you trust, and a director who has a vision and the confidence to execute it - and there are so many wonderful directors - but, when you get to work with someone like that it just sets you free. You do your job and that's all you have to worry about. That's so liberating - to know all you have to do is your work and your job and play the part and tell the truth. The rest of it will be out of your hands.

PC: Is it a laissez-faire attitude, in a sense, then?

LR: Well, it's not that so much as it's having trust - that's most important. If you work with someone that you trust, it's a wonderful thing to keep working with that person.

PC: Daniel Sullivan?

LR: Yes, we've got some wonderful plans!

PC: Are you doing the Park again this year?

LR: No, I'm not.

PC: You have a movie coming out: LETTERS TO THE BIG MAN?

LR: We were just at Sundance with it. It was very hard shooting that movie - we had no money and we were in Oregon. Oregon is so beautiful. I shouldn't say it was hard shooting the movie - it was a challenging experience. I mean, it was gorilla filmmaking - the crew was about five people and I am in almost every frame of the movie. So, that has made it almost impossible for me to watch it! (Big Laugh.)

PC: That's so funny.

LR: It's true. I can't stand watching myself like that.

PC: What's the film about?

LR: Chris, the director, has such an amazing eye. It's so beautiful. It's about a woman who works for the forest service, so I‘m out in the woods for a lot of it. (Pause.) It's hard to give a tagline. Hmm. (Tagline Voice.) "A woman has an experience in the woods with something that is not quite human." It has a beauty and the beast angle, too.

PC: Is it paranormal?

LR: Well, the director and I may disagree because he is a believer - but you could say paranormal, sure.

PC: How do you wrap up your experience?

LR: It was a very fascinating experience to work on it and Chris is such a unique artist. So, I'm really so happy that I did the film. It came to me at a really interesting time in my life - so, to drop everything and go into the woods for six weeks was really great.

PC: What was your favorite film of last year?

LR: I just saw the most incredible movie at Sundance. Hamish and Miranda July are both in this movie that Miranda July wrote and directed and stars in with Hamish. It's really one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen. Whenever it's released - run, don't walk. I can't wait to see it ten more times.

PC: What did you think of BLACK SWAN?

LR: I was a dancer - ballet - for ten years, so I just loved watching a movie that gets into that world that way. It's such a beautiful movie. It's so disturbing. Natalie's performance is so wonderful and I think Aronofsky is just incredible.

PC: Any others you really had a strong reaction to?

LR: I loved THE FIGHTER. Also, THE KING'S SPEECH is just the perfect movie. And, THE SOCIAL NETWORK was just great.

PC: What else is in the can or coming up?

LR: Well, I am about to go shoot some more things this Spring. Then, I am doing a play this Summer.

PC: What's the play?

LR: I am doing A DOLL'S HOUSE this Summer.

PC: No way! What a Nora you will unquestionably be!

LR: Yes, I am playing Nora at Williamstown. I am really excited.

PC: Who else is doing it?

LR: Hamish Linklater - Who was my Bassiano last Summer in the Park!

PC: What does the play mean to you?

LR: Well, Nora is another one of the roles that's just there on the list, you know? Right after we opened MERCHANT, this director that I've really been dying to work with sent me a text that said, "How about A DOLL'S HOUSE?"

PC: Who's the director?

LR: Sam Gold of THE ALIENS and CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION.

PC: What's the performance schedule of A DOLL‘S HOUSE?

LR: The whole thing is about five weeks, so the run is like two weeks, I think.

PC: Are you memorizing yet, then?

LR: (Laughs.) I will be soon!

PC: MERCHANT cut very little. It was three hours on the dot - and you were all going at a fast clip!

LR: Three, exactly. Every night. (Laughs.)

PC: What does winning the USA Character Approved Award mean to you?

LR: I am so honored. They sent me this beautiful letter a couple of months ago. It's also really wonderful because each recipient of the award gets $10,000 towards a charity of your choosing - that's where the check goes. So, to be able to do that and pass on that money to all these different charities - in addition to what an incredible honor it is to be in this company and work with Phil Griffin on the interview - it's all a total, total honor.

PC: The website is just gorgeous - and so informative.

LR: Oh, good. I'm so glad it all came out well.

PC: Your portions are so elegantly filmed with some really compelling material.

LR: Yeah, they rented the whole theater out to film it! We did it on a day off.

PC: What charity will you be donating the money to?

LR: I worked with the man who was my mother's doctor at Columbia and he put me in touch with another doctor, so, now with these two amazing oncologists from Columbia, we have set up a fund in my mother's name and this money is the beginning of the fund. They are doing incredible research very specifically pertaining to the cancer that my mother had. That was the most important thing to me to do - though I would have loved to give it to a theatre charity, too. But, this was the first and the only thing I ever wanted to do with the money. And, at Columbia they are doing such amazing, amazing work.

PC: And every day we get closer to the cure.

LR: It would be so wonderful for that to happen soon.

PC: Just like we learned from NIP/TUCK - you never know when a new surgery will come along to change everything. All we have to hold onto besides time is hope.

LR: Exactly. Everyday there are leaps and bounds.

PC: Define collaboration. What does it mean to you?

LR: Oh, it's everything. It's everything in this business and in what we do. How do I define it? (Pause.) It's to be a part of something. What gets accomplished without collaboration?

PC: This was awesome. Thank you so much, Lily. You have already ascended to The Lofty heights of your gifted parents - a near-impossible feat in this case!

LR: You're so darling. Thank you, too, Pat. This was fabulous. Bye bye.