Video: Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger Discuss Tony Noms and Working With Jessica Lange in MOTHER PLAY

Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger stopped by The View on Monday to discuss the Tony-nominated Mother Play, where they are currently starring alongside Jessica Lange.

The show marks Parsons' first-ever Tony nomination. Keenan-Bolger has been nominated 4 times prior, winning the award for her performance as Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

"I've never been in a play where it's so small. The three of us...are onstage together almost the entire time. There's a real intensity to that and a way in which, since we're always working together, you're learning something from the other person who is coming back at you the whole time," Parsons said of his experience.

On working with Jessica Lange, Parsons emphasized that she is "unlike anyone I've ever been with...I've never been with an actor that dives in so hard and quickly into whatever emotion is asked in the scene..."

The script, by Paula Vogel, is semi-autobiographical. Keenan-Bolger recalled her first impression reading it when she was in consideration for the role and thinking: "'Oh my god, it's like playing a version of her.'"

She went on to praise Vogel, saying "Paula is so without ego. I think for some playwrights, playing a version of them, I would feel really really scared. But with Paula, I think there is this spirit of collaboration [and] I did not feel as intimated as I think I could have."

Watch the full interview!

Mother Play is directed by Tina Landau and stars Tony Award winner Celia Keenan-Bolger, Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award winner Jessica Lange, and Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award winner Jim Parsons.

Mother Play is a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past. 

It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis (Jessica Lange) is supervising her teenage children, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures — or survives — the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful rollercoaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.

The play was recently nominated for 4 Tony Awards, including Best Play.