Video: Jim Parsons Talks Playing a 14-Year Old in MOTHER PLAY on THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON

On Monday night, Jim Parsons appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about his role as Carl in Paula Vogel's Mother Play.

Specifically, he discussed his approach to playing a "floppy" 14-year old who lounges all over the furniture. 

"I kind of just started doing this," Parsons laughed as he demonstrated the lazy body language.

"I was just like 'Well, what do they do?' I don't know if I was this floppy as a teenager, but this is what I'm going with. The only thing is, I'm 51 so before I go out I have to warm up or I'm going to be playing a 14-year old who suddenly goes 'Oh, my back!'

"It's really joyful because it frees you to do things like a skip hop once in a while and I think, 'What is happening?'"

Mother Play began previews April 3 and will officially open on April 25, 2024 at the Hayes Theater.

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.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) comes Mother Play, 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.