Versatile actor Patricia Clarkson savored role in 'Station Agent'
"It's a fertile time for me in movies right now," she says modestly. "It's a great moment."
And how. Though Clarkson made her film debut back in 1987 (in "The Untouchables" with Kevin Costner), it wasn't until 1998 that she first attracted wide notice, playing a heroin-addicted actress in Lisa Cholodenko's "High Art."
Since then, she's been working nonstop in 19 films, mostly independents, including dazzling work as a disapproving best friend in "Far from Heaven," a grieving divorcée in "The Safety of Objects," a cancer-stricken mother in "Pieces of April" (which opens in Seattle later this month), and a lonely artist in "The Station Agent" (opening Friday at the Egyptian).
Clarkson, who won a special award for outstanding performance at this year's Sundance Film Festival (for her work in "The Station Agent," "Pieces of April" and "All the Real Girls"), has also regularly been spotted on television, in high-profile turns in "Six Feet Under," for which she won an Emmy, and "Frasier."
She's everywhere, and Tom McCarthy, her director for "The Station Agent," says he knows why.
"For so many years, a lot of really great independent film directors have been crazy about Patty Clarkson," he said. "But I just think she's no longer a best-kept secret."
A native of New Orleans, Clarkson exudes warmth on screen (and in person; her velvety voice alternately purrs and crackles), along with a gift for creating honest, heartfelt emotion.
And, at 43, she's that rarity: a grown-up actress suddenly in high demand.
That was part of the appeal of the role of Olivia in "The Station Agent," a fragile painter grieving the loss of her son. Of the role, she says, "Tom got a 40-year-old woman right."
Clarkson said, "so often when women hit their late 30s, 40s, into their 50s (on the screen), we become either asexual or predatory, it's never just a real day-in, day-out existence. What is most alluring about this part is that he got a real sensuality and sexuality."
The film is a study in friendship, set at an abandoned train station in New Jersey, with Clarkson playing opposite Peter Dinklage, as a dwarf who loves trains and shuns people; and Bobby Cannavale, as a chatty hot-dog vendor seeking company. McCarthy wrote the three roles for the three actors, and in a way, life imitated art.
"In the two years of trying to get this film made, the four of us really became this quartet," said Clarkson. "And I do think the energy off-camera lives on screen.
"We were growing closer and closer through the two years of doing readings of this, sometimes hooking up for a drink in New York. Suddenly we arrived in New Jersey at the Howard Johnson's and I knew these men well, which paid off well in the later scenes of the movie."
She speaks affectionately of her director and two co-stars: "I just adore them."
Looking back on an intense five years of moviemaking, Clarkson has a few favorite roles. One, of course, is Greta in "High Art," which made many of the subsequent roles possible.
That role, said Clarkson, "finally opened the doors and put me in a place I so longed to be in, which is a diversity, choice and an eclectic mix of people, which I got to do at Yale." (Clarkson has an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.)
"It was such an awakening for me as an actress at Yale," she said. "It's taken me quite some time to get back to that, but hey, I'm there."
But she's also most fond of her work in the two movies opening this month.
"I love, love, love this part in 'The Station Agent' — it's closer to me probably than anything else I've done. And I do have a very deep, emotional fondness for my character in 'Pieces of April,' just for personal reasons."
And there's no slowing down in the coming months. After Toronto, Clarkson headed to Montreal to play a headmistress in Lucky McKee's horror film, "The Wood."
She's also finished shooting "Miracle," a Disney drama about the 1980 U.S. hockey team, directed by Gavin O'Connor ("Tumbleweeds").
And she's currently attached to five independent movies, and hopes to use her newfound clout to get them made.
"People say, 'Is it troublesome now, the recognition?' And I say 'No, it's great, maybe it'll help me get these movies made!' So I have great opportunities in the future coming, if we get the money together. It'll be a struggle, but I've been in that fight before, and won."
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com