When Emily Mortimer enters the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden’s science lab—her makeshift dressing room for our cover shoot—she’s
sunny, warm and instantaneously apologetic. Her previous appointment, an
audition for a part she’d be thrilled to nab, ran late. The Pink Panther star—who played Steve
Martin’s love interest in the recent renditions—effortlessly transitions from
try-out to chit-chat as I pepper her with eager questions about her most recent
projects (Cars 2) and what’s to come
(Hugo Cabret). And with no available mirrors
and occasional foot traffic outside the unscreened windows, Mortimer remains
unfazed. She’s calm and collected and trusts the people around her. Such is
life for busy actress and Boerum Hill mother of two to Sam, age 7, and May
Rose, 15 months.
Just as the gardens are
beginning to wake to the season, we discuss city life and the many surprises
of motherhood.
How did you get your start in acting?
I went to Oxford University and
acted there, but I always did it. I would act out performances on the stairs
and make my mom and dad watch it. I would pretend to be this TV chef we have in
England named Delia Smith. She is this very boring, middle-aged woman who was
deeply Christian and extremely unexciting, but I was obsessed with her, too. So
I’d have my mom and dad watch me for hours as I poured bits of sugar into a cup
pretending I was her. And I always did plays at Oxford, which was really the
only thing I ever got up in the morning for.
Tell me about your childhood.
I was just very shy naturally,
so I lived this lone existence in the countryside. I got quite an education
being addicted to television. Five channels, three when I was young. I watched
films endlessly— lots of 1930’s black and white comedies. I watched things like
Adam’s Rib and Woman of the Year and these Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
films. I watched everything, really, and that’s sort of what got me interested
in the idea of show business.
Is that where the dream of acting began?
I didn’t dream so much of
acting as I did of performing. Some world I could escape into where I wasn’t
shy and I could have groups of friends. The backstage air kisses and the
camaraderie of it all! I also fancied being Debbie Harry and dancing around
singing into a hairbrush—kitschy and show-biz.
What brought you to the United States?
Love. I met my husband,
Alessandro Nivola, on a film in London in 1999. It was Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Kenneth Branagh version of the
Shakespeare play, which he did as a musical. I had about three lines; I was one
of the ladies in waiting. My husband had one of the main parts. I don’t think
either of us thought it was going to be anything more than a set romance – it
was physically impossible. But it became clear, as filming was drawing to an
end, that we couldn’t bear to be apart, and we haven’t really been apart ever
since.
How did you settle on Brooklyn?
Sort of by mistake. I had a
meeting with a director. And I was campaigning to get to New York, because I
felt that was at least halfway home. When I got here I realized I’d probably
spent about three weekends here in my entire life. I still don’t understand
where anything is. Someone will say “the Meatpacking District” or “the Garment
District” or whatever and I’ll think I
don’t know where any of that fits together. I feel like I venture into
Manhattan to go to the theatre or to go to a restaurant, or to go to Soho. I
know where Soho is, but that’s about it.
Would you say Brooklyn feels like home now?
Well England will never stop
feeling like home, but Brooklyn feels like home, too. My kids are here and are
very happy here and we have friends here. All our close friends live in
Brooklyn. My husband’s brother is a fantastic painter and he lives in Bushwick.
There’s a little flat of us here.
What do like about living in Brooklyn? What are some of your favorite
spots to take the kids?
Going to Brighton Beach. There
are not enough places in America where there are restaurants on the sea and
there, you can actually sit on the boardwalk, have a delicious Russian meal, drink
vodka and the kids can play. It’s a
little enclave where I speak Russian and everyone answers me back in English.
I also love coming [to the
Brooklyn Botanic Gardens] and to Prospect Park. I like the boardwalk in
Brooklyn Heights, too. It’s great having a view of Manhattan. That’s what I
like about living in Brooklyn, you get to see Manhattan. Sometimes we walk up
to the River Cafe and that area there near Dumbo, and we get a water taxi into
Manhattan.
I like my neighborhood, because
it’s very neighborhood-y. There are delicious restaurants and lots of good
shops—one can easily part with hard-earned cash. The only downside is that
there are too many people who look like us. There are moments when you look
around and everybody looks like you. Sort of fairly artistic, with their two
kids, and the strollers, pushing them through these brownstones and leafy
streets.
Tell me more about your children.
Sam is sweet, bright, and
funny. He’s basically the best company I know! He can be infuriating, as many
seven-year-olds can be, but much less infuriating than I can be, I’m sure. I
think he’s going to make a great husband one day.
My daughter, May, is sort of an
unknown quantity—quite a powerful little thing. But very game and funny, as
well, and sweet. I quite enjoy that. For the first year she hardly cracked a
smile and my friends used to joke that she wouldn’t have to have Botox!
What’s upcoming for you?
I have Hugo Cabret coming out in November, which is a Martin Scorsese film
based on a graphic novel written by Brian Selznick. It’s a wonderful book that
children of my kids’ age love. It’s set in a railway station in Paris in 1930.
It’s about a little orphan boy who winds clocks, but it’s also about the
beginnings of cinema.
Then Cars 2—it’s this international, grand prix spy movie. It’s
incredibly exciting, and beautiful to look at. Michael Caine and I are the two
British spy cars. Michael Caine is the classy, older, wiser spy; and I’m the
very technically savvy, but completely inexperienced and young rookie spy car
— Holley Shiftwell is my name.
The other thing is My Idiot Brother, which is a small,
independent comedy but with great actors: Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth
Banks, and myself. We all play grown-up siblings in New York and Paul plays our
idiot brother who screws up our lives, but in the end makes them better.
Do you have a favorite role to date?
The role I’m most grateful for was
in Lovely and Amazing. It was a big
deal because it was the first time anybody [Nicole Holofcencer] had cast me as
an American in a film.
There was no gap between me and
the character. I was as vulnerable and exposed and silly and adorable and brave
and as stupid as the character I was playing. For the first time I understood
what it felt like to really be amongst exciting filmmakers and people who were
making that kind of movie. It felt like a noble profession. I felt like – Oh, this is why I’m here.
What have been the life lessons you’ve learned?
I think the only thing one
truly knows of life is that everything changes. Just when you think you’ve got
the swing of something, it all changes again. It’s deceptive and confusing. I
think being an actor prepares you extremely well for that, because your life is
lived in a constant state of change—you can’t make plans, you don’t know what’s
going on, whether or not you’ve got this job or haven’t, and then you can get
the job and the money gets lost and you don’t have it. Life can go in all
different directions.
Who has been the most influential person to you in your career?
In a funny way, I think my
husband has. I think he’s taught me how to take myself more seriously. He
taught me to accept that this is what I do, and that’s why I want to do it as
well as I can and there should be no shame in that.
We both understand each other’s
neuroses and he can help me with my auditions and I can help him with his. We
can talk a lot about our jobs. We have exactly the same interests. I don’t know
what it would be like to be married to someone who isn’t an actor, because I
haven’t tried it, but it seems to be a good thing for us, anyway.
How do you maintain work-life balance?
It’s a very forgiving job. You
can bring your kids to work, and they can sit in your trailer. In some ways,
it’s a really good job for mothers. The people that employ you understand your
gypsy lifestyle, traveling with your entire family. And there are periods of
unemployment, which means you have long periods where you can be totally
engaged and present, and can be picking them up from school everyday. There’s
something to be said for the weird, self-employed nature of our job. But as
Sam’s getting a little bit older, it becomes harder to know exactly how to
juggle it. It’s sort of the big unknown, these next few years. We’ll work it
out, we always do.
Does your son have a favorite movie of yours?
I would say Cars 2. He and I went to Pixar a month
or so ago, out in San Francisco. My car in the movie is very technical, and
gadget-obsessed. Sam just sat there open-mouthed. At one point, I pop out these
wings and start to fly, and he looked at me and said, “Mom! You’re amazing!” I
took all the credit and lapped up all his pride and awe. He’s never been quite
so proud of me before—that was a fantastic moment.
What have been the biggest surprises to you about parenthood?
I get such a kick out of the
unfolding of them [Sam and May Rose]. I was expecting the pleasure to come from
seeing myself in them, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to get much out of that
because I’m sort of down on myself. I thought the least like me, the better. Then I realized it has nothing to do
with that. People arrive and they already are who they are; they have much less
to do with you. It’s just about watching and finding out who they are. I really
feel that both of them might as well have been brought by storks. They came
into the world as complete beings. I get so much more pleasure out of it, than
I would have if I had been somehow responsible for forming them. I’m totally
biased, obviously, but to me, they’re both really incredible people. It’s a trip
getting to know them.
Mary DiPalermo, mom to
an elementary-, a middle-, and a high-schooler, writes and shares her special
parenting perspective on New
York Family’s blog “Parenting in
Progress.” She lives on the Upper West Side.
