My interview

When I was living in New York City's West Village, I got the chance to do an interview with Cherry which turned out to be the cover story of a magazine called Upstages.

Here are some highlights...

Back before she won her second TONY award for Doubt, she'd become the toast of Broadway for her first TONY award-winning performance in a play called The Heiress.

"I'm outside a downtown cafe waiting for Cherry Jones. Scanning the horizon I'm not quite sure who to look for. After years in regional theatre and short-lived New York productions she has finally achieved Broadway Star status with her role in last season's The Heiress.

Since chances are good that she won't come gliding down Seventh Avenue in a hoopskirt and bonnet, I'm not sure I'll even recognize her. When Cherry does arrive I'm a little shocked to find her so tall, striking and, well, contemporary.

She's immediately engaging and focused, with a smoky trace of a drawl from her childhood in Paris, Tennessee. Shiny sky blue eyes, set in translucent, lightly freckled sin, crinkle up when she laughs. Underneath her lanky, athletic grace I glimpse a mischievous child.

We talk about the long run of The Heiress.

DA: It was a year, wasn't it?

CJ: Just under a year - something like 371 performances with just one day off a week. And I didn't take vacation and I didn't miss a show, so it was really 371 performances.

DA: I loved the first image we had of Catherine, coming down the stairs, so erect.

CJ: I wanted Catherine to have one thing that she did really well. I imagined that when she was a little girl she saw some beautiful woman, who she wished had been her mother, floating down a staircase. And from that moment on she practiced over and over to get it.

...on going in as a replacement in Angels in America:

CJ: I'm a pretty athletic person and I don't have a fear of heights. That said, I didn't have enough rehearsal time to get completely comfortable up there. In one of my first performances as the "angry angel" in the black costume, I had to do a flip. Well, I got halfway through it, to where my head was pointing straight down and my feet straight up, and got stuck. My girlfriend said I looked like this huge bat from hell, hanging there upside down. I finally had to just grab the wires and pull myself up. Just a little humiliating.

The real nightmare was just trying to fit into a piece and never feeling really comfortable and strong and true. "Nightmare" is too strong a word. I got that from Maureen Stapleton. When I first moved to New York I went to see her in The Gin Game. The next day she came into a restaurant where I was working and I said, "Oh Miss Stapleton, I saw you last night in The Gin Game and I just thought you were fantastic."

And her eyes just rolled around in her head and she went, "Ahhhhh! It was a nightmare!" and she flew out of the place. So ever since, when I find myself in difficult positions, I just think of Maureen and it's like, "Well, ma'am, now I know what you mean."

DA: You played Hannah in The Night of the Iguana at the Goodman Theatre, before it came to Broadway. I understand it's your favorite role.

CJ: Yes, it is. She's the most extraordinary individual I've ever gotten to work on. She's figured out a way to -- a way to live. And to enjoy each moment and not take one thing for granted. And although she's asexual there's such a sensuality about her enjoyment of life.

She's not some cold, New England spinster -- a term I hate, by the way. To reduce Hannah Jelkes to a phrase like that is so obscene because she's just so amazing. Tennessee just gives you so much in all of those amazing, winding sentences. You watch her thinking through all these "floral bouquets" of sentences and then - it all becomes beautifully precise.

I think The Night of the Iguana is his masterpiece. Unlike his other plays, which are also great but somehow suffocating -- this one just opens up to the sky. Hannah has a line: "broken gates between people" and -- for me -- well, we're all ultimately alone in this life. And at times that loneliness is more devastating than others. We just can't bear it anymore. There's something about this play that offers a way of approaching life. It's about so many things -- feeling hopeless -- and about grace -- and endurance. She's learned how to endure. She's one of those people that, for whatever reason, is never going to be with a mate.

There was this wonderful woman in my home town named Miss Miriam Cook, whom I think of as being a Hannah Jelkes. A highly intelligent, beautiful, ageless woman. And she's always been alone, but there's such a beauty and dignity to the way she's lived her life. I remember my mother saying to her once, even before she was even fully aware that I was gay, that she was concerned about me going into acting. She was afraid I would be alone, that I'd always be traveling and I'd have a difficult time finding a relationship.

And Miss Miriam looked at her and said, "Joanie, that's all right. Some of us are just meant to be alone, and that's all right. We have wonderful, full lives." She was trying to comfort my mother into understanding that just because I wasn't going to have the life my mother had, it didn't mean I'd have less of a life."

Cherry Jones Part Three

DA: Do you ever worry about being openly gay - that it might affect getting work?

CJ: Absolutely not. Never.

DA: Even in films?

CJ: If I were always looking for the next big Hollywood break, then I'm sure it would give me some pause. But since I'm not concerned with that, it's never been a problem. I do wish, of course, that everyone who is gay could be "out", because then it would be an ideal world.

DA: When people who are out gain notority - like you --I think it moves us all along. It chips away at that big wall of ignorance and prejudice.

CJ: Oh, tremendously. And of course being out has never been a problem with theatre roles. I don't think it's an issue - even if I were always playing the heterosexual leading ladies in comtemporary pieces.

DA: Any interest in that?

CJ: Oh, sure! I love and adore men. And you know -- I am an actress. I have played a few heterosexuals in my time!

DA: Do you ever have a bad case of nerves onstage?

CJ: I had one terrible night during The Heiress. One of the actors "went up" for a few seconds. Now, he came right back and found himself quickly, but for some reason it shook me. I was so panicked trying to think how I was going to help him that when he finally threw the right line at me I almost didn't come in!

DA: I asked Julie Harris how she deals with stage fright and she said she just thinks of how wonderful it is to share the playwright's words with an audience.

CJ: Right. You're telling a story.

DA: How do you elicit emotions that you need in a scene when they just don't come?

CJ: As I've gotten older it's much easier. I found what worked with The Heiress - where I had several tearful moments - was the the thought of the loss of (her then lover) Mary.

DA: That worked 371 times?

CJ: I could have used her every night. Some nights when I needed a break from killing Mary off, I'd use my family. I just need a springboard to get me to a heightened emotional state.

DA: What else makes you cry? I'm not trying to play Barbara Walters --

CJ: I can't cry over the past because I haven't had a difficult past. What I could cry over is the future. It's unknown. Old age and the future, to me, is something to conquer. The loss of loved ones. I can't imagine living without them. I'm a puppy! I want to be able to run and ride my bike and just play heroines forever. And I know at eighty I probably won't be able to do all that.

DA: Finally, Miss Jones, what is unique about you. What do you think you bring to the Party?

CJ: I do know that I have a presence. And I know that I have a kind of dignity that people respond to. I'm not a quick, brilliant person - so I guess it's a softer, slower, slightly quirky "take" that I bring to my work. And I do know that when I play my women, they exist. I'm not saying that in a mystical way, but for those two hours every night, they're absolutely real to me. And it's such a privilege and such a joy to be able to bring these great, beautiful words and thoughts to life every night. For me, it's just heaven on earth.