Sissy Spacek thrilled to play midwife on TV
Associated Press
PASADENA, Calif. — Sissy Spacek looks unconcerned when the photographer points out that her soft, wispy, ginger-colored bangs are shadowing her eye.
Don't they always? Her casual coif flops around a face that is both elfin and prairie pioneer; a face that for nearly 30 years has grabbed a full share of screen time without ever resorting to vanity.
Texas-born and now 51, Spacek is starring in "Midwives" (9 tonight, Lifetime), the 100th original Lifetime movie. Spacek plays Sibyl Danforth, a rural midwife charged with the death of one of her patients. The movie is based on Chris Bohjalian's novel, which reached No. 1 on best-seller lists and was selected as "Best Book" of 1997 by Oprah's Book Club. Directed by Glenn Jordan, the movie also stars Peter Coyote as Danforth's attorney.
She had read the book a year or so before she was offered the script, adapted by Cynthia Saunders.
"I loved the story. I was stunned by the ending," Spacek said, cutting herself off from revealing too much of the plot. She admitted, "I carried the script around with me for four or five days before I had the courage to read it."
She was scared it wouldn't live up to the book. She believes it does, although at this point she hadn't seen the finished movie.
"I felt the script captured the essence of the book, and I know the novelist is very happy with the screenplay."
Her copy of the novel became very dog-eared as she reread it several times when tackling the role. She felt that "if I knew all the things that are in that woman's head, maybe some of it will come across just by me knowing it. . . . You just do your best."
Spacek's best has earned her the best-actress Oscar for playing country singer Loretta Lynn in the 1980 film "Coal Miner's Daughter." She's also been an Oscar nominee for her roles in "Carrie," "Missing," "The River" and "Crimes of the Heart."
Her most recent feature film is "In the Bedroom," a movie about family and love. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to good reviews.
"It's a good, provocative title, but I assure you it has to do with lobster traps," she said with a laugh.
Spacek loved acting as a kid.
Her first memory of being on stage was tap dancing and singing a couple of songs, including "On the Sunny Side of the Street."
"I must have been 6 or 7. With a little glitter, a little top hat, I was off." So now is Schuyler Fisk, Spacek's 18-year-old daughter. She stars in the upcoming high-schooler-goes-to-college movie "Orange County."
Spacek's younger daughter, Madison, is 12. "She's my little Huckleberry Finn. Up until very recently, she did her homework in a tree, but now she's got down to her computer."
Growing up, Spacek said she also was a tomboy.
"I had two older brothers whom I just worshiped. I wanted to be a boy. I spent the better part of my childhood trying to kiss my elbow because I was told if you kissed your elbow you would turn into a boy . . . I spent the early part of my life trying to prove that girls were as strong and capable and could do anything that a man could do. Then I got pregnant and had a baby, and I realized that I could stop trying because I realized how powerful women are."
Spacek met her husband, artist and director Jack Fisk, when he was the art director on "Badlands" in 1973.
She can reveal no secret formula for the success of their marriage.
"I married the right guy. He's just funny, makes me laugh," she said.
