Weeds S07E13

Mary-Louise Parker isn’t America’s sweetheart. She isn’t Julia Roberts or Drew Barrymore. She isn’t bubbly and effusive and adorable. She’s rough around the edges and a little surly, the kind of woman who could probably handle herself in a bar fight. (A real bar fight, not the movie kind with breakaway bottles.) And she isn’t just like that in real life. On her Showtime series Weeds – currently in its seventh season – she plays a widow who sells marijuana to support her family and has recently been involved in a messy relationship with a Mexican drug lord who shares her enthusiasm for rough sex. It’s a role she reportedly took over a plum gig on Desperate Housewives (which eventually went to Teri Hatcher), choosing Weeds because, in her words, “it was uglier.”

Sipping tea as she sits for a Saturday-morning interview at a Manhattan hotel, Parker is strikingly pretty, with long, glossy, black hair. By now she is thoroughly comfortable as Nancy Botwin. "I love our show because it isn't just the norm," Parker said. "We don't hold back. We get a little bit out there, and that's fascinating to me."


Over the last few seasons of Weeds, we’ve learned that Nancy likes her sex a little freaky. She wants a lover who isn’t shy with the slapping and the spanking. Is that something you can relate to at all?

I think for her, sexuality is something that she wields. And she needs sex to be somewhat punitive. You know what I mean?

It has to feel like punishment?

Yeah, in a way. I think a lot of people have so much guilt wrapped up in sex, so they almost can’t tell the difference. There’s a scene we did for this season that gets pretty explicit. It was just supposed to be sex in a bar, but I really wanted it to be almost abusive. Because I think she needs it that way. And that’s really informative. If you just see two people fucking on screen, it’s not necessarily revealing about those characters. But if it’s coming from a particular point of view, that’s when I think it gets interesting.

There’s a line in the trailer for this season, in which you joke about going down on Linda Hamilton. Is that…? (Long pause.) I don’t know where I’m going with this question.

(Laughs.) Take your time.

If I can steal a line from Tina Fey, I want to go to there.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. But no, that’s not happening. It’s just something they put in the trailer because it’s funny, but it doesn’t actually happen. It’s not a bad idea though. I’ve always thought that Nancy should have sex with a woman. It’d be good for her.

Would it help if we started a letter-writing campaign?

Like a grassroots sort of thing? Yeah, we should do it. “People In Support of Nancy Botwin Embracing Lesbianism.” Right on.

You’ve been called a “thinking man’s sex symbol.” Does that mean dumb people don’t find you sexy?

I guess so. Dumb people don’t want to fuck me. (Laughs.) I really don’t know what to say. “Thinking man’s sex symbol.” What do you suppose that means?

I’m not sure. When you get approached by male fans, are they usually neurosurgeons or college professors?

Not really, no. And thank god. I couldn’t even have a conversation with a neurosurgeon. I wouldn’t know what to say. I think that’s probably not an accurate way to describe me. Plenty of dumb people want to fuck me.

Oh god, that’s not going to play well in print, is it?

I think it’s great. What are you worried about, offending dumb people?

Yeah, I could be alienating the dumb people who want to fuck me. I’m just happy that anybody considers me a sex symbol at all. It does not cause me any amount of grief to be objectified in any way. I welcome it.

If your fans can’t be categorized in terms of intelligence, how would you describe them? Are they a certain age or social class or demographic? When you’re approached in the street, what’s the common denominator?

I never know why people come up to me. I think a lot of them just get super-excited because they recognize me from TV but they don’t remember where. It’s not like they’re necessarily happy to see me, you know?

You’re just the lady from the talking picture box.

Yeah, exactly. I think it’s a little dangerous if you overvalue that kind of attention. My son has recently started to notice it. One time a lady came running up to me in the street and said, “I love you! I love you so much!” And my son asked me later, “Why did that stranger say she loved you?” That’s a very hard question to answer.

How do you explain it? “The world is full of lonely freaks?”

I just said, “She was being hyperbolic, honey. Sometimes when people see someone from television, they feel like that person has come to life and they’re not just inside the TV box. They get very excited and don’t understand personal boundaries.”

And sometimes they like to give mommy pot brownies.

Precisely. But thankfully, they haven’t really done that in view of my children. Although my kids have started to hear about it. They know that my character on Weeds does something with drugs. So now I get questions like, “What are drugs?” And I’m like, “Well, it’s something that … people do.” It’s so hard! Sometimes it’s just easier to say, “She does things that are really, really naughty.” Kids love to hear that. “Oooh, like what?”

Well, like sometimes she has unprotected sex with Mexican mobsters and ends up having their baby.

That’s right. And sometimes men spank her in the back of limousines.


Television Series: Weeds (S07E13- Do Her/Don't Do Her)
Release Date: September 2011
Actress: Mary-Louise Parker
Video Clip Credit: El amigo










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