Jon Hamm and Lois Smith appear in ‘Marjorie Prime,’ an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. .Sean Price Williams
Snow was falling heavily in Park City the afternoon that Lois Smith held court, the sky dark and the overstuffed couch feeling especially cozy. It seemed a fitting setting to talk about memories.
Smith, 86, is the only actress at the Sundance Film Festival with memories of working with some of the most creative and dynamic minds in the arts, including James Dean, Tennessee Williams, Helen Hayes and Elia Kazan. With six decades onstage, in movies and on television, the actress was at Robert Redford's festival dedicated to independent film with the new drama Marjorie Prime, reprising the role she created onstage in Jordan Harrison's 2014 Pulitzer Prize-nominated play.
Smith's first on-screen performance was in 1955, playing nervous Anne in drama East of Eden, sharing a memorable exchange with fellow newcomer Dean. The scene plays like a flowing dance as they move around a brothel bar, Anne trying to avoid increasingly demanding questions from the 23-year-old actor as the tormented Cal.
She likely made some fresh memories, though, this past Monday night with the world premiere of Marjorie Prime, where she stars alongside Jon Hamm, Geena Davis and Tim Robbins.
The film's screenwriter-director Michael Almereyda credited his friend Smith as "the starting point" for the movie adaptation by urging him to see the play about Marjorie, a widow whose memory is rapidly failing. Her family arranges a modern aide-memoire; an artificial intelligence hologram of her late husband, Walter (Hamm), handsome as she remembers him from 40 years prior. Called a "prime," this Walter is solicitous, but he can only learn about Marjorie through shared memories from her daughter Tess (Davis) and Tess's husband Jon (Robbins), along with Marjorie's often-fragmented recollections.
"The future will be here soon enough, you might as well be friendly with it," Marjorie reasons with the arrival of Walter, although she's not always at ease with their cyber-human relationship. Walter sits with her. He reminds Marjorie gently about simple things, like to eat, as well as some harder things, like why she can no longer play the violin.
Marjorie Prime is really about selective memory. When we recall life events, what do we simply forget, see differently or deliberately edit? Which failings and tragedies are we better off not knowing about? "I sometimes describe it as memories lost and found," Smith said of Marjorie's struggle. Sometimes that means don't tell me, "or do tell me, because I think I know."
When asked about her 126 screen TV and screen credits the Internet Movie Database, from Fatal Attraction and Twister to playing fan-favourite "Gran" Adele Stackhouse in HBO series True Blood, Smith seemed surprised at the number.
"I do? I had no idea. Do I really?" she asked, laughing. "That seems impossible."
Does she ever cast her mind back to making East of Eden and the young Dean, then an unknown actor with only a brief career ahead, dying in a car crash less than six months after making the movie. She considered the question for a moment.
"I recently saw the film again and I think it's a wonderful scene and… I feel lucky to have had that for my first film," Smith said. "And aside from a tiny little moment early on, that is the only scene I have but it's a beauty. It's a long time ago and I don't think about it a lot but I think about it when it comes up or when I happen to see it."
A film clip surfaced on YouTube a couple of years ago of Smith and Dean in a silent black-and-white screen test for the film. They patiently regard each other, look off camera, put their heads together. Their chemistry is palpable.
Smith did have cause to consider what she had done over the past 60-plus years onscreen, though, when she oversaw a recent update to her demo reel. "It's hardly a casting reel for me at this point, but why not?" Smith said with a smile.
Her agents wanted to include some new clips, like a guest role on FX's The Americans which, as it happened, involved a woman sharing memories of her family as she considers her imminent death. "That was another beauty," Smith said of her scene in the TV drama. "When I saw that [script], I thought: 'Whoa, they're not always like this.'"
The editor also added something from her most recent film, The Nice Guys, as well as Five Easy Pieces and the scene with Dean in East of Eden.
"Why not show them how long I've been around and what some of the early things were?" Smith reasoned.
She frequently remarked how lucky she is when asked a question, whether about working with Hamm and Davis, or about a specific role. For his part, Hamm said at the Q&A following the screening he was pleased to be asked to co-star in "this lyrical, beautiful journey about memory and loss and humanity," in part because he is "definitely a fan of Lois's work."
Is Smith aware that, as a working actress in her 80s, many would see her as someone to admire?
"I'm glad to be an inspiration," she said. "I'm so fortunate, I really am."