Marissa Jaret Winokur is an actress who is noted for her Tony award winning role in Hairspray and she has appeared in both film and television, including American Beauty, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Muffin Top: A Love Story. She also had a stint on Dancing With The Stars.
Her role in Muffin Top as a teacher’s assistant to a professor who talks about feminism and the role society plays in perpetuating the stereotypical images of what the ideal body should be. The movie is a fun, quirky comedy, but it also encompasses a message about being happy about yourself the way you are now.
In addition to these roles she has been a part of, Winokur has a new project that was just announced, which will be on a late-night talk show for TLC where the topic is, as the title puts it, All About Sex. It will premiere in Jan. 2015.
TheCelebrityCafe.com’s Elizabeth Learned spoke to Winokur about her career in Broadway, her newest film, and what she has coming up next.
ELIZABETH LEARNED: You have had a history with the Broadway circuit, including your Tony award winning role for Hairspray. What do you love most about being on Broadway?
MARISSA JARET WINOKUR: Broadway is just a live theater for the audience, it’s the element of the live theater and character I love. With TV and film, it goes into an edit, you don’t know what you’re gonna get, where in live theater it’s, like, here you go, this is what you get.
EL: Your career has been full of both movies, television, and some Broadway, including being a wife and mother. How do you balance the roles you have in your life?
MJW: I don’t! I always wish I could be 100% an actress or %100 a mother, or %100 a wife, but I call it 25% I’m doing everything 25%. I wish I could do one of the things really well. I feel like before I had a son and before I got married, I was like a really good actress, but now I’m like kind of a good actress, then I was a really good wife, then I had a son and I’m like…so I think being a mom definitely comes…I don’t balance it at all. I’m barely balancing my schedule today. There is no balancing.
EL: Your most recent role was on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Do you have a preference for the type of acting roles you take, such as television or movies?
MJW: No, I like to work. I genuinely like doing movies, I like doing TV, I like hosting, I like playing Broadway, I literally like, I’m about to start hosting a show for TLC late night and people are like ‘Wait, I thought you were on broadway, Tony-award winning actress and now you’re like hosting’ and I’m like ‘Yeah I like to work.’ You know, I just kind of go by whatever jobs are being offered by to me, like CSI is great, I would love to do more drama. I love doing comedy. I just like to work. Unless you’re, like, Reese Witherspoon, you don’t get to be that picky.
EL: Your film Muffin Top has a deep message attached, even though it’s a fun comedy movie. What do you feel is the most important message for girls to take away from this film?
MJW: Oh, I think the tagline even says ‘Love yourself now, not five pounds from now.’ I think that’s really the most important thing, that people genuinely start figuring out what they love about themselves rather than point out what they hate about themselves.
EL: What was your favorite aspect of being part of this film?
MJW: You know what, I love being part of the film, but I really enjoy after the film, which I normally don’t get to be a part of after the film. You normally premiere the film and go see it. We’ve been doing these screenings all around and there’s like 12 screenings in every city, and we’ve been going to them doing talk backs with the audience and hearing what they really think about the movie. It’s been really exciting and the movie’s out so I can tell my mom to go, you can see now on Demand.
EL: What drew you to playing the character of Elise?
MJW: The first time I read the script, I didn’t know who they wanted me to play. It was the first time ever, in my entire career, read a script, and I could have played more than one character. Normally, it’s ‘Oh, there’s the funny sidekick, or that’s the chubby best friend, I know what you want me to do.’ But there’s so many parts for funny women in this movie that it was the first time I read a script where I was like ‘I could play more than one role in this movie’ and I would happily have done any role in that movie. It’s so rare to work with female comediennes, you’re usually the only female comedienne on set. It was really awesome to work with that many females.
EL: The topic of feminism is prevalent in this film, especially since there are so many difFerent opinions on what a real feminist is. What do you think it means for someone to be a feminist?
MJW: Well, I definitely changed my opinion from watching the film. I think a true feminist is someone who is a strong woman, someone who wants to be in complete control of her body. I think before I would have thought a feminist was something different, from the 40s a suffragette, but I really believe a true feminist is a woman who does what she loves to do. Just because I wear big hair and make up doesn’t mean I’m not a feminist. I believe in women’s rights and I believe in equality, everything that true feminists believe in, you know, but I do like make up, I like pretty hair and dresses. I get to where what I want to wear and do what I want to do. I think that really changed from watching this movie.
EL: You recently spoke about being comfortable with your own body. What drove you to being able to feel good about yourself when there is so much pressure for an actress to be thin?
MJW: I felt the pressure my career, I’ve been battling that always. I just, I can honestly say I lost 60 pounds and was super skinny. Everyone said ‘You look great, you look great,’ but I never felt any like ‘Oh my god I feel so much better, everything’s perfect now.’ That wasn’t what my life was. Then I got to a place where I put on a little weight and I said ‘Oh, my happy place, this is my happy weight.’ When I spoke to People, I was totally exaggerating. I worked out 6 hours a day and eating 1200 calories. That wasn’t happy for me, I wasn’t happy doing that everyday. I was happy I lost weight, but to maintain that was insane. It was more, like, I went to this place called Fitness Ridge in Utah. I listened to what they had to say and a lot of what they had to say is ‘Look, just be healthy, get your mindset around being kind to yourself, feeling like enough.’ Hollywood is really hard, but I have come out unscathed in my career. It’s one of those things where so much is going on and I stopped trying to change myself to fit into that mold. And just figure out what I’m gonna do and who I’m gonna be. I think that slowly is what I’m working on. And I have found a much happier ground for my family, for my life. I am an all or nothing girl. The all part is it was all I thought about for a year, and it wasn’t kind to my family or myself.
EL: Marcia Wallace appeared in the movie, which turned out to be her last film. What did you enjoy most about working with her?
MJW: She is a class act. We had a really great scene where we were sitting around, drinking wine, and I will treasure that forever. She was one of the greatest comediennes, a strong woman, she’s got a great son, she was a great mom. I definitely, as a young mom myself, although I have a six-year-old, I definitely looked to her as ‘wow, she’s a great actress, she was there for her son, she’s a comedian.’ You know she did a lot, broke a lot of ground, I was grateful to get to work with her.
EL: What projects are you looking forward to working on next?
MJW: I am starting a new show for TLC, a late night talk show about sex. Margaret Cho, Heather McConnell, and I are all co-hosting some late night talk show for TLC and I’m never going to tell my husband, I’m going to be pretending I’m going somewhere else on Saturday nights. It’s going to be fun and, hopefully educational, and interesting, but most of all funny.
Image courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com
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