Having a Good Time Though “Mass” is Martha Plimpton’s most somber screen role to date, the Oscar hopeful insists: “If it’s not fun, what are we doing it for?” By Casey Mink - Photographed by Zoe McConnell
MARTHA PLIMPTON IS, AS THE KIDS might say, booked and busy. Calling from Pittsburgh on a recent Monday evening, the lifelong actor is buoyant and generous with her time, despite having worked all day on set. Then again, being spread too thin is just about the best problem an actor can have. “Isn’t that the nature of the beast?” she says, laughing. Plimpton had planned to use the weeks of late summer to do press for her new film “Mass,” a four-hander from freshman filmmaker Fran Kranz. But as luck would have it, she instead booked a television job at what was almost literally the 11th hour. Given 36 BACKSTAGE 10.07.21
hours, to be exact, between reading the script and starting production as the new project’s lead, she’s been at work nonstop. For an actor who requires hours of scrupulous preparation before each new role, the feat sounds impossible. Fortunately for Plimpton, she’s no such actor. “I don’t have a set schedule for what I do for a job. I don’t have a checklist of, like: First I do this, then I do that, and I do this,” she says. “I don’t really work that way. I think the main impetus behind that, though, is just the desire to have fun. From my experience in my time doing this, I’ve found the best way to have fun is just to fucking do it.”
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