Premiere Magazine
A Daughter's Role | June 2007

'Evening' star Mamie Gummer has inherited more than just famous features — she's come into an acting legacy. By Karl Rozemeyer Mamie Gummer's features would have had her crowned a classic beauty in a long bygone era. Her straight blonde hair frames an oval face with porcelain skin and high cheekbones, and she has a poise that echoes the Old-World patrician grace and casual modernity that defined women of the 1920s. She shares, say some, an undeniable likeness to her mother, renowned actress Meryl Streep, but Gummer lacks Streep's more angular features. By now, Gummer is accustomed to remarks about her disarming physical resemblance to her mom (best known as the most nominated actor in Academy Award history) But it was not until she saw herself on screen in Evening, her first major screen performance, that she conceded that there is a degree of similitude. "Right after I saw the film for the first time, I was like: 'Well, okay, yeah, we do look alike,'" she says. "I do look a lot like my dad. A bit of both." Her dad is renowned sculptor Don Gummer, best known for his large public art pieces of bronze, stainless steel, and glass. And even though she must have been acutely aware of the perils of choosing to walk in her mother's overarching shadow, following in her father's footsteps was never an option. "My youngest sister has an eye for that, sort of an artistic hand," explains Gummer, who is one of four children. "But it's sort of eluded the rest of us. My father's profession is a very solitary one. I love acting because I love people, and I don't know that I could spend every day alone like he does. "I've always loved acting. I've done it since I was little. I did it all throughout school. I studied it in college. Both my parents have been really supportive of the decision to pursue it professionally."

The Streep-Gummer home in Connecticut was not host to the kind of Hollywood soirées that would find celebs hanging out being fabulous — that is, of course, aside from her A-list mom. Gummer is, however, cautious not to align herself too closely with her mother's fame and is dismissive of the notion that she may feel pressure to live up to any lofty expectations. "People can look at me and think whatever they are gonna think," she says with quiet forcefulness. "I can't do anything about it. But it hasn't really affected me. This is the life I've had for the last 23 years, and it's no different really now." However, in Lajos Koltai's Evening, she takes on her first significant screen role by literally playing a younger incarnation of her mother. After a few off-Broadway stage performances, most notably in last year's Mr. Marmalade and a few lines in The Hoax, Gummer was offered the part of the jittery young bride Lila Wittenborn (who is played in her older years by Streep) in Evening, an adaptation of the bestseller of the same name by Susan Minot. Screenwriter/novelist Michael Cunningham (The Hours, A Home at the End of the World) offered the role to Gummer, who didn't hesitate to accept. Having read the script, she felt she could relate to the character immediately: "I just felt a kindred [connection]. And the script is written so beautifully that you really just fall into that world.

"I received the script, and I went in and auditioned and read a couple of times and was offered the role, and then I think it was later on that they approached [my mother] to play this other part," Gummer says. Director Lajos Koltai (better known for his cinematography for films such as Malena and Being Julia) confirms the timeline, precluding any rumors of nepotism. "Mamie came in for testing for the role of Lila," Koltai says, "and I didn't know she's the daughter of Meryl Streep!" He says he received "an unbelievable gift" when he cast Mamie early on in the pre-production process and was even more blessed when he was able to attract Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson to play mother and daughter in the film. When the two mother-daughter teams all came on board, he recalls, "this film became much more true, much more believable because you see the biological contact between them. All these relations were very important to the film. It was great to see them together." A film that follows the moving journey of an elderly mother on her deathbed recalling the most emotionally significant events of her life, Evening gave Redgrave and Richardson the unique opportunity to portray mother and daughter on film for the first time in their long careers. Streep was only on set for two days filming a single (but pivotal) scene in which she comforts her dying friend, Ann Lord (Redgrave), and recalls a turning point of their young adult lives. Gummer, however, was not present.

"We never worked side by side," Gummer laments. "We never actually even saw each other on the set due to the restraints of time and space." But Gummer did get the chance to view the rushes and to closely match a mirroring scene that she had with Claire Danes, who portrays the younger, unmarried Ann. The actress seems pleased that the film addresses issues of compromise and regret without offering any pat outcomes for the lives of either Lila or Ann. "That's one of the harder questions that's raised at the end of the film: 'Who really was the better?' And it's not an easy question. Life isn't like a movie script. Things don't necessarily end in a convenient way. It's a lot of questions that this film raises and not always answers, but that, I think is okay," she says. Gummer and Danes have become firm friends as a result of their experience on set. "We basically met at Newport," says Danes. "I think the collective chemistry was pretty strong. We're all still incredibly close. I don't think that's ever been true for me on any other movie."

Danes, who had previously portrayed Streep's daughter in The Hours, jokes about switching her allegiance. "I'm over her. Mamie is now my mentor. I guess it is a bit funny. I haven't worked with many of my friend's mothers before." The role has opened up new vistas for Gummer, who hopes that Evening will now take her "to the moon." "Right now," she says of her future plans, "I'm doing this miniseries about John Adams for HBO. I'm working on that, about to go to Budapest, and then I'm doing a play in Williamstown, Massachusetts." Has her mother offered her any advice about pursuing a career in the film business? "Plenty," laughs Gummer, but she is quick to apply it to her most recent experience: "But one thing that has really stuck with me — especially as it pertains to this film: She said in regards to this [movie], 'Make sure to do everything with great love.' And that's what I tried to do, you know. I really did fall in love with the girl I was playing and everything that she was going through and I just tried to convey that as honestly as I could."

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