Actress Joan Allen is known for the varied and challenging roles she has played over the years onstage, film, and television.
Born in Rochelle, Ill., this local talent studied at Eastern Illinois University where she performed with John Malkovich. She joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company when he asked her and has been a member ever since.
Allen won a Tony for Burn This on Broadway, then received three Academy Award nominations for the films Nixon, The Crucible and The Contender. She starred in The Ice Storm, Face/Off and Pleasantville, then took over The Bourne franchise as CIA Director Pamela Landy.
She now returns to her roots to reunite with Chicago's theater scene after more than two decades to lead Steppenwolf's The Wheel. It's the story of a woman named Beatriz who goes on a journey in the middle of war-torn Spain. Windy City Times called her to discuss the past, present and future of her career.
Windy City Times: Hello, Joan. I originally met you at a screening for your movie Off the Map.
Joan Allen: That was a while ago!
WCT: Roger Ebert came to that preview.
Joan Allen: Oh, yes; I remember that.
WCT: What brought you back to Steppenwolf after all of these years?
Joan Allen: It was timing. I have lived in New York since 1983. I have a daughter who is now 19. I had done a lot of theater with some very intense plays in the '80s. I was a little burned-out and I had this child. I really wanted to devote myself to her and knew I would only have one child.
To come here and do a play takes three months of your life. I didn't want to uproot her. I couldn't not say "good night" to her for three months, to my only beloved daughter, so that was also part of it. She is 19 now and I had been away from the theater for awhile. I had some interesting, difficult life experiences for a few years that I think helped me develop as a person. It was just the right time.
WCT: So when did you reconnect with them?
Joan Allen: Last December. I hadn't done a play with Steppenwolf for years and Martha Lavey, the artistic director, came to New York and was excited about the upcoming season. She invited me to do a few play readings. I thought it would be a really good time for me to put my toe in the water and so I did.
It felt really good to do the play readings with ensemble members who I hadn't read with in a long time. We ended up not doing those plays. Last January Martha asked me if I would read The Wheel. I had spent some time with the director Tina Landau at those readings and I thought she was incredible. I read the play then talked to Martha and Tina and just felt like it was right. So that is how it happened. We then picked the slot it was going to be in so I knew last January that I would be doing it.
WCT: Having a daughter must have really added to your performance in The Wheel.
Joan Allen: I can't even begin to tell you! Yes, it had a tremendous impact on me and my experiences with her. I don't think I could have done the play without going through what I went through as a mom, learning about life and love and all of that stuff.
WCT: The show goes on such a journey. How was it working with the kids?
Joan Allen: Great. The kids are amazing and incredible, so dedicated. Emma Gordon in particular is so focused and Daniel Pass too. They are like nine and 11 years old. They were just troupers. They love the theater and have done a lot of theater work themselves. I love them and the entire cast. The whole rehearsal process was phenomenal.
WCT: The Wheel seems like a good show for Halloween. I was thinking The Bad Seed for a minute there!
Joan Allen: [Laughs] Well, you know it becomes very interesting. What is this little girl? Is she really bad or just a product of all of the things she has been exposed to? My character starts questioning because I sort of capitalize on whatever people think about her in order for us to survive. I am the one that needs money for the train so I ask her to pull a bullet out of a wounded guy's side.
WCT: That was gross.
Joan Allen: It advances things to see if I caused this. I have a line, "Is this my doing?" She hurts people and she does bad things but I think it is her own guilt about what I have asked of this child to do. It is about war and children so pretty intense.
WCT: I loved the art direction.
Joan Allen: Isn't it just incredible?
WCT: Soldiers wearing boas in one transition was unique and the music is also done really well.
Joan Allen: Yes, even the way the play opens up with Chaon Cross, who plays my sister. We were just talking last night behind that curtain saying, "This is the coolest play ever and aren't we so lucky to be a part of it!" It is almost more of an experience than a play. The play opens with a wedding and so conventional then I just love it when Emma comes onstage for the first time. The audience has no idea what they are in for.
WCT: That's true.
Joan Allen: None, they have no idea what is going to happen once this girl comes into the picture.
WCT: Chaon looks like your sister. She resembles you a lot.
Joan Allen: I know. It's really good.
WCT: It seems like it is meant to be that you are back in Chicago for this show.
Joan Allen: It is. Sometimes you have these moments of synchronicity in your life. I have had two or three of them maybe. This is definitely one of them. This is the right time, the right play, the right director, the right cast, the right homecoming, being back in the city. I am kind of high over the whole thing!
WCT: Are you getting to have fun in the city while you are here?
Joan Allen: During the rehearsal things were really intense and demanding in the best way but now that the show is open and I have days free I may actually do something.
My assistant doesn't know the city. She is from North Carolina, and it was a such a glorious day the Monday after the show opened so we walked on the shore of Lake Michigan. I wanted to take the boat so we did the Chicago architecture tour. It was so beautiful! We walked in Millennium Park, which I hadn't really seen.
One Monday during rehearsal we got in the car and I wanted to drive past every apartment that I ever lived in during the '70s and the '80s in Chicago. I wanted to look at every place where the theater has been so we did that including going up to Highland Park where the original theater was on Deerfield Road. It was really cool to do that.
WCT: Are you making some more movies? I am a huge Pleasantville, fan, even going back to Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Joan Allen: I just completed one in June. It is a Stephen King film called A Good Marriage.
WCT: Is it based on one of his short stories?
Joan Allen: It is a novella, actually. It is part of an anthology called Full Dark, No Stars. There are four novellas and that is one of them.
The story is about a couple married 25 years with two children when the wife finds out he is a serial killer.
WCT: Scary!
Joan Allen: Yes. Anthony LaPaglia plays my husband. The first part of the movie you think this is a good marriage then one night his wife stumbles on something in the garage that completely changes things. Then it is really about what will she do once she finds out.
WCT: You are involved in these scary roles now. Would you want to be on American Horror Story?
Joan Allen: You know, I have not watched it. I am not a big television watcher but people say it is really great. My daughter loves it. Now that the play is open maybe I will pull it up on Netflix and watch it.
WCT: Perfect for this time of the year!
Joan Allen: Exactly.
The Wheel spins through the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Tuesdays through Sunday through Nov. 10. Tickets are available at www.steppenwolf.org or by calling 312-335-1650.
