In recent years, Geena Davis has taken on a number of television roles. It sounds like a classic mismatched pair series, which is always a reliable trope the hook is that one of the mismatched pair presumably changed the other’s diapers at some point. The mother, now to be played by Marcia Gay Harden rather than Geena Davis, will be a high-achieving, A-type, currently in the aftershocks of a divorce. This being Mother AND Son, that job is as an in-house investigator for his mother’s law firm. While he may be a bit shady and undoubtedly has a personal life that is in shambles (we will place a decently large bet that the introduction of his character will be him being woken up by a phone call in a slovenly apartment), his talent as a detective manages to land him a new job.
“When you’re working, they’re home.Mother & Son is described as starring Skylar Astin as a former private detective who has lost his license due to some ethical “misunderstandings” (that are probably understandable, given that he’s the good guy here). Harden, who won a Tony Award for her performance as Veronica in “God of Carnage,” is putting the theater on hold for now. “In the wake of the divorce I needed to get away from all that was going on there. “I miss New York like nobody’s business,” she says.
“Madelyn has to ask herself what she wants to do next,” says Harden, who contemplated the same question before she moved to the West Coast. She gave an Academy Award-winning performance in 2000’s “Pollock” as Lee Krasner, artist Jackson Pollock’s wife, who put her own career on hold to minister to the painter’s addictions, afflictions and insecurities. Harden’s characters haven’t always been models of feminism. She has the innocence and a sense of loss.” Harden says Watling was perfect for the role of Lucy because “she has all the sex appeal and could bring the insane reasoning of a mistress. After Madelyn saves Lucy’s life, the two women become friends and decide to fix their problems by taking each other’s advice on everything. What the audience knows and what the characters know.” Madelyn has the upper hand, knowing that Lucy is her husband’s mistress, while Lucy has no idea that Madelyn is her ex-lover’s wife. The script is “rife for comedy,” Harden says. While some wives have an inkling that their husband is fooling around - clues such as the proverbial matchbook with a scribbled phone number or lipstick on the handkerchief - in “If I Were You,” Harden’s Madelyn is completely caught off guard when she stops for takeout and sees her husband, Paul (Joseph Kell), holding hands with a beautiful younger woman, Lucy (Leonor Watling). Queen Elizabeth II’s Style Throughout the Years Are we being punished for having children?”
The happens around the child bearing and child raising years. By and large, the statistics support the fact that there’s more cheating on the male end. There was a distancing and an infidelity. Infidelity is a common, accepted behavior. “Art imitates life in some ways,” says Harden, explaining that she accepted the role in “If I Were You” 18 months before filing for divorce early last year from Thaddaeus Scheel, her husband of 15 years. In her latest film, “If I Were You,” opening today, Oscar winner Harden plays Madelyn Reid, an under-appreciated wife who befriends her philandering husband’s mistress. Hillary was right: It does takes a village.”
“You juggle the balls and some of them drop. “I love that in this day and age we can straddle home and job,” Harden says. The actress, who moved to California from New York with her three children after a recent divorce, is finding the balance between work and home, but not without the occasional help of a girlfriend.