A 30-year-old influencer suddenly finds herself in the body of her 70-year-old self in the body-switch comedy “Mack & Rita” starring Diane Keaton. In her new (older?) incarnation, she’s surrounded by a group of friends who become something of a Greek chorus. One of those women is played by Wendie Malick.
“It’s a great celebration of women friends at any age, and a reminder that women can stay fabulous right up to the end,” said Malick. “The allure of this movie is that so many of us had role models that were older. My grandmother, for instance, was an opera singer who gave it up to raise her kids, but my grandfather owned a hotel and she would go in and sing songs to people in the tavern. She celebrated life in her own way and seemed comfortable in her own skin. And now more than ever, with young people being judged on social media, it’s very hard to get to that point.”
As an actor, Malick is known for her perfectly timed sardonic line readings. It’s a talent she’s brought to everything from “Dream On” to “Just Shoot Me!” to “Hot in Cleveland.” Was she like that even as a child? “My mother and her friends, who played bridge together and raised their kids together, all had a similar sarcastic sense of humor and I could do all their voices and their mannerisms. One night my mother said, ‘So I understand you do us — let’s see what you do!’ And I thought, oh dear, they’re going to be mad, but I showed them and they loved it. Those women have filtered through so many of the characters that I have done.”
When asked about a cringey moment in her career, Malick recalled a project that required getting up close and personal with an unappealing co-star.
My worst moment …
“This was in the early ‘90s. I was was working on a murder mystery series with an actor, I’m not going to mention his name.
“He and I played a couple and I got him to murder someone for me. And this actor had bad breath. His hair was thinning too, so he put that powder stuff all over to cover the bald spot. There was just something very lecherous about him (laughs ruefully). Whenever we were about to have a big mosh moment, I’d see him staring at me from across the set and spraying some mouthwash into his mouth and sort of leering at me. So that was a little bit disturbing.
“And I realized it was one of those exercises we have to do as actors. You don’t always get someone where you immediately think: I could get into this. So I had to learn how to endow him with qualities that he didn’t have because we had to make out a lot on this TV show.
“It was so off-putting and he had bad breath, even after using the mouthwash. So I just pretended he was the guy I was dating at the time, that’s how I was able to get through it. I do a lot of ‘act as if’ and then fill in the blank — it’s usually ‘act as if you know what you’re doing,’ which can get me into big trouble.
Like the time my husband had a medical procedure and he had a port for a while. When they sent him home they said, ‘Do you think you can handle it?’ and I said, ‘I don’t think it’s a problem. I mean, after all, I’ve played a doctor on television.’ And I got home and realized I was so clueless and I thought I was going to kill him (laughs) so we had to bring a nurse in.
“But there is some ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ in acting. It’s a leap of faith and you draw upon whatever you have in your own wheelhouse that you can endow your character with. And my theory is that we all exist on a spectrum, in terms of sexuality and gender and personality. Some people are more in the middle, but we have all of it in us. The capacity for murderous rage, for example, I think exists in everyone, even though it might be buried deep, deep down.
“When it comes to love scenes and sex scenes — unless you have a sense of humor and someone you can really play with — it can be really awful. They’re not what they’re cracked up to be (laughs).
“I haven’t been called upon to do quite as many as I’ve gotten older (laughs) but I remember I did a movie with Enrico Colantoni (her co-star on “Just Shoot Me!”). I think it was the first hiatus we had during ‘Just Shoot Me!’ and he and I were very good friends by that point.
“We did this Western where there was a scene where we were both naked in a bathtub with candles all around — and then my ex-husband rides up on a horse to the picture window. It was so ludicrous! The movie was called ‘Divorce: A Contemporary Western.’ It was one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever done. We weren’t wearing flesh-colored whatever because at one point we had to get up and walk out and you saw our backsides as we left the bathtub, it was something like that.
“Being naked for that scene, it was sort of like being at a nude beach. After a few minutes you realize, it’s just a variation on a theme. But it helps immensely if you’re with someone with a good sense of humor.
“We didn’t shoot the scene until 2 or 3 in the morning. So we’re finally in the bathtub and he looked down and said, ‘I’m usually not this small’ (laughs). And we were sitting in that tub water for hours with these ridiculous bubbles and candles and we got to laughing so hard that it took forever to get through the scene. I think Elias Koteas played my ex and he couldn’t ride — nobody on this movie could ride! — so Elias came up walking his horse to the picture window of the bathroom as we’re giggling in the suds. The whole thing was mind-bogglingly silly (laughs).
“But when I get to laugh like that, it’s the greatest gift in the world.”
Back to the co-star with the bad breath, did anyone else on set pick up on Malick’s feelings?
“My hair and makeup people knew (laughs) because I was like, ‘Uggggh!’
“But I also didn’t want to be cruel. And I very much believe in giving it your best, even if it’s not always a terrific setup. You don’t want to feel like you’ve short-shrifted a job. Any time you say yes to something, you have to give it your very best.
“I did watch the show when it aired and I could tell what I was really feeling. I’m not sure about the audience, but I could tell (laughs). Well, I gave it my best.”
The takeaway …
“As an actor, in a pinch, you can always endow someone with qualities they don’t possess.
“I mean, I worked on (the ‘80s sitcom) ‘Kate & Allie’ and it wasn’t any secret that they (stars Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James) were not friendly. They didn’t talk to each other. But they played best friends! I did an arc on that, I played Jane’s ex-husband’s wife. And they were both lovely to me, but they’d had a falling out and didn’t speak to each other.
“Anyway, it was fascinating because they learned how to work together and America probably never picked up on it.”
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