PASADENA, Calif. _ Although actress Holland Taylor has played everyone from Nancy Reagan to a tabloid queen, she says she never thought she'd aced it.
"I never felt that I was a master," she says. "I have felt that I was a member of the wedding, pretty much."
While most people know her from her spot-on performance as the self-absorbed mother of the "two men" on "Two and a Half Men," Taylor says it wasn't till she wrote her own role that she felt validated.
That play was her one-woman show, "Ann," in which Taylor portrays the late, larger-than-life Texas former Gov. Ann Richards. PBS will air that portrayal on "Great Performances" June 19. (Check local listings.).
"I had met her once," recalls Taylor. "I had, actually, a private lunch with her and one other person. And I fell in love with her. But I was already in love with her from her persona in our culture because she had been around by then quite a while," says Taylor.
"And I think that that knowledge of her is what really fueled my desire to write the play. I felt she was a very valuable, necessary hero in our culture. And that's why I wrote it. And I researched it, deep immersion, for three years before I put pen to paper."
The outspoken Richards served as governor of the Lone Star State from 1991 to '95. Taylor was attracted to Richards' candor and commitment.
"Ann Richards inspired people on a one-on-one basis as a live person," she says. "And so I thought if I can recreate the persona, some of the inspiration will come along with it like a hologram.
And it did. And so I know her very well ... Because of all that study, I could write a play. I wrote everything that she says in the play. There are a few sentiments of hers that are in the play, but they aren't like great quotes. They are how she felt about things ... I used direct quotes, but not (for) those lines, because everybody knows them. So I wanted to be fresh and new."
Richards was a devout people person, says Taylor.
"She was always the life of any party. And she was a convivial person who wanted to be amongst people. In fact, she even said, 'I feed off of people. People give me energy.' She said, 'I just suck everything out of an audience and out of my friends. I absorb them into my being.' So she needed that," reports Taylor.
The actress says she was profoundly affected by Richards' death in 2006. "I was so mournful when she died, and I realized as I experienced it, that I thought this is a terrible loss for America as well as me. I felt like a child. I couldn't accept it. So after some months of that, I thought, 'I have to do something creative.'
"And long story short, I realized I had to do a play about her because she was a live performer herself. And then I thought, 'I can't pay somebody to research this and write this. I have to research it anyway. I've been in a billion plays. I know what makes plays work. I'm a handy writer.' So I wrote it."
Creating your own role has its perks, says Taylor.
"I've had situations where I'd audition for things where they would say to me later, 'We've made such a mistake, we're sorry we didn't go for you for this other reason.' Or sometimes it's not a mistake, it just doesn't go your way. It has nothing to do with your abilities. They say, 'We actually needed a brunette.' I've had that said to me and justifiably. There are very stupid reasons why you don't get work ... That's one reason why the creation of 'Ann' was such a major creation in my life," she says.
But that creative process took its toll.
"I had a physical collapse after. 'Ann' had a really long run, eight a week, a three-hour show. It ran longer than we ever thought. When it closed, that period of my life came to an end in one day _ it's over. Then all those people were gone.
"I literally think I had a true case of PTSD. I'd lost 20 pounds on that job. My doctor said, 'You're unable to eat enough to support this work.' I became really frail after that long run. Then my world disappearing, all those people gone, all those people gone, all the joy gone, I had a serious, serious depression afterwards which I believe was physical as well.
"I was in the hospital for a while. I just needed time, contemplation _ and then back to work."
BACK TO 'THE OFFICE'
The masses who have enjoyed America's version of "The Office," with Steve Carell, John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson should take a look at the British original arriving on BritBox Tuesday.
This was the antic vehicle that booted Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Martin Freeman into American box offices.
The 6-foot-7 Merchant co-created the series with Gervais.
"I met Ricky when I was quite young, and because he's got such an amazing talent and also is someone who people trust him to do things _ maybe because he was older _ the BBC trusted him in a way they'd never trusted some 20something guy," recalls Merchant.
"There's something about him that people trust. That was great. Somehow our forces joined together and we sort of moved at a pace that perhaps we wouldn't have independently of each other," he says.
"We were working on a radio station together. We had a radio show and would also do other stuff on the radio station. And I left and joined the BBC and while I was at the BBC, I was able to film this kind of character that Ricky had created who, in essence, became David Brent who was the lead character in 'The Office' that he did. It was through that good fortune that that whole thing got rolling," he says.
"We didn't start out as writers. I always aspired to be a sitcom writer, but Ricky wasn't, but just had the untapped talent. When I used to work with him in his office he would say, 'Have you ever met someone like this?' And he would play out David Brent's type of behavior. So he had this fragment of this idea.
"So I said to him when we had this opportunity to make a short film at the BBC, and I said, 'We should make him into a character.' So Ricky formulated him into this person. Ricky gave him the name. So he created the character really. I just helped him sort of corral him."
The result was the hilarious Anglo version of "The Office," with Gervais in the role that was later inherited by Carell.
CHRISTIE CLASSIC ARRIVES SATURDAY
The ever-moving cloud of Agatha Christie hovers over Ovation Saturday with the premiere of the six-part series "Partners in Crime," featuring a fun-loving married couple who thwart espionage and devilish deeds from all quarters.
Starring David Walliams and Jessica Raine, the series is based on the 1922 novel "The Secret Adversary" and the 1941 novel "N or M?" The tale begins with Part 1 of "The Secret Adversary" and will air at 7 p.m. Eastern/4 p.m. Pacific.
Raine, best known for her work on "Call the Midwife," "Informer" and "Jericho," tells me she tried out three times before she was accepted at drama school.
While she was auditioning, she worked for a British telecom. "Oh, God I was just awful at my job," she says. "It was a help line for people who were having trouble with their internet. I can't even explain to you what I did because I don't know what I did. I'd find myself on these conference calls and staying really quiet on these global conference calls.
"They'd say, 'I think the problem is in London.' And I was, like, 'Hellooooo?' That was when I was auditioning for RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) so I was praying to get out of there. I was not there for very long, but it felt like a long time. I was surprised they kept me on."
VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE THREATENS AMC
Quick, take cover, more vampires are on the way! AMC has just clinched a deal with author Anne Rice and her son to create new productions of her popular other-worldly novels. Her "Vampire Chronicles" and "The Lives of the Mayfair Witches" series include 18 titles that are designed to drain your blood with titles like "Interview with the Vampire," "The Vampire Lestat," "The Queen of the Damned" and "The Witching Hour."
AMC plans on making series, films and streaming shows from this "buried" treasure. Rice and her son, Christopher, will serve as executive producers on all of the projects.
"It's always been my dream to see the worlds of my two biggest series united under a single roof so that filmmakers could explore the expansive and interconnected universe of my vampires and witches," Anne Rice has said. "That dream is now a reality, and the result is one of the most significant and thrilling deals of my long career."
