Taylor Made

“I think everyone who really loves acting should try to do a play every so often,” says Lili Taylor. “It’s just something the soul of an actor needs.” With a career that spans film, TV, and theater, Taylor is once again treading the boards, this time in John Guare’s Landscape of the Body for the Signature Theatre Company. She plays Betty, a single mother in New York who’s accused of the murder of her own son. The piece has a dreamlike structure; the action flashes forward and backward and is intercut with songs. “John Guare is such a unique playwright,” Taylor comments. “There are interesting places in the mind and the spirit that he walks around in, and his writing flows into all these different areas in a melodious, unusual, and mercurial way.”

Taylor previously performed Landscape at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2003, in a production directed by Michael Greif and co-starring Sherie Rene Scott, both of whom are also back for the Signature staging. “I love Sherie,” says Taylor. “She’s so talented and is an amazing dancer and singer; I have this awe and admiration of her because those skills are not in my repertoire. And Michael is one of the great theater directors. At Williamstown, not only was he shaping my performance, I was getting an education, too. He’s got a very clear vision and knows how to talk to actors.”

The actress began her career at a young age, performing at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. (The workshop also served as a training ground for such people as John and Joan Cusack, Aidan Quinn, and Jeremy Piven, son of theater founders Byrne and Joyce Piven.) “It was such a fertile place in that suburban area, and I felt welcome immediately,” Taylor recalls. “I performed mostly story theater, which was a gentle way to come into learning about acting. It served as a great foundation.”

Her first film of note was Mystic Pizza in 1988, but her breakthrough came when she played Valerie Solanas in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). Taylor’s portrayal of the brilliant yet mentally disturbed Solanas earned well deserved raves from critics, and she still considers it her finest work. “It was the most complicated, the most difficult, and the most challenging part,” she says. “It’s rewarding, as an actor, to really penetrate someone’s psyche.”

Television viewers know her as Lisa Kimmel Fisher on Six Feet Under, but Taylor states that working on a TV series has its own set of difficulties. “I found it challenging to build a character with so many unknowns,” she remarks. “If I had known the direction in which my character was going, I maybe would have made different choices. What thrills me is collaborating with the director and writer. I build a character very carefully; if something new is thrown in, my performance is going to reflect that. I take every little bit seriously, and there’s a ripple effect that impacts everything.”

While she loves working in both film and theater, Taylor finds that the latter is often a richer experience. “It fills my soul a bit deeper than film does,” she says. “It nourishes and strengthens me more. When creating a role, it’s nice to be able to discover it on my feet so that it’s not just an analytical process. It’s more visceral.” (Taylor played Irina in the Roundabout’s 1997 Broadway revival of Three Sisters, received a Drama Desk nomination for her harrowing 2001 turn as a recovering drug addict in Dead Eye Boy, and garnered acclaim for her edgy portrayal of Lemon in The New Group’s 2003 production of Wallace Shawn’s Aunt Dan and Lemon.)

She has done extensive research to inhabit the personality traits and quirks of her characters but found this more difficult to do than usual with her role in Landscape of the Body. “Betty doesn’t really have a neurosis, which is often an easy hook,” Taylor explains. “Michael [Greif] helped a lot by suggesting film noir and the kind of femaleness that’s represented in those films. Betty’s a woman who’s solitary, strong, and stands up against the system. She takes the road less traveled and is a sexual deviant. These days, you don’t get to see that kind of woman much, and I find her interesting.”