Mary McDonnell Tells All About Surprise The Boroughs Role

Netflix’s The Boroughs was touted as a showcase for famous septuagarian actors (including Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Clarke Peters, Alfred Molina, Ed Begley Jr., Dee Wallace, Jane Kaczmarek, and Bill Pullman), but one such star’s involvement remained a secret until debut: Mary McDonnell, the Oscar-nominated star of Dances With Wolves and Passion Fish, who popped up in a very key scene as a character known simply as “The Duchess.”

In the series, the Duchess is a completely catatonic resident of the titular retirement community, but she can be summoned from her slumber by one thing: a lit cigarette in her mouth. Yes, the taste of a single smoky drag can summon her from her mental hideaway, and when she emerges, she’s completely lucid and communicative. It is through the Duchess that we learn about the truth of “Mother,” the fantastic creature whose children have been feeding on the residents (and who has been kept as a prisoner by its ageless overseers).

Here, McDonnell talks to TV Insider about her unique role in the series and more.

This was a big production from the Duffer Brothers, who previously did Stranger Things. How was it for you to be a part of The Boroughs?

Mary McDonnell: Well, it was delightful in that when it came to me… they told me who the cast was. First of all, and I’m like, “OK, wait a minute, these are all my peers.” Many of them, I’ve worked with. Alfre, this would be our fourth time. And you just don’t have that experience in Hollywood. You don’t have an entire cast full of baby boomers to play with, so there was that right away. I was attracted to it, and it was beautiful to walk into it. It was almost like we’d all been in a kindergarten class together, and then moved into first grade, and I hadn’t seen them for a while, and they stayed in the same class, and I went to a different one. Then I came back into their class in third grade, and everybody was just so sweet and fun, and Alfre and I were screaming, and I was talking to Geena, and it just felt like this is very unusual experience, and I’m going to treasure it. I had one day.

Obviously, this season ends on a conclusive and satisfying note, but there’s still room for Season 2. So, is there some hope for you about reprising the role of the Duchess? And if so, what do you hope to see?

I think that’s a question you’d have to ask the guys. What I would like to see is — she’s a fascinating woman, and I love the idea of exploring a woman who sees into other dimensions, and I love the idea of supporting that in a story in general. Because the feminine, since the beginning of time, whether they were called oracles, witches, seers, old crones, and now psychics, women have historically had the ability to touch different dimensions than the one that we nominally and slowly are living inside of the trap of that. And I love that she said that she was trapped in her mind, because she is, but it’s also releasing her into a world that, who knows what this woman will understand? And I felt in the way that she was written, that her past had prepared her for this. A, her name was the Duchess, so right away I went, “OK, she’s here.” I felt like she had education… But honestly, she’s been catatonic for decades and hasn’t moved much, so where does that go? The choice to allow her the information that connects with the potential for the future, I felt, was just a great honor to women who see.

I also really loved the vivaciousness that she had when she came out of the coma. And the fact that it was a cigarette and music that brought her back speaks volumes about what kind of life she must have led before this. What did you imagine she was like before that happened?

Well, I started imagining the Duchess differently once I got familiar to the script, but when I, Mary McDonnell, at 74, read that opening moment, I hollard. Because after I stopped, I said, “This is the best thing! This is perfect!” Because I grew up in the ’70s. I came to life in the ’70s. The boomers found out who they were in the ’70s, and for me, there were so many cigarettes going at one time, you didn’t even know who smoked because no one noticed, and it was intimate, and it was community, and it had tribalism in it, and it had so many wonderful things, and so Mary was just like, “Oh, I can connect with why that would be the thing that brought her up to life.”

If I was catatonic and someone gave me a chance, I would have woken up. Do you know what I mean? I mean, it just totally made sense to me culturally, my generation, and also it’s intimate. Smoking is an intimate feeling, so that led me to a kind of energy I felt she must have, and then clearly she loves Anna, her darling, and I thought this woman is capable of great love. She seemed quite comfortable in being a Duchess, so who knows what kind of life she had, but she certainly had an education, and she’s confident, and she’s cultivated, and it all started falling into place. But Mary’s in the ’70s was probably not quite like what I imagine the Duchess in the ’70s was. I think I was a little more rock and roll counterculture, in the dirt… I don’t see her there.

Netflix

Well, who knows? I mean, maybe they could do a flashback and find out. With Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers did a lot of mental work. I love the idea that you brought up the telekinesis being a quality of hers and not just a consequence of Mother, because in Stranger Things, there was this kind of mental platform that the characters could go to sometimes, and I wonder if that might be an avenue to bring these characters together again.

It could be, I think that they are in such an interesting place. Once I watched the whole thing, and I was so delighted by it, I was so.. I sat here in my living room and binged it about a month ago, and I was like, “This is so delightful.” There’s an element… I would say up until the past decade we regarded nostalgia as something that we tried to get people out of, we would say, “Oh, don’t be so nostalgic, yada yada,” but I think what these guys know, and they know so clearly and do so beautifully, is that at this point in time on the planet, nostalgia is an active way to continue to move into the unknown, bringing it with us, because if we let go of it, and we’re facing so much chaos, and we’re facing all of this unknown with AI, and we’re facing alien life, and we’re facing [other things] but we’re not bringing Bruce Springsteen with us, and we’re not bringing the beauty of old cars, I think we’re gonna lose our way, and I kind of feel like that’s in it, and I kept saying, “Oh my god, look what they’ve done, they’re giving us something that I think is a bit of a roadmap.”

We asked some of the other cast members this, but if you had the chance to take Mother’s blood for yourself, would you do it? Why or why not?

Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know, and I have to really think about it. I’d have to separate from the Duchess to know what Mary would do. That’s a good question, but maybe I would.

There’s a lot of back and forth about it. It’s definitely a thing. It’s a moral question, I guess.

A moral question — what’s interesting, I think, about the times you’re living in again — is that sometimes what we used to think was a moral decision or a moral choice, particularly in leadership, and I think that Mother is a leader and that Mother’s healing potential is leadership at size form, you have to go beyond what you thought was a moral choice prior to that moment.

I’m a big fan of Mike Flanagan‘s work, so I was delighted to see you in The Fall of the House of Usher. That was a 10 out of 10 for me, for sure. And I love that one of the things he does is, he as this fan of Flanaverse troupe of actors. And now that you’re part of that group, I just wondered, are you hoping at some point to collaborate with him again? What was that like for you?

We loved each other. It was delightful. There’s something about him that I think people can probably — people in the arts who are creators, and people like yourselves probably can guess, but for the general public — he’s so brilliant and so eccentric. He’s just off the charts, but what you don’t see is what he’s like on a set. He’s the most playful kind of [guy]. He’s kind of like a court jester. He’s so confident, you say, “Hey, I’m going to try it this way.” He’d say, “Great, let’s see what that does!” So you feel free, and yet he’s absolutely charting the course exactly the way he wants. He’s a bit of a genius, that Mike Flanagan, and yes, I’m sure we will find the right thing.

Another creator who’s a genius who’s had a ton of great work is Noah Hawley. You worked with him on Fargo. We know you’re a space gal, thanks to BSG. Do you think there’s any chance we might get to see you guys collaborate again? I mean, he’s working on Alien: Earth Season 2 now, so there’s that.

Yeah, I don’t know. He was wonderful. He asked me to come in and do this … I know we [have] a very strong connection and a great understanding, yeah.

The Closer and Major Crimes were huge for you. In this era of reboots and revisiting things that people love, is there any chance you might hope to revisit that world?

Well, I died at the end, and it’s not sci-fi. [Laughs.] But my thought would be — and I love these people, I would jump in again in a heartbeat — is that there’s a ton of story to explore before the end, and if you want to open it up and go inside what we did not see. It would be delightful. Oh my god, yes. What a cast.

What else are you working on? I saw on your Instagram that you have a new movie in the works. What else are you working on that fans can keep up with?

So, I have a couple of things coming out. I had the good fortune last year of doing a couple of episodes on the new Marvel [Vision], and it was so much fun. That too was this thing of — being a guest star is really one of the most difficult jobs you can take… because you’re walking into a well-oiled machine, and most of the guest stars’ roles I’ve done have always been walking into an already great ensemble. Walking onto a Marvel set, you have to be really ready, and I had a lot to say. He wrote the most interesting monologue that I say in the middle of this event, and then things start to go. I think it’s going to be outstanding. Again, an extraordinary cast.

So that comes out in October, and then after that, I went to Bulgaria, and I worked on an independent film on the books, the first of which is One Second After, which is an apocalyptic, very difficult story. That was an interesting choice, because I have a tendency to want to be in stories that give us light somewhere in higher ground. This one, I fell in love with the people, because there, it gives us hope in there isn’t any higher ground in after this event, and so it’s really just the human beings who allow life to occur, and it was a beautiful experience I had. And I have something else, but it’s being announced tomorrow… and I just started it. Yeah, but I can’t tell you. [Editor’s note: The very next day, Mary McDonnell was announced as part of the Baywatch reboot cast!]

The Boroughs, Season 1, Streaming now, Netflix