Actress Sinead Cusack has spoken of her horror at being asked to play the most Right-wing character of her career — and about why she decided to take the plunge.
The Left-wing star will appear as Polly — a fiercely Republican mother — in the British premiere of American writer Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities, about a Palm Springs family with a dangerous secret.
Cusack, 65, said: “The husband and the wife, who I will play, are staunch Republicans, they have had dinner with Ron and Nancy [Reagan] and thought the war in Iraq was rather splendid. When I read it first, I was repelled, I think that’s not too strong a word, by that particular kind of Republicanism.
“I saw her as particularly monstrous and I wasn’t sure I could do this. She is as far away from me as you can get.
“I thought, why me? I always thought I was quite soft and warm. And then a few people like agents pointed out to me there’s a side of me that is quite tough. It does exist in me and maybe I can utilise it in this part.”
The Republican politics are crucial to the plot as Polly’s daughter, Brooke Wyeth, is preparing to publish a memoir which will expose a painful secret in the family’s past. Brooke and her brother, Trip, oppose their parents’ politics.
“The family implodes during the course of the play. I was interested in the family dynamic,” Cusack said.
“But my own politics have changed not one iota.”
The Old Vic is being transformed into a theatre in the round for Other Desert Cities, from March 13 to May 24.
