(upbeat music)
- It's so exciting
to see you come back to the stage.
And I feel like anybody who's been
on Broadway always has that urge to come back.
And I think this is right around
your debut of 35 years ago, right?
- Yes, you're right!
I hadn't thought about that.
Yeah, that's right!
35 years ago,
that's when I first was
in a show in New York.
Yeah.
- So what brought you back this time?
What made you come back?
- Well, what's happening is
there's an abortion advocacy group
that was created in New York City
by a group of theater artists called "A Is For".
And so, together with
the Playhouse Creatures Theater Company,
they're producing this reading that we're doing
of this play called "Griswold".
This play dramatizes the life
and the work of this woman, Estelle Griswold,
who I have the honor of playing.
And I've really learned a lot,
even just working on the play so far.
So, she engineered her own criminal arrest,
which then resulted in
the landmark Supreme Court case
which established the right for sexual privacy
and directly paves the way
for all the other guarantees of liberty,
including the right of same-sex couples to marry.
So, it's this amazing woman,
incredibly important case,
and, um,
it's the coming together
of these two organizations,
"A is For"
and the Playhouse Creatures Theater Company,
who are dedicated to activism and art activism.
- Her story's so incredible
because she orchestrated her own arrest.
Do you ever want, I mean, I always wonder
like, how did somebody come up with, like,
that was gonna be the way to make change?
You know, I don't know that anybody, you know,
a lot of people don't think like that,
and so I always find
that backstory of the story so fascinating.
- Exactly! Yes.
And that's really what the play
dramatizes
in the most kind of vivid way
is that she was an advocate for contraception
and reproductive rights for women.
And so she knew that she had to
get it into the courts
and she figured out
that the only way to do that
was basically to get herself arrested.
- I think it's also fascinating,
her age, when she did it,
because I feel like I'll oftentimes, you know,
women hit 50 years old and, you know,
they're like
Am I invisible?
Am I not seen?
Am I, you know, I'm in my midlife right now
and those were a lot of the fears I went through.
But to hear somebody doing that, you know,
and she could have just said,
"Well, somebody else can can handle this
and do this", but she was out there
and put herself up front.
I think that was a really special part
of it for me, too,
on hearing her story.
- Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying.
There's so much stigma around women and aging
and all of it is really created by a culture.
And we, as women,
who have our voices
and have our experience
and have our professional experience
and our personal experience,
need to remember
that isn't necessarily true for us.
That we can feel this great sense
of empowerment, and really,
in a way, one becomes more free
as one gets older.
- Yes.
- Because you're not kind of saddled with
a lot of the same concerns that you had
when you were younger, maybe.
It's so important that we not
take on that message of feeling somehow
ashamed for our age.
It's really, it's a myth.
It's just such nonsense.
And, and now we have that opportunity
more than ever as women
to just dump that garbage
and live our lives in the way
that we feel is authentic,
and give voice to things that matter to us.
(dramatic music)
- I'm playing the lottery and I won $15,000.
- Why didn't you just tell me?
- We barely have enough money to retire on.
This is no time to risk it.
- Yes, it is.
- What?
- You know, no matter what you do,
you do it with grace.
But I was flipping through
and I did see "Jerry & Marge Go Large".
In being a news person,
I was familiar with the story,
of the real couple,
and I was just curious about that.
I mean, that looked, looked just
like a really great role to play.
And Bryan Cranston is, you know,
he's just a favorite of mine through the years.
And, also, a, you know, obviously,
a fellow Broadway actor, as well.
- Oh, he's amazing!
It's a true story
about this couple from Michigan.
And Jerry is a numbers whiz.
He was looking at the lottery
and the rules for the lottery,
and he noticed that there was a flaw
in the way that it was constructed,
and that turned into a 10-year project
where he and his wife,
I play Marge, his wife,
and they brought in their family,
they brought in their community,
and they would go and buy
huge amounts of lottery tickets.
They didn't cheat.
That's what's so important,
and it's important-
- [Tamsen] Right!
- for them.
They always wanted to-
us to implement that.
They didn't cheat.
They found a flaw.
Jerry found a flaw.
They and their friends, and this whole group
that they were a part of
made millions and millions
and millions of dollars.
Yeah! It's just a great story.
- I loved it.
What was the real couple like to meet?
I was curious because I,
you know, I saw the pictures-
- [Bening] Yeah.
- of the end and I just,
I, like fell in love with them
when I originally heard this story, so.
- We went and met them
before we made the movie
and they're just
down-to-earth mid-westerners.
Their personalities are kind of
a little bit reversed
that what we did in the film.
Marge is so incredible.
I came from the Midwest
and my parents are from the Midwest
and she reminds me of so many of my relatives.
She was completely unimpressed
with being the focus of attention.
Jerry's a little bit more, kind of,
he enjoys it a little bit more,
talking about it.
And, he's just this brilliant guy.
She's, she doesn't need that
and in a way that I completely respected.
In the movie we only have a couple kids.
In real life they had six children-
- [Tamsen] Oh, I didn't know that.
- [Bening] And she would-
- Yeah!
- [Bening] and she ran a tight ship.
Her daughter told me all about it.
We laughed!
- You have to!
- Oh my God! We sat on the back porch
and just talked and laughed and, you know,
she made their clothes,
she sewed their coats!
I mean, she's, and, and she,
her house was immaculate!
(upbeat music fades)