E-mail a friendMary McCormack
airdate June 15, 2009
Actress Mary McCormack's résumé includes TV's The West Wing, ER and the new USA Network original series In Plain Sight. An accomplished stage actress, she was nominated for the '08 Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her role in the Broadway revival of Boeing Boeing. The New Jersey native began her acting career performing in a Christmas opera at age 12. McCormack made her feature film debut in '94's Miracle on 34th Street remake and won critical acclaim opposite Howard Stern in Private Parts.
Actress discusses the witness protection program. (3:24)
Full interview. (10:15)
Mary McCormack
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Mary McCormack back to this program. The talented actress received a Tony nomination just last year for her work in the Broadway comedy "Boeing-Boeing." She also stars in the popular USA Network series, "In Plain Sight." The show airs Sunday nights at 10:00. Here now, a scene from "In Plain Sight."
[Clip]
Tavis: Wow, pretty serious.
Mary McCormack: Yes, really serious. I'm no fun.
Tavis: Tell me about this no-fun character you play.
McCormack: I love this part. I play Mary Shannon and I'm an inspector for the witness protection program, so I hide people for a living - people who have either committed a crime or some of them aren't criminals but they've witnessed a crime or have information about a crime, and they have to start their whole life over, in our case, it's Albuquerque. We shoot our show in Albuquerque and so I protect people and give them new identities, new names, in Albuquerque.
Tavis: This matters not at all, but my mother watches the show every night.
McCormack: Oh, great.
Tavis: And one of her favorite -
McCormack: That matters a lot to me.
Tavis: Well, no, that does - hi, Mom - that does matter. One of her favorite cities, though, is Albuquerque. This doesn't matter. But what's it like filming in Albuquerque?
McCormack: I love it. It's a great city. First of all, it looks beautiful, the show. I think the show has a really specific and pretty look. It's in New Mexico so it's big, blue skies and sort of open space. I have two little kids, so it's a great city for kids. They've been really welcoming to us, and New Mexico, there's a lot of shooting going on in New Mexico, so.
Tavis: Yeah, I've been reading that they're doing more and more; that's why I asked. They're doing more and more of it there. So is this the first time in your career that you've played a character named Mary?
McCormack: Yes, I love it. It's easier.
Tavis: So Mary's playing Mary.
McCormack: I'm not so bright. It's simple.
Tavis: Mary is playing Mary.
McCormack: Yeah, and that was her - she was named that. People think it was written for me, but it was - I just picked up the script and read it, and her name was Mary and she was from New Jersey; I'm from New Jersey. There was a bunch of really weird coincidences.
Tavis: Beyond New Jersey, like what else?
McCormack: I call my daughter, my oldest daughter, I have a nickname - I call her Squish. And in the show, in the pilot, even, she called her little sister Squish.
Tavis: You're lying.
McCormack: Which is - what kind of nickname is that? I don't even know where I got it.
Tavis: Are you serious?
McCormack: Yeah.
Tavis: How weird is that?
McCormack: It's really weird. I don't believe in anything spooky or weird, so it's just a coincidence, but it is a nutty one.
Tavis: Yeah, but her personality, though, is nothing like yours, though.
McCormack: There's some similarities.
Tavis: Are you cheap like Mary is?
McCormack: I don't think I'm cheap, that's one difference. I'm actually not cheap. But I can get pretty grouchy. She's a bit of a grouch; she's a little too quick to judge. I've been known to judge quickly. I have some similar frailty.
Tavis: What attracted you, though, to the character when you saw it - to your point about that first script?
McCormack: Well, it's a great part. I love her sense of humor, I love that it's a part that maybe 10 years ago would have been written for a boy. It's great - I get the gun, I get to beat up the boys. It's not a superhero part. David Maples, who created the show, I think, was careful. Just because he's writing a strong woman didn't make her this sort of - a woman who's not in the real world.
He wrote someone who also is obviously broken on the inside and looking for things, and while she doesn't show any softness she's quite soft deep down - deep, deep, deep down.
Tavis: When you say some years ago this character might have gone to a man but now Mary McCormack gets to play it, and to your phrase play this strong woman, that means what to you at this point in your career, if anything?
McCormack: Well, it means a lot. And I shouldn't say probably strong woman, and I think it's a thing with actresses.
Tavis: Well, she's a strong woman, though.
McCormack: She certainly is, but actresses talk about that, the desire to play that, a lot, and I don't think - I think if we used our words more carefully, I think what we really want to play is complex women. Women that don't seem -
Tavis: One-dimensional.
McCormack: - one-dimensional. That women - we've known it forever - can be ambitious or can be cheap or all those different things, and also kind and sort of ethical all at once.
And so I think the nice thing about Mary Shannon is that she is a good person; she's just not always - doesn't always make the right decision or she's sort of grouchy. Women can be grouchy and still be feminine and still be attractive and still be moral and all of that.
Tavis: What do you think is making this particular series connect, because it's so highly rated on USA? Why is that, you think?
McCormack: I don't know. I never know why, but I think our show, at least some of the things I enjoy about it, is it's both a procedural - each week, you get to meet a new witness and those stories are always really interesting.
The witness protection program is fascinating, so that might be part of it, too, that the backdrop of the show is all about witness protection. Americans, we don't know - at least I didn't know a lot about that program. I'd seen "Goodfellas;" I listened to Henry Hill be interviewed a thousand times. But we don't really know a lot about it, and so that's fascinating.
Tavis: What has, to this point, at least, or did most intrigue you about the program when you started learning about it for the character that you didn't know?
McCormack: The thing that strikes me about the witness protection program was first of all how well it works - that there's witnesses everywhere. In every single city, in every single state, there's people who have started over - completely started over.
Tavis: So somebody in this studio right now on my staff could be in the witness protection program?
McCormack: Definitely. If you are, I know.
Tavis: Oh, you know a couple of them are?
McCormack: Oh, yeah. We already winked; we did a secret handshake, yeah. (Laughter)
Tavis: Wow.
McCormack: You know who you are - laughing. (Laughter) Yeah, no, it's fascinating. And also that they say goodbye to their families forever and ever - that they never call. You're never to call, you never write.
Tavis: I always wondered, does that really happen?
McCormack: It really does. That's how they stay alive.
Tavis: People really stick to that?
McCormack: Oh, yeah. No, they have to or they're booted out and then they'll be killed. Yeah, they're booted out for that. And I asked - we have a technical adviser and I said, "Does that really work? How do people never call their mother on their mother's birthday? How do they do it?" And he said, "We explain to the family."
Often, they'll call the family when they take the person and they say, "You're never going to see your son again. We want you to know -" this is the government - "We want you to know he's safe and he's alive and he'll be well and he'll live a good life, but you're never going to see him again and you're never to reach out to him, and he'll never reach out to you."
And so they sort of try to calm it, I guess as best you can, or diffuse that what must be enormous loss and pain.
Tavis: So you violate the rules, you get kicked out of the program. How exactly does it work when you get kicked out of the witness protection program?
McCormack: You're no longer protected. I don't check on you, I don't make sure anyone's not coming after you. If you reach back to your life, if you - the reason the witness protection program works is because they don't - they can't find you. So if you call your friend from high school, eventually that opens - the friend from high school knows where you are, the friend from high school decides to come see you. If you really want someone dead, you follow the friend from high school.
Tavis: So practically speaking, if I'm in - well, since you said some of my staff are in - so those who are in the program, when they go on vacation, they move around the country, they do this - routinely as I travel - I'm on TV, so it's a little bit different.
McCormack: Very different.
Tavis: It's a little bit different.
McCormack: Yeah.
Tavis: But there are people who knew me before I was on television.
McCormack: Right.
Tavis: I haven't seen them in years. This happened a few weeks ago. I was in an airport and somebody said, "Tavis." And if you're in the program, how does that -
McCormack: I don't think you're allowed to travel without getting approved of where you're going. I'd have to know where you were going. You'd have to get permission. You're not really allowed to just willy-nilly travel.
Tavis: So is it worth or is it really living, if you're in the program?
McCormack: Yes, because otherwise, he's dead. Well, I don't know - I guess that's for each person to decide, and some don't. I guess they die or I don't know. It is a huge loss. Starting over, saying goodbye to every person you've ever met? I don't know; that's a good question.
Tavis: Have you figured out yet whether or not it's something that you could do? Could you go in this program? Your daughters, you've got two baby - you've got two daughters now.
McCormack: No, of course not. So yeah, no, so I - well, yeah, but then I guess -
Tavis: And a husband.
McCormack: And a husband. I have a husband and two daughters, so could I - no, I don't think I could go in the program. But I guess we'd all go in the program. Yeah, I'd bring them with me, that's what we'd do. I got it all worked out - they'd all go in. (Laughter) You can take a whole family. We take them.
Tavis: Oh, yeah.
McCormack: Oh, yeah.
Tavis: So the girls would go with you.
McCormack: Yeah. (Laughter) Bummer for them, but who are they saying goodbye to? Some other four-year-old? (Laughter) They'll make it.
Tavis: It's a fascinating look at a whole nother way of living.
McCormack: Yeah, it's interesting. And then on my show we also - David Maples, who created the show, likes to refer to it as a "focedural," because it's not really a procedural because you also follow the story of me and my mom and me and my sister and my on-again, off-again boyfriend.
So you sort of also invest in Mary Shannon's personal life too, so it's a little bit of both, which I hope that's part of why it appeals.
Tavis: Speaking of Mary Shannon's personal life, I hear that one of the other similarities or ways you brought the characters together is that you are addicted to your CrackBerry?
McCormack: Well, I'm not proud of that, but yeah, I love my BlackBerry.
Tavis: So you're a crack addict, addicted to this CrackBerry.
McCormack: I'm a crack addict, let's get that out there. (Laughter)
Tavis: You're addicted to this crack -
McCormack: "Did you hear Mary McCormack said she was a crack addict on 'Tavis Smiley?'"
Tavis: On Tavis' show, yeah. So you're addicted to your BlackBerry.
McCormack: I do love it.
Tavis: And you've written that into the show how?
McCormack: I didn't write it in, but often I noticed that law enforcement types, if they're undercover, which my character is, will wear a BlackBerry or a phone. And so I thought, well, I could wear my BlackBerry on my belt; that seems very official. I use it a lot in the show, I make calls all the time and stuff. But then sometimes I'm actually just making a play date for my daughter.
I'm also a mom. I'm allowed to do - I've got to multitask, I'm on set many hours. So I'll arrange a piano lesson or a play date in the middle of a scene, it's been known to happen. I'm not proud; I'm not methody. (Laughter)
Tavis: So this line between Mary and Mary is getting more and more blurred every day.
McCormack: Look, got to get stuff done when you're a mom. Every mom out there will empathize.
Tavis: Yeah. Then again, I guess if the president could figure out how to have his BlackBerry, which they told him he couldn't have -
McCormack: I know. I love that. I related to his pain for the few weeks that it seemed he was going to have to say goodbye.
Tavis: I thought it was amazing, though - he put his foot down on that one.
McCormack: I understand.
Tavis: And they let him have it.
McCormack: Yeah. Well, you'll notice on "In Plain Sight" sometimes, I'm scrolling and texting.
Tavis: Mary's doing the same thing. Well, I'm glad to have you on.
McCormack: Oh, you're so sweet.
Tavis: It's a great show, "In Plain Sight." Top-rated show on USA, starring one Mary McCormack playing Mary Shannon. Nice to have you on, Mary.
McCormack: I always enjoy it. Thank you so much.
Tavis: Good to show you. No, my pleasure.
Back to June 15, 2009