While Marisa Tomei might be best known for her Academy-Award winning performance as Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny or her role as May Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, her true love is actually the theater. Tomei, who currently stars Off-Broadway in The New Group’s production of Jessica Goldberg’s play Babe, felt a need to return to the spotlight after a four year COVID-driven hiatus. “I had to step on the stage,” she says. “Now.”
In Babe, Tomei plays Abby, a music executive in the A&R department. She works under Gus, played by Arliss Howard, an uncouth and politically incorrect industry veteran. As cultural conversations shift in the music world around diversity and inclusion, the company hires Katherine (Gracie McGraw), a young, sometimes self-important, social justice-oriented junior employee. Katherine forces both Abby and Gus to examine their pasts, unpack their traumas caused by the music industry, and reevaluate their relationship.
Tomei is particularly passionate about telling women-forward stories. Babe falls right in line with that mission, as it takes a critical look at the music industry, with the great tapestry of rock n’ roll hanging in the back. “People have told me that it really is food for thought,” she says. “That’s why we go to the theater. Yes, to be entertained, but to be together in community, in a space, in real life, breathing together. That’s why I go as an audience member, and that’s why I am there as a performer. I’m thinking, what is the alchemy that’s being worked on my soul right now?”
Below, Tomei talks about the new production, her brief mention in Joel Kim Booster’s Fire Island, and her pre-show warmup routine.
What initially attracted you to Babe?
Mandy Greenfield brought it to me and The New Group. There’s a lot of people [I knew at The New Group] that I felt very comfortable with and that I really respect. The last play I did was four years ago, which is the longest I’ve gone without doing a show. It’s soul food. I really craved it and was missing it. Then, there were some other factors. The election was coming, and I thought it would be really nice to have structure, so that I wouldn’t go bonkers.
The subject matter itself [interested me], to really explore this intergenerational feminism, as well as living under a strict patriarchy, and how it affects everybody. I like that it creates a lot of discussion.
What did you all discuss, in terms of the play’s subject matter, in rehearsals?
I was so happy that Arliss Howard joined our cast, because he loves and respects women so much. He brought a lot to those conversations and has seen a lot go down throughout his life.
Funnily enough, Scott Elliott, our director, really wanted to talk about the working relationship a lot and the “breakup” between Gus and my character. He identified with having a long-term work husband at his theater. A lot of it was talking about the pain of losing someone that you care for so much, that you’ve created so much with, been creative with, gone through life’s ups and downs with, and yet who has just, through a blind spot and through a cultural misogyny that’s just become internalized, hurt you.
The concept of ambition struck me, too.
Yes, ambition is certainly a theme—blind ambition perhaps. That runs through the play, because Gracie’s character is righteous. I personally believe she’s right about many of the things she wants to see change in: society, the workplace, the industry. But she doesn’t realize that she has a lot of ambition and has blind spots. She calls my character down on the carpet for a lot of things, but she’s scared to go to the big boss, who is the main owner of the whole company. Why? Because of ambition, because of her own internalized misogyny. Also just the way she goes about it, and doesn’t really respect what the generation before has had to pay to even get a seat at the table.
What does it mean to you to be returning to the theater?
I don’t think about it as a return. I’ve been doing it my whole career and life. I always think of movies as my side hustle. But I was starting to get a little spooked, because I’ve never had stage fright. I get terribly nervous, but that’s also part of why I like it. I like to be shaking in my boots to have to really, really, really dig down deep. But it was a different kind of fear that was starting to come in. [I felt like] I got to step on this stage—now.
To come back to The New Group, where Scott has kept this Off-Broadway theater company going for 30 years, it does feel like a home to me. I love small houses. I’ve been on Broadway for about five times now, and it’s a very special kind of thrill, but being in a small theater is what I really love.
How did you prepare for this role?
I have a few good friends whose husbands are in successful bands. Leading up to the rehearsal process, they talked with me a lot about it and made playlists for me. I read Kathleen Hanna’s book, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, and how she was really a voice of feminist punk at that time. I watched her documentary. Another really good resource was a book called Anything for a Hit: An A&R Woman’s Story of Surviving the Music by Dorothy Carvello. She really chronicles the down and dirty of what she went through in the music industry. This play is about this character finding her voice, but getting to watch so many music videos and just being immersed in that has been really fun and really rewarding.
Then, so many articles were coming out about Diddy. That was very impactful for me. I mean, we had to modulate it, because that level of depravity is not what this particular play is about. There’s so much silence around all of it, and there continues to be.
What is your pre-show warmup routine?
We have such great rituals on this show. We gather at 5:30 P.M., and we play music. Our stage management, our tech people, the people in front of house, anyone who’s around, we just all dance for three long songs. It brings our energy together. It’s church or temple, or it has that medicinal value that goes all the way back to the Greeks, where their hospitals were connected to the theater, because it’s a healing place.
I do a lot of different kinds of everything from superstitious rituals to vocal warm-ups. I think a lot about the throat chakra. At the end, there is that scream that comes out of my character. We had a vocal coach come in and show me the proper way to scream. I sometimes do a lot of blowing through the straw exercises, and I steam. I had to be a little more disciplined than is my nature and do a cool down also.
A lot of times, because I’m far on the east side [of New York], it really starts quite a few hours before, because I take the bus across town. I’m listening to a lot of music, or I’m listening to podcasts, so that just became ingrained. It’s a really good meditative way to start dropping in and leaving the house. It’s getting the mind to concentrate and focus in.
Your character also hides her cancer in the play. That’s something many women can relate to—having to hide an illness or something to not seem weak. What were those behind-the-scenes conversations like?
I was a little freaked out by it, because the imagination is so powerful. I was like, I don’t want to get this. I did a lot of visualizations around it, and I worked with a coach to put it in its right place in my psyche. I feel so clear that my character gets through it, and I feel like there is an exorcism for her that happens. I’m in less fear about it now than I was when I was just contemplating the role in the beginning.
I would venture to say almost everyone in the audience has someone who has been touched by cancer in some way in their life. It’s a very difficult thing. I’m glad to be bringing it into the conversation. It’s really a galvanizing force for Abby, because her company’s in trouble. It’s a health crisis that is galvanizing a change in her own life. She makes a lot of changes that she wouldn’t. The root word for crisis is opportunity in Greek.
In the photos for this interview, you’re wearing Max Mara. What do you love about the brand?
I love Max Mara so much. What they’re doing these days is just so beautiful, so elegant, so timeless. The colors are very, very deceptively elegant. It’s like a very chic, particular burgundy or a very chic teal color. You put them on, and they’re extremely flattering and so well-cut.
Have you seen the movie Fire Island by Joel Kim Booster, with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers? You get quite a mention.
I’ve seen the clip. A bunch of people told me, and I was like, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.” And then I thought it was so fun, and I just love them for that. That was a couple of years ago, and it wound up that [Bowen] and I were at the same New Year’s party, so we got to laugh about it and have a dance together. It’s great.
What’s next for Babe and you?
I don’t know what the future for Babe is. Maybe it’ll go to London. It’s a weird time in our business. I’d be so happy to do another play right away, and there are a few movies that I’m looking at, but that’s really more like February. I’m probably going to get LASIK for my eyes. That’s my big plan for January.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
All clothing by Max Mara; hair by Aziza Rasulova; makeup by Tina Turnbow using MERIT Beauty.