Despite decades of acclaim as an actress, Mia Farrow went into her role in the Broadway play The Roommate last fall with some trepidation.
“I am not a supremely confident individual. From what I’ve learned of life, confidence is almost always misplaced, in any area you care to glance,” Farrow said.
“I do have self doubt, but I’ve learned to live with it. I’m able to sort strut around feeling supremely confident,” she continued.
That confidence paid off as Farrow received her first Tony nomination for her role as the initially meek homebody Sharon in the play by Jen Silverman, which ran at the Booth Theatre on Broadway from September through December 2024. Farrow starred in the two-hander, opposite Patti LuPone, who plays a Bronx grifter renting a room in Sharon’s Iowa farmhouse. That pairing opens up Farrow’s Sharon to the world, including the world of criminal activities, which she takes to with surprising enthusiasm.
Farrow, known for her breakout role in the film Rosemary’s Baby, previously appeared on Broadway in the 1979 production of Romantic Comedy, opposite Anthony Perkins, as well as two subsequent staged readings on Broadway and regional productions. She was convinced to do the play, in part, by her son, journalist Ronan Farrow, whose voice was also featured on a voicemail in the play, when Farrow’s character receives a call from her own son. Farrow said she plans to bring Ronan with her to the Tony Awards on June 8 and to other Broadway productions, including Oh, Mary!, before then.
She spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the feeling of returning to the stage, what’s she’s looking for in her next project and her plans to see the other Tony-nominated shows.
What did you think when you heard you were nominated for a Tony Award?
I had no expectation of being nominated at all. It’s not like I figured I wouldn’t be and therefore I was pre-disappointed, it simply never crossed my mind.
After I hung up the phone with [the show’s publicist], it began to occur to me that I was a Tony-nominated actor, among the best of the best, in the community I so deeply respect. And that I would be among them for this honor was just so enormous. My next thought was, “I want to tell somebody.” And my next thought was, “You can’t just call somebody and say, ‘Hey, guess what I got.’” It’s out of the question. And then my thoughts went to my mom [actress Maureen O’Sullivan], who would have been so happy and so proud. She was, throughout my life, in my corner, and she would have been the one that I would have wanted to share that moment with. I just started crying, frankly, because I miss my mom, and also it would have been the moment, other than me having my children, one of the big moments of my life. She would have been super happy with me and proud of me and so forth. So that was my stuff I went through. And subsequently, whatever gatherings that have been held to do with the play and to do with this honor, and I just got to meet the people that I admire so much and just to be counted among them for this time only. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me and how deeply honored I am.
Had you been looking to come back to Broadway?
No, I’m a person who’s actually very happy alone. I have a new puppy. It was Jack O’Brien, an old friend and wonderful director, who said, “I’ve got this script that I really want you to read and to consider doing.” And I actually had read that script some six years ago when I was at the Long Wharf [Theatre] with Brian Dennehy, but I was not it something I could do at the time. But rereading it, I was reminded how it had just extraordinary things in it. And meanwhile, Jack O’Brien sent it to my son, Ronan, who he’s been friends with since Ronan was a child. And Ronan called me and said, “You have to do this. This is really good, and it offers you really good scenes.”
I know that Jack had already offered it to another actor, not my part, but the part that would be played by Patti. And the other actor had turned it down. And then he said, I’m sending it to Patti LuPone and Patti’s been a friend of mine for a long time, decades. And I though “Oh my gosh, that would be incredible if she would do it.” So I just kept my fingers crossed.
Was it the character you were drawn to?
Yes, it was. Nowadays the rehearsal period is just three weeks, so it isn’t long enough to, in a play of that complexity, really get it where you want it for opening night. I didn’t invite anybody [to opening night]. Of course, I never do, fear of disappointing and so forth. But I just thought, what a pity we’re opening now and don’t have another week or two, because we sure could use it. Patti and I were really still in the process of discovery, and that process lasted, probably, until almost the end. But sooner than that we got it in the area that we were the most comfortable, and obviously she’s just a joy to work with, because we were on the same journey, her character, my character, and how they interact on all these levels. For me, it was the arc of being a person who thought of herself one way, in a very limited way. And then through the appearance of Patti in my life, as that character, doors opened, and I discovered things as the character, Sharon, about herself, and in the process, finding a life that’s meaningful and a love that’s meaningful, and the discovery of all that through the remarkable words of Jen Silverman. So I was almost sorry when it was over, because we had reached a point that we felt we were doing our absolute best.
From interviews at the start of the play, I’d read that you weren’t fully believing your acting abilities.
I mean, I am not a supremely confident individual. From what I’ve learned of life, confidence is almost always misplaced, in any area you care to glance. I’m riddled with self doubt. It’s enviable, if you’re not. And for those that aren’t, God bless you. And for those that are, you’ll understand what I’m saying. I do have self doubt, but I’ve learned to live with it. I’m able to sort strut around feeling supremely confident. I mean, what are we confident about, you know? I hoped that I could get where I wanted to be in the play. I didn’t read reviews, but Patti does, and she said, “We did well. The people liked us.” There were some reservations about the play, and that was about gut punch because I love Jen Silverman’s work, and I love what she’d written. But, apparently many people did love the play. And my goodness, it was hugely well received by the audiences. I’ve never had such a reaction in terms of the laughter and a gasp here and there. There was never a night without a standing ovation for the play, for the way we had presented it. So, it was a joy, and it was a joy to share it with the audiences. I’ve not had a better stage experience in my life.
Just in terms of performing, or the audience?
In terms of performing to an audience. It was a joy and privilege each night, also terrifying, before the show terrifying, and then the delivery of the show to the audience was an immense joy and privilege.
Did the terror go away?
The terrifying part is before you step out. And I don’t know if every actor feels that way. But yes, it does get less terrifying, but I think an amount of terror seems appropriate given the task ahead. So many things can go wrong, and there was a lot of dialogue. It was 90 minutes of talk and just the two of us, and so the task was a big one. There were a lot of things that could go wrong. But also there was anticipation and the “I can’t wait feeling,” and our last words to each other before we would walk on stage were, “Let’s have fun.”
Do you want to do more Broadway now?
I would love to. Of course, now my standards are very high, because I would not want to do a project that was less than what I just did. You hope for that, anyway, all actors at all stages, to be asked a lot of. It doesn’t always happen, and you’ve got to make a living, and so often you do things that ask very little of you, and they feel like that, and it’s, in the end, meaningless, but it’s a living. But for those projects that ask a great deal of you, I think every actor is really grateful when one of those comes along and you’re able to invest all of yourself in areas that have not normally been asked of you.
I saw that you just saw John Proctor Is the Villain on Broadway. Are you trying to see the other shows in your category, or just shows generally?
Sadie [Sink] and the cast and everyone was wonderful and welcoming. I’m a fan of Sadie’s, and I’m a fan of everyone in that cast.
And I’m going to see Cole [Escola’s] play. I want to see Oh, Mary! It’s not that I’m competing with Cole in any way, but I’m hugely admiring of them, and I’m 1,000 percent respectful. And I can’t wait, because I hear the most wonderful things about the show, and Ronan is coming with me – though he’s seen it before, he said he could absolutely see it again. So I know it’s one of those things I don’t want to miss. I want to see Jonathan Groff. I’ve gotta see Audra. There are things I want to see that I haven’t seen yet. I was going to see George Clooney’s show, but as it’s going to be televised live, I thought “brilliant.” I just so respect him. He’s doing a public service with that. He doesn’t need to be on Broadway, but there’s a reason, given the content of the play and its relevance now. Hats off to George Clooney, and it was wonderful that he was nominated too.
Do you know what your next role will be?
I’ve got a couple of very nice people inviting me to join in a project, and really good actors, but I’m just waiting to see if there’s something that I had that feeling about, that I can really make a contribution, and that contributes to me as an actor and as a person, a journey of a sort, any sort that is meaningful. So I’ll just see. I would love to be on stage again. And I did discover that I love being on stage more than being in a movie or on TV. It’s just way more, for me, anyway, more gratifying. So because I get to do it all, it isn’t cut into pieces. You get from beginning to end, and then the privilege of having an audience there, there’s nothing like it.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.