Interview with Actor Nina Millin (Mary Hamilton in "Pieces")
Interview with Nina Millin (Mary Hamilton in “Pieces”) David Roberts and Joseph Verlezza Theatre Reviews Limited
Nina Millin played the role of Assistant District Attorney Mary Hamilton in Chris Phillips’ “Pieces” which recently completed its run at FringeNYC 2012. Nina is reprising that role in the Encore Series run of “Pieces” at SoHo Playhouse. We conducted an email interview with Nina and share that interview below.
David/Joseph: Nina, your character Mary Hamilton consistently defends her support for gay men. Is Mary’s support honest or does it come from how she deals with her brother’s sexual status? Should she expect Shane to accept a life-in-prison plea bargain if she were truly empathic and sympathetic?
Nina: I believe Mary’s support of the gay community is completely honest AND I believe her support is very much fueled by her relationship with her brother. I don’t see these two things as being mutually exclusive, actually. I’ve always seen Mary and Billy’s relationship as extremely close knit, loving and supportive. I believe Billy and Mary play very, very important roles in each other’s life. Yes, Mary does ‘consistently defend’ her support for gay men however she also quite legitimately puts her money where her mouth is when it comes to supporting the gay community. During the restaurant scene in Act 1 where Nick interrupts Mary and Rory having a drink, Rory lists for Nick all of the incredible work Mary Hamilton does for the gay community…she’s on the Board of AIDS Services to Los Angeles, she’s organized outreach and suicide prevention for gay youth in the schools, she has a reading room with her name on it at the Gay & Lesbian Center in Hollywood based on her fund-raising efforts….this is incredible stuff this woman does. Tremendous stuff. Mary actively pursues what she believes in…she is a woman of action. This active passion of hers is one of my favorite things about her. It’s this drive that also makes her so damn good at her job. And at the end of the day, Shane being gay or straight or anything else is inconsequential to the job she is required to do. Her job as an Assistant District Attorney is to represent the state and uphold the law. Mary knows her job. She loves her job. She’s really good at her job. That’s why she goes out of her way to get assigned to this case. She wants this case because she believes she is the only one who can both do a good job at it AND control the case in such a way that the gay community comes out with the least amount of damage done. As for the life in prison plea bargain: Rory himself tells Shane that ‘all of Hollywood’ wants him on death row. Lethal injection would be the easy, sensational, popular way out of this case and Mary knows that. That being said, I see Mary as really going out on a limb to offer the life in prison plea bargain to Shane instead of the death penalty. I believe Mary exhibits deep shades of sympathy with that choice.
David/Joseph: Nina, did you do anything in particular to prepare yourself for the role of ADA Mary Hamilton?
Whenever I begin working with a character I never know what will be the key into really opening myself up to being their channel so I always start by digging around in the script. I look for anything and everything I can grab onto in order to create a space for the character to appear. And with this script….I mean, Chris Phillips is such a powerful writer. This script of his is just so juicy and ripe. It’s simply delicious. Continuously digging through the play (still to this day even!) has ended up really being the key for me with Mary. Also, I like to do a lot of outside research. With Mary, I ended up finding a lot of substance for her by researching her job and what it means to be an Assistant District Attorney. Oh, and her shoes. Once I found the right pair of shoes for Mary, things starting taking shape for me.
David/Joseph: This is an unusual question perhaps: In our review of “Pieces,” did we indicate we understood the play? Was there anything we missed?
Your review of PIECES is so wonderful because you unapologetically review the show from your very distinct point of view. You even state as much with your disclaimer in the beginning. Do I think you understood the play? Yes, I believe you absolutely understood the play. I believe you understood the play from your very personal point of view. Your ability to articulate the connection you personally made with the play allows your unique humanity to shine through. That’s really exciting to me because for me the core of PIECES is anchored in basic humanity. Each of the five characters in this play have such distinct, various points of view and personalities. By the end of the play we have watched each of them reveal so much of themselves in such complicated, messy ways that we can’t help but come face to face with the fact that we ourselves are complicated and messy. What a gift that is! It’s a gift because the admission of our complications actually allows us to loosen our grip on judgment, both of ourselves and of others. It’s a gift because this awareness that PIECES leaves us with ends up being the fuel we can use to make changes in how we navigate the world together. And why wouldn’t we want to make those changes, right?
I love what you say at the end of your review …
"The powerful and insightful voice of Chris Phillips has arrived and it is time. We need to begin to love one another without judgment and without condition."
David/Joseph: Thank you, Nina. We look forward to seeing you at The SoHo Playhouse.
All FringeNYC 2012 Encore performances of Chris Phillips’ “Pieces” take place at The SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street (6th Avenue and Varick Street) in New York, NY. Performance dates are Friday September 7th at 9:30 p.m., Sunday September 9th at 8:00 p.m., Wednesday September 12th at 8:00 p.m., Thursday September 13th at 7:00 p.m., Sunday September 16th at 8:00 p.m., and Monday September 17th at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are available at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/917443
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