Shortly before I interviewed actor Marin Hinkle, she had spoken the words of her character Rose Weissman for the last time.
At the end, “I just started weeping,” Hinkle admits.
It’s not surprising. In 2017, the show “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” took the world by storm when it hit the small screens. Hinkle played Rose, the mother of the titular character, Miriam “Midge” Maisel (played by Rachel Brosnahan) and the wife of Abe Weissman (played by Tony Shalhoub).
But as the series went on, the audience watched as Rose revealed that she was more than a wife and mother. She evolved in these roles in her life, and showed that she was, in fact, a powerhouse as well as an independent woman.
Much like Hinkle herself.
Early Mentors
Believe it or not, Hinkle didn’t start out wanting to act. While growing up, her focus was mostly on dance. She studied it with plans on being a ballet dancer.
But when she was 16 years old, she experienced a career-ending ankle injury. Hinkle would never be a professional dancer.
Acting beckoned. When you look back at her lifetime mentors, it all makes sense.
Take Aline Shader and Helen Taylor, for example, two extremely talented moms of children at the elementary school she attended — one in music and the other in drama. “They went to the school and said that they were parents and wanted to offer their services,” she recalls.
These women soon became the theater and music teachers at the school. They began writing plays about things as diverse as ancient myths and the bicentennial and would take popular musicals and make them appropriate for children. Both had a tremendous effect on their students, including Hinkle.
“I owe whatever sense of courage I have from the women who gave me the gift of saying ‘Go forth and believe in yourself,’” says Hinkle.
After the moms began working with the students, she says, “Suddenly, every single person in that class was given the gift of singing or speaking in front of people. The strange thing is that out of that class of about 50 kids, 10 of us are performers. We did not go to some conservatory or special school; it was just due to these women.”
While she was studying dance, Hinkle says that E. Virginia Williams, who founded and headed the Boston Ballet, was another mentor. “She gave me a sense that I could do it even though I didn’t necessarily trust myself,” admits Hinkle, 57.
Her Most Important Ally
Although many women have played their parts in encouraging Hinkle, the most important one has always been her mother, Margaret Hinkle.
When Hinkle was in kindergarten, she says that her mom — who had worked as a teacher and in the Peace Corps, where she met Hinkle’s dad, Rodney Hinkle — decided to go back to school because she wanted to be a lawyer.
“She went to law school while she was raising my brother and me, and we would all get home from school at the same time. Then she would do all her homework,” Hinkle remembers.
Hinkle says that her mom became a powerful attorney, then assistant U.S. attorney, then going on to become head of the Massachusetts bank fraud task force and finally a judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court.
“She is such a success story. She really got me to see that believing in doing the unusual is something that is not only possible, but probable — especially if you have support and courage,” Hinkle explains.
Filming In Florida
One aspect that Hinkle loved in acting in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was getting to film in various locales — including Paris, the Catskills and Florida.
Although she had been to Florida previously, as she had cousins and grandparents who lived there at some point in their lives, Hinkle really feels like she got to know it so much better while filming.
“I certainly got to see a new part of Florida, with the gorgeous way people dress,” she says. But there’s more she loves. “The openness of spirit to celebrate, to be festive, to eat so well, to have the influence of the music that’s there — it was an eye-opening experience for me, and I really fell in love with it,” she says.
The End Of Mrs. Maisel
Getting back to the final season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Hinkle says she’s already feeling the sense of loss. “I’m going to miss that community of artists, the crew and the writers because I got so close to them as a second family. I’m going to miss that cast, and I don’t want to let them go,” she says. “I really feel like I need to keep those people in my life because they gave me a sense of creative energy that I never quite had in any other company — because it’s such an unusual thing to have a show last that long. We got the gift of traveling together. It was like being in a little theater troupe — that’s what I’m going to miss the most.”
After a pause, Hinkle says that there’s something else she’s going to miss dearly — Rose, her character. “I’ve loved her. She’s so unusual, and she’s such a different kind of woman than I am. I’m very fortunate that I got to play her,” says Hinkle. “Having years and years to play a character — that’s rare. I never took it for granted. I will always be grateful that Rose was part of my life like that. I’m going to miss her.”
Besides missing Rose’s personality, Hinkle will also miss getting to dress up in those fantastic period-piece outfits. “What it was like to wear her clothes was like I was entering a museum and got to magically pick clothes off period mannequins. I felt like I was wearing art every time I got to put them on because they were made for my body, and they were created like butter to fit,” she says.
In real life, Hinkle tends to hang out in sweatshirts and jeans. “I don’t have anything in my own life that resembles the way Rose appears,” she says while laughing.
Cherished Roles
Now that she’s played Rose, someone who doesn’t live in contemporary times, Hinkle says she’d like to play more of that.
“I did that so much in theater because obviously you’re doing Shakespeare and other roles. I love the idea of doing realism, but I also love the idea of doing fantasy. I would gladly be a witch. I’d love to have some sort of flying capacity,” she says.
As for her favorite roles other than Rose, Hinkle enjoyed playing Judy Brooks on the TV show “Once and Again” — mainly because she got to play someone who was the complete opposite of herself.
“Judy dressed with a little wildness and more provocatively than I do. She was brazen and she was kind of a hot mess. That was really fun,” says Hinkle.
Besides enjoying being on TV and in film, Hinkle adores performing in the theater.
She especially loves two roles — the first was playing Juliet in a Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of “Romeo and Juliet.” Her nurse in the play was the late acting icon, Jean Stapleton. “I remember what it was like to talk with her about what her career had been like. She was a great stage actress too. I don’t know if people knew that,” says Hinkle.
Speaking of the stage, Hinkle loves performing in Chekhov plays, with her favorite role being Sonya, who’s the heart and soul of “Uncle Vanya.” “I love playing people who are connected to the earth,” she says.
Coming Up
While you’ll soon get to see Hinkle in the last season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” she has some other projects in the pipeline as well.
She’s appearing in a TV mini-series called “We Were the Lucky Ones,” based on the novel by Georgia Hunter. It’s a story about three generations of a Jewish family who are separated during WWII and are determined to reunite. Another project she’s in is the TV series called “The Company You Keep,” with “This Is Us” star Milo Ventimiglia. Finally, Hinkle is excited to be helping writer friends workshop their plays and is hoping that some will come to fruition, and she’ll be in the performances.
In the future, Hinkle, who is of Italian descent, would love to play something that focuses on her own heritage. She says, “That would be an absolute dream of mine — to play something in Italy.”
For now, though, she’ll continue to be bicoastal — traveling back and forth from her home in Los Angeles to New York City — while she continues to perform, which is what she loves so much. Hinkle says, “I can’t wait to see what’s next!”
Photo By Ash Thayer