"MUNKAR": MARY MARA

By Mike Watt

Mary Mara's fans are in for a big surprise when Clive Barker's Saint Sinnerdebuts on the Sci-Fi Channel in October - they've never seen her play a character like "Munkar". "I always wanted to play a character like Munkar," Mara says. "A role like Munkar is a role that a man would get in a movie. A Jack Nicholson kind of role. They don't write roles like this for women. They do on stage, but not really for television or film."

"Munkar" is one of a pair of female demons accidentally released on our modern day world by a young monk in the nineteenth century. Her eternal partner is "Nakir", played by former child actress Rebecca Harrell (Prancer), and together, the duo is unleashing chaos, destruction and bloodshed across the Pacific Northwest, draining the life-energies from every man they come across.

The new movie is being produced for the cable network by Oscar L. Costo (Prancer Returns), directed by Joshua Butler (Good Vs. Evil) and was adapted by Doris Egan (Pleasantville) from an original treatment by Clive (Hellraiser) Barker himself. As to be expected from a Barker tale, the demons bring with them much darkness and horror. Still, Mara and Harrell chose to look at their characters differently. The actresses don't see themselves as the "sinner" part of the title.

"Whenever you play a villain, you can never make a negative judgment about the character you're playing. There's nowhere to go with 'no'," Mara says. "You definitely don't make a judgment about these characters, good or evil. Josh calls us the heroes all the time. When he's setting up a shot, he'll call it a 'hero shot', and I really love that. We're the heroes! We have to kill these people because we have to sustain our lives. It's not murder, it's not a sin, it's just what we have to do to sustain our life. So it's pretty simple."

That the actresses don't make judgments is an interesting choice, as it echoes the choices Barker himself has made in his fiction. Rarely does he present his characters as "good" or "evil" inherently, though they are often defined as one or the other through their ultimate actions. "For [Rebecca and I], it's all about the relationship between Munkar and Nakir. [There are] many, many, many levels. Mother-daughter. Protector. Hunter. Lover. Sister. It's more a human - it's a non-sexual relationship, if that's at all possible in a way. We just take on these bodies because we're in this world at this moment. Our energy takes on these two female bodies. So I choose to believe that if we were to go into another time or another wormhole, we would take on whatever physical body everyone else had. So it just happens this time that we're women. It could be expressed as a lover's relationship, or a maternal relationship. I think in our relationship, I am always the teacher and she is always the student."

The multi-leveled relationship was a difficult one to develop, thanks to the nature of television productions. Mara and Harrell had little time together in pre-production. "We got here a week before shooting started. It was a lot of costume fittings, and everybody has been off in their separate places, thinking about their characters, then they come together 'okay, here's my idea'. Then, there's the costumes, the make-up, what about the hair? And you're trying to develop the look of the characters, the look of the team, and still find your own way. That's a very exciting part of it. I think the real stuff going on is that I'm older, she's younger. We've both been in the business a long time [yet] I've been through a lot more experience than her. It's been really an interesting time. God, it would have been a great documentary. She had brought up a few times that [the sitiuations] didn't feel organic. You're in these kind of elevated situations, and I think what we've been finding is the theatrics of it are what hook you in. It's easy to identify with anything if you just believe. I joke that she's not the same person that showed up four weeks ago from L.A. She's not. She's grown a lot! She's a lot tougher. This is not an easy role and last week we were covered in mud and filth and dust and goo and KY and we're fighting and slamming each other into walls. You know, there are a lot of actresses who wouldn't want to do that. And wouldn't do it. But she and I are completely gung-ho, and we went much further than anyone expected. Of course, no one expected us to do most of our stunts. We were able to do pretty much all of them."

Mara, of course, is no stranger to action or dark fantasy, thanks to previous television experiences. She had an impressive role on an early episode of the cult favorite Farscape ("I was one of the only Americans they ever flew in," she says), and enjoyed a recurring role on the Don Johnson cop series, Nash Bridges. "We pretty much blew things up and shot things [on Nash]. Endlessly," she says with a laugh. "I was always begging the stunt co-ordinator for stunts. He always liked me and joked that if I ever retired, he'd train me as a stunt person. That's like being a kid and getting to climb a tree. It's a great job for a woman. They get to do stuff that women just don't get to do - and there's no reason [they shouldn't]. We have really wonderful women up here too."

It's a common complaint among working actresses: the lack of solid work for women in Hollywood. Thanks to shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Alias, women are being called upon to both emote and fight more and more often. "Kick ass" females are popular right now. Mara sees this as a very good thing, but could stand to happen even more.

"This female action role in an hour-long televison show is a good coup. Television has always been a female medium; the majority of people who watch TV are women. So there are really good roles for women on television. I think it's still a very youth-oriented culture. The action roles are good, though. Nobody wants to take the sexuality away from women. I know a lot of men and women who [have similar personalities]. It's not about sexuality anymore. The tomboy in us all. It's such a sense of play too."

Saint Sinnerhas been a playful challenge, as well, it seems. Munkar and Nakir should prove to be memorable villains, thanks to the well-drawn roles as well as the elaborate make-up courtesy of artist Mike Fields. As is often the case with prosthetics, the accent is on visual feast rather than personal comfort. Mara and Harrell get the additional challenge of playing characters who are often covered with slime.

"It's not so bad because it's not cold. I think if it were cold it would be a lot worse. Plus, the guy who is doing our make up, Mike Fields is a total horror fanatic. Knows everything about it. Couldn't be the better person to be doing our make-up and taking care of us and putting goo on us all day. Rebecca and I don't know that much about it. He's got horror flicks running on the TV in the makeup trailer all day. Working with prosthetics and special effects, it's all about relaxation. That was the mantra I kept repeating to Rebecca yesterday [during a big elaborate special-effects scene]. Because it takes so much time patience is definitely a must. I've been on a lot of sets and I know how sets work. It's not that complex. But people sometimes forget that it's an enormous group effort and a lot of patience is involved. They were rushing us through in the morning, seven or eight o'clock, and we worked all day. Then we didn't actually cover me until 8:00 at night. All day long, we covered her, camera-wise, and then at the end of the night, they turned around and covered me. That's an interesting process to go through. You're acting the intensity of the scene but the camera isn't on you."

(Which speaks acres about Mara's professionalism. How many times have you heard about the big-time actor who went to his trailer rather than stand opposite his co-star and act while the other was in close-up? "Oh, god, that's so obnoxious," says Mara. "I just want to slap people like that. You have one of the greatest jobs in the world, and you're being paid more money than people should have, what's the big deal? I have a problem with those actors that, all of a sudden there are things they just can't do. Just stop it!")

But the question is, what attracted Mara to the role of the ancient demon? For this author, Mara is best known as the gold-digging woman who mis-used the title elixir in the Sandra Bullock vehicle Love Potion No. 9, and winds up running down the streets of San Francisco, pursued by a hoard of love-struck men. What would prompt an actress to take on a potentially unsympathetic role that has multiple strikes against it just from a genre point of view. As any horror fan can tell, Saint Sinneris a giant house of cards. Unless handled in exactly the right way, the demons could become over-blown and campy cartoons, the horror falling flat under over-wrought production. That this Sci-Fi show doesn't seem to be leaning that way is a relief, but still, the odds were pretty high. So why, Mary, why?

"Clive Barker, for one," she says. "His work is just terrific. I love sci-fi, I love Sci-Fi channel. I love the subject matter, and I'd never done a horror movie. Clive started in theater, and when I see [a horror movie like his] I think that looks like 'Medea or 'Electra' or something like that. Some fabulous Greek tragedy! When acting in most television in America, you only use a tiny bit of your talent. You don't have to use a lot of muscle, because the medium is small. The parts are not that demanding. The most demanding thing is if you have to cry all the time. People always hire me to cry. I get so sick of that. There is so much else I can do, come on! Saint Sinneris more theatrical than anything I've done, other than stage, obviously. And that's what is so great about it, it's such food. Rebecca and I keep commenting about, the days just fly by. It's seven-thirty at night, we're going 'holey moley!' We've gone through this amazing huge experience. There's so much about television and film that is about making the actor smaller. You have to make yourself smaller. The medium is smaller. And it's so nice to be able to go bigger, larger with a character. There's something very invigorating and empowering about that. It's like Willem DaFoe in Spider-Man. I love him! He's so great. The scene where he talks to himself in the mirror. He was wonderful. Growling. It was so cool. Guys get to play those roles all the time. So it's nice to be given the opportunity to do that, as a woman. The only other way I can see where I would be given that opportunity is to go back to the theater."

Mara hopes that Saint Sinnerwill strike a chord with audiences not just to forge new opportunities for her, but for actresses in general. "I'd like to see more female fantasy-driven films. Female sci-fi driven work. There are a lot of wonderful women writing sci-fi. They've been scooping up every sci-fi book they can find to make into a movie recently, ever since Lord Of The Rings, all these very obscure ones. They're looking for anything they can sell. I have a dream project that we adapted into a screenplay for Sci-Fi. I don't want to give anything away right now, but it's a cross between Animal Farm and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It's fantastic. If I was a well-connected person, I could probably get it green-lighted easily. It has all the goods. But it's hard when you're not with CAA or ICM. So it comes down to trying to get to people who can get to people. I couldn't have picked a small project!" [laughs]

As for the movie itself, it has the potential to move beyond its ninety-minute running time. Barker's ideas tend to expand beyond themselves, into unexpected directions. Saint Sinneris no exception and Mara recognizes that potential. "I would love for this thing to turn into a series, and I'd get to direct. That's what I'd love. What famous female monsters can you name? Besides the Bride Of Frankenstein. It all depends on if there's a demand. Lord willing we're going to hit a nerve. We're taking a huge risk, and hopefully it will pay off for us."

Visit Mary Mara on the web at www.marymara.com.