Patricia Arquette Talks Playing Two Very Different Mothers in ‘Otherhood’ and ‘The Act’

Patricia Arquette has played many memorable mothers over the years. She won the Academy Award for playing the same mom for 12 years in the 2014 drama Boyhood, which began filming in 2002. More recently, in the Hulu limited series The Act, she delivered an Emmy-nominated performance as Dee Dee Blanchard, a real-life abusive mother who was murdered in 2015. Now in Otherhood, a new comedy streaming on Netflix from director Cindy Chupack, the 51-year-old actor plays a mom who doesn’t know how to be anything else.

The premise of Otherhood is simple: Three best friends—played by Arquette, Angela Bassett, and Felicity Huffman—are distraught when their adult sons forget Mother’s Day. Instead of letting it go, they decide to take a road trip to New York City, and reinsert themselves in their sons’ lives. Each woman has her own point of contention with her child, and for Arquette’s character Gillian, it’s that she disapproves of the girl that her son Daniel (Jake Hoffman) is hung up on. But at the heart of all of their conflicts is a deep fear that they are no longer needed in their children’s lives—and indeed, in the world.

It’s an issue that Arquette—who has a 30-year-old son herself—connected with on a personal level, and she was thrilled to finally have a chance to portray it. “So many women have dealt with the empty nest stage, and yet we barely ever think about that in film,” Arquette said. That said, she doesn’t think her son would ever be as forgetful as his on-screen counterpart. “I remind everyone,” she said with a laugh. “Like, ‘Here’s what I want to do on Mother’s Day!'”

Decider: First of all, congratulations on your double Emmy nomination for The Act and Escape at Dannemora. How are you feeling?

Patricia Arquette: Oh, thank you! I mean, I am nominated against Joey King, so that’s kind of weird because I love her, and she’s like my daughter. I love all the actresses in all the categories. But it’s all out of my hands. It’s just nice to be recognized with such talented people for work that you cared about and worked hard on. It felt good.

It’s very well-deserved. But we’re here to talk about Otherhood, where you play an overprotective mother named Gillian, which, in a way, is similar to the role you play on The Act, Dee Dee Blanchard — though the characters are obviously very different. 

[Laughs.] Yeah, it’s all degrees. And there’s a part of me that has that tendency [of these characters]. Not like The Act, closer to Otherhood… but even less than Otherhood. I do go into my kids’ rooms and start cleaning, and they do say, “Stop cleaning my room.” And I do over-worry, like Dee Dee does—but not to Dee Dee’s extent.

How do you draw from your own experiences to build these characters? 

Usually, I might have a sliver of a quality that a character has, but they have [that quailty] much more. So I look at that, identify the humanness of that, and then I’ll expand it. In Dee Dee’s case, it’s expanded to a toxic level. And sometimes, I’ll look at people in my life. As an actor, you steal from your friends. “Oh, my friend I know really well, she’s like this.” I had an acting teacher years ago who said, “Steal from the past,” and I think that’s true.

Has your son ever forgotten Mother’s Day, as your on-screen son in Otherhood does?

No, but I’m such a nudge-y mom. I’m like, “It’s going to be Mother’s Day on Sunday!” I remind everyone: “Here’s what I want to do on Mother’s Day. I just want to be with you guys. I want to spend the day with you guys. That’s what I want.”

But I don’t get mad when people forget things. The only person that has the most pressure on them is probably my boyfriend. That’s the one person that upsets me if they forget my birthday, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, all of those things.

What was it like working with your co-stars, Angela Bassett and Felicity Huffman? That end-credits scene made it look like such a fun set. 

It was so fun in between takes talking to them. I mean, I never thought I’d get a chance to work with Angela! Most of my career I’ve worked with men, and I always wanted to work with her. I talked to her about her going to school, being a young actress, her first play and imagining her in this part. And then I was jealous because we’ll never see, on screen, Angela Bassett in her first play. I really wanted to see that performance.

We were all laughing, talking about motherhood, and improving. It was just really a joyful thing. No drama, just funny and supportive.

Do you find it’s a different atmosphere to be on a set led by women, in this case, director Cindy Chupack, versus film sets led by men?

Well, I don’t know,  because I just don’t even look at women vs. men. I look at Cindy as her own person. But I will say it was a really fun, nice set—light, supportive, and happy. There are so many women who are over 50, who are moms, and have had to deal with the empty nest stage. Yet we barely ever talk about that in film, even though it’s such a common experience for people. So I think when we look at film, we can see the deficit of everyday experiences of human beings because we have not had enough stories that were told by women.

You’ve spoken up about the gender pay gap, even before the Time’s Up movement brought it to the forefront.  Have you seen any improvements since you’ve taken up this cause?

Well, in some ways, yes. This conversation has been moving forward all over the world. I mean, Iceland, which is the most advanced country in the [gender pay gap] area, has made even more strides and they’re committed to being the first country on Earth to close the pay gap.

But we have steps forward and steps backward at the same time. Obama put in place a rule that required government contractors to report pay for every job title they had, including information on age, race, and sex. One of the first things Trump did in office was he rolled that back. When you have a lack of transparency, you can’t even have a conversation about why certain managers are being paid differently.

You’re very open about using your platform to discuss politics when many other actors shy away from doing so. Why?

I feel like I should have my rights as a taxpayer and as a citizen of this country. I’m concerned about where my country is headed. Some people don’t want to have these conversations, but it’s impacting people when we don’t. We have to have these conversations, as hard as they are.

Watch Otherhood on Netflix