Remember studio executive Lou Tarnow (Catherine Keener) in What Just Happened ? And Wendy Healy (Brooke Shields) in Lipstick Jungle , juggling her stressful job as an independent movie producer with the demands of her family? In Ray Donovan ’s fifth season you will be introduced to legendary studio head Samantha Winslow, a strong, focussed character played by Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon.
Set in Los Angeles, the show created by Ann Biderman, tells the story of Ray Donovan, an Irish American, who works as a fixer for Goldman & Drexler, a law firm that boasts of a glittering, celebrity clientèle.
Liev Schreiber plays Donovan while Jon Voight plays his father, Mickey, with whom he shares a troubled relationship.
Controlled character
Sara ndon, who joins the cast which includes Katie Holmes, Hank Azaria and Ian McShane, has been an admirer of the crime drama and was thrilled to be approached for Winslow’s role. “I thought it would be fun. I admired the vision of the show. A lot of good actors are part of Ray Donovan . So I just jumped,” says the Bull Durham actor, adding, “I admire Schreiber as an actor, I admire his work and what he has done on the show. It is a difficult role. But I don’t really work with Voight. That is a whole other sub-plot.”
Talking about her character, the 70-year-old actor says, “Do I identify with Samantha? Well, I don’t, that’s why it is fun. I don’t think there is anything about her that is like me. I very rarely get to play characters that are powerful. While I did research women studio heads, Samantha is certainly not modelled on any real person. She has lost her family like Donovan and I think they bond over that.”
Across genres
Sarandon, who started her career as a disaffected teen in Joe (1970) and the soap opera, A World Apart , has a distinguished career across genres, winning an Oscar for Dead Man Walking and a BAFTA for The Client . She has made us laugh, cry and bite our nails to the quick in movies: from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Witches of Eastwick , Enchanted to The Lovely Bones and Cloud Atlas . Describing her career choices, Sarandon says, “I liked the fact that I can work across subjects. Throughout my career I have worked in comedy, drama, thrillers… I like dabbling in them all.” In theatre, she won Drama Desk nominations for A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking and Extremities . On television, she has guest starred in sitcoms such as Friends and Malcolm in the Middle , got six Emmy nominations and her latest small screen outing has been as Bette Davis in Feud . She has also given voice for the eccentric Granny Rags, in the video game Dishonored, released in 2012.
But which medium does she prefer? “It all depends on who the director and the cast is. Certainly, in a film, you are given the script and you don’t have to worry about what happens next. In a show, sometimes you don’t have a script and you make it up as you go along. But then you just have to have fun with the fact that you do not know what happens next.”
25 years on
How c an one talk to Sarandon and not mention Thelma & Louise ? Ridley Scott’s 1991 movie about two women embarking on a road trip got six Oscar nominations and launched Brad Pitt’s career. It’s been 25 years since Thelma and Louise drove off the cliff. “I know! It is crazy, right? I revisited the movie as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations at Cannes and I was thinking of our performances and a young Brad Pitt... I am very happy I could be a part of that movie,” says Sarandon.
Ray Donovan season five premières on August 13, and will air every Sunday at 11 pm only on AXN.
