Swoosie and Ellen (Aunt Lily and Aunt Viv) are like real life sisters
This interview of Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene is so candid. The two speak of their roles as sisters Lily and Vivian and how much they treat each other as real-life sisters.
Excerpts from the interview at Deseret News:
They almost finish each other’s sentences. They interject and take over stories in midstream, passing the narrative back and forth.
“I do set her up for a lot of jokes. She’s very funny,” Greene said.
“I treat her, in real life — I’m sorry to say — exactly the way Lily treats Vivian,” Kurtz said. “‘Ellen, we’re going now! Come on!”‘
Among the many, many quirks on “Pushing Daisies” is that Lily wears on eyepatch. (She lost her eye in a cat-litter accident in the first episode. Really.) And the eyepatches that Kurtz wears really do make her unable to see out of her right eye.
“The minute I put it on it’s very dicey walking around the cables (on the set) and everything. I have to be really careful, especially in heels,” Kurtz said. “She has no depth perception. She’s blind,” said Green, who helps her navigate. They quickly fell into a pattern of Green being on Kurtz’s left — her “sighted” side. “It was a very natural thing,” Greene said.
As a matter of fact, without even thinking about it, Greene was sitting on Kurtz’s left when they took questions from TV critics wandering about the “Pushing Daisies” set. And Kurtz was not in costume. “That’s funny,” Kurtz said with a laugh. “We do do stuff like that that’s odd,” Greene said. “Like when we were walking, I said, ‘She has to be on the other side because I’m comfortable with her on that side. And sometimes we do things at the same time, from our synchronized swimming days. Even though we never really had them,” Kurtz said. “We’ll raise our hands at the same time or move at the same time.”
“Ellen’s very method. She takes it with her. And she was concerned that if we maybe had a fight coming up, how would that be with us on the set,” Kurtz said. “I’ve worked with some actresses who start behaving like their characters,” Greene said. “I pretty much don’t. Although, if it’s a sad scene, it is sad on the set around me. I just stay in the same place.”
The full three page story is here.
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