Marin Hinkle is an American actress who is known for her portrayal of the character of Judith Harper-Melnick in the American television sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” alongside Charlie Sheen. While growing up, Hinkle aspired to become a ballerina dancer, but an unfortunate accident shattered her dreams. However, the unfavorable situation did not break her spirit and she decided to build an acting career. Her parents encouraged her to get a professional degree in acting, which resulted in her attending New York University’s Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. During her career spanning over two decades, she has appeared in over thirty films and as many television shows. Some of her notable works include “Breathing Room,” “I’m Not Rappaport,” “Frequency,” “The Next Big Thing,” “The Haunting of Molly Hartley,” “Once and Again,” “Deception” and “Speechless.”
Caroline Aaron is an American actress who was born in Richmond, Virginia. She studied Performing Arts at the American University in Washington D.C. She also studied Acting at the HB Studio in New York City. Her mother, Nina Abady, née Friedman, was a civil rights activist of Syrian Jewish descent, who worked full time to support her three children after her husband died. Aaron is known for her performances in films like “Heartburn” and “Primary Colors” by Mike Nichols, “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Alice” and “Deconstructing Harry” by Woody Allen and Nora Ephron’s “Sleepless in Seattle,” also appearing in Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” and Stanley Tucci’s “Big Night.” She is also known for her work on television, including guest roles on series such as “Wings,” “Frasier,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Transparent,” “Madam Secretary,” and “The Good Fight.” Aaron’s Broadway roles include Her Broadway roles include Woody Allen’s “Relatively Speaking,” “I Hate Hamlet,” “Social Security” and “The Iceman Cometh.”
Tara Karajica talked to Marin Hinkle and Caroline Aaron about their roles as Rose Weissman and Shirley Maisel respectively on the critically acclaimed and Primetime Emmy Award-winning show “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” whose fifth and last season premiered on Amazon Prime on 14 April 2023.
Rose Weissman doesn’t need to be equal to men and she’s only interested in beauty, matchmaking and fortune–telling. She also has a very meticulous appearance and figure. But now, after five seasons, she has completely changed. Can you talk about her character and that change? How you see her?
Marin Hinkle: You know, one thing that was extraordinary was when we were given that pilot episode, the first episode, and it said about my character: “She walks as if in her own MGM musical” or something like that. That’s not as well-written a description is what Amy [Sherman-Palladino] and Dan [Palladino] would write. But I remember, when I saw that description, I thought: “I want to play this role.” And, I didn’t think I would ever get this role because I’m definitely a person that doesn’t walk with that sense of strength. In answer to your question, what I love about Rose is that she’s not afraid of following her own dreams, too. And yet, what was funny was that she was so judgmental – like that hypocrisy about her daughter following her dreams, because the problem was the particular dreams that her daughter was seemingly following weren’t the ones that she felt for her. She was more judgmental about that than she was even about her own openness because sometimes I asked Amy: “Wait a minute, it seems like she’s contradicting herself. She’s doing this herself, but not seeing she’s judging her daughter. But, I loved that what we thought we had in Rose as this started, as you said, after five seasons, is a woman who’s grown so much as we all do in life after five years or ten or more and I also wish that we were going on for season after season to the rest of at least my life and Rose’s, because I would love to know how she continues to surprise yourself with cracking what she thought was the right way to be with something that she had never imagined for herself. But thanks for all the different things you were just saying. I was like: “It’s true, she changed this and this” although you did say “figure” and I was like: “They always gave me clothes every year where I was like: ‘I guess I’m not allowed to change the whole figure thing’” and even to the end, in her matchmaking, she was still a little judgmental on people’s appearances and I even went up to Amy and Dan and was like: “Can’t we even break that though? So many things have grown; can’t she not care about what people look like?” And, they were like: “No, Rose will always care about what people look like!”
Shirley Maisel is a bit of the opposite of Rose because she’s already in the family business and she’s taking care of it in terms of finances. She’s really in and she’s a modern woman in that sense. But, on the other hand, she also cares about her son and her family’s happiness and traditions. So, she’s also a bit of a contradiction. Would you agree with this assumption? How do you see her?
Caroline Aaron: Yes! She was different than the pack in that she was part of the family business, that women were more decorative in the beginning of the 50s than they were effective or participating in the life of the family outside of the domestic arts, and Shirley has had a front row seat to all of it. And that’s credit to Moishe and to Shirley and to what they wrote, in a sense. I think the thing that’s great about Shirley is that she doesn’t change. She is the same because she’s so authentically herself. There’s no change to make. She doesn’t live her life by way of other people’s opinions. So, she doesn’t have to throw off that sort of the way we are all a little bit imprisoned by the opinions of others. Shirley’s never spent one day in that jail. She is herself for better or for worse and so, she will change as times change, even in the second season when people often say: “Do you wish that Midge and Joel could still be together?” “My wish is that my son is happy. And, when I say to him: ‘she has moved on and I think now you need too,’” I was even surprised when they gave me that script, that she is more evolved than people might think that she is based on how she presents, but she’s evolved enough to know that you can’t always have what you want. You will never get all your first choices, but you still have a responsibility to make yourself happy. And, I think she wants to impart that to her son.
M.H.: I just realized that both of us are sort of the women behind the men because my character was also funding secretly her husband in times that he didn’t even know because remember when he says something like: “What do you mean, how do we afford all this?” And, she’s like: “How do you think?” This was from her family money. They were doing it sort of quietly, so many women of that generation didn’t speak about it so much.
C.A.: Our job was to protect our husbands’ egos. And, I think that that, unfortunately, has not changed enough; you just instinctually feel like your job with your partner is to make sure that they feel cherished, that they feel empowered, and you would never let them know that you are contributing financially because that might injure them in a sense. And, during those times, a man taking money from a woman would be the most humiliated he could possibly be. And so, Rose will, of course, keep that from him because the last thing she would ever do is humiliate her husband and me the same. I’m more than happy to humiliate him in private. That’s for sure! When we’re alone together, all bets are off. But I think that even in public and to her son, she would always protect him and his sense of self.
These are also, in a sense, seeds of feminism that we’re seeing with Midge and the two mothers or matriarchs as I call them.
C.A.: That’s right! Absolutely! And, certainly, it’s more well-drawn in Rose, that she starts to want to have agency over her own life. She wants to make her own money. She wants to have her own business. And you’re right – I mean, whether she pulls that off, if this was real life, in time or not – we don’t know – but she is the beginning of what women were going to do, which was to take care of themselves. You know, women didn’t take care of themselves fifty years ago. They had to either be in their parents’ home or their husband’s home in order to survive. And, you’re so young I’m sure that’s just incomprehensible to you, but that’s the way it was in the first season. When Midge has been betrayed by her husband, her parents want to know what she can do to fix it: “You have to fix it. You have to make sure you get him back,” and she’s like: “I didn’t do anything wrong. He betrayed me and they can’t see it that way.” And, I wouldn’t see it that way from the point of view of Shirley; you would really fear for your daughter being single – what would she do to make a living? How would she survive it? I have a daughter who’s very impatient with me, of course, but I say to her: “You know, when you think about it, the 1950s was not that long ago, and we have kicked the football down the field really far. We have a long way to go. And, we are so lucky to have an Amy Sherman-Palladino to create shows like this with women’s voices and untold stories to keep that football moving down the field, but there’s been a lot of progress.
M.H.: If I had a wish about the show – you brought something up; thank you for this inspiration here – and some people saw this as a 50s show and they saw it as kind of glossy or very filled with such beauty and they kind of let it go thinking that there wasn’t something under it. And, that is, as you know, because you’ve watched it, so not this what this show was, and I would love for those people to be able to go back and understand and see.
C.A.: And, I think from Amy and Dan’s point of view, part of releasing this last season is to celebrate the series, as opposed to a season because if you start with the first episode to the last episode, that’s your story. That’s not how television usually works because it’s confined by certain properties in a way – when people tune in, when they tune out, how many audience members you add, but if this was a school, and our course was on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and we watched all forty episodes, you would have a very big story and you would really feel the arc of this character, of Midge. Life is unpredictable and I think that Midge was destined and trained to be a beautiful housewife and raise children. And then, her husband cheated on her and so now, her narrative goes in a completely different direction. My mother was widowed at thirty-eight suddenly, she had three children under ten. She was supposed to be a housewife, too. But that’s not how it worked out because, all of a sudden life, presented her with the challenge of: “How am I gonna take care of my children?” and she went to work and she was always meant to work. Always. Always. We would always say: “What would have happened if mommy didn’t have the chance to work?” She would have been so horrible to be around! Oh my God! I can’t believe it! She became a big civil rights activist in the South, but even besides that, she needed to leave her footprints in the snow as all people do, and women weren’t allowed to.
Photo credits: Courtesy of Amazon Studios.
