After being “fired from everything in the US” for her vocal support of Palestine, the Oscar-winning actor has come to the UK to star alongside Andrea Riseborough – and three others – in Mary Page Marlowe, which tells the story of one woman’s life from cradle to grave.
“I like to slide in humbly,” says Susan Sarandon, looking down at her cup of tea. “I like working in ensembles. I didn’t want to make it a big deal that this would be my first appearance.”
The Oscar-winning actor, star of the blazing Thelma and Louise, is talking in a rehearsal room high at the top of the Old Vic theatre, dressed casually in tracksuit bottoms and trainers, and explaining how she came to make her UK stage debut at the belated age of 79.
She is performing in Mary Page Marlowe, by Tracy Letts, a moving play about the life of one ordinary woman from cradle to grave. Its uniqueness is provided by the fact that the woman is played through 11 non-chronological scenes by five different actors – and a doll. Sarandon is joined in the Mary gang by Andrea Riseborough, Rosy McEwen, Eleanor Worthington Cox and Alisha Weir….
She has been nervous about her British stage debut. She’d met the director Matthew Warchus on the recommendation of “friends I really trust, like Ian McKellen”. When he rang to offer her this role, she says, “it checked all the boxes of what I wanted, so I threw up, called him back and said, ‘I guess I have to do it.’ I’ve done a lot of theatre before, but the Old Vic has a resonance to it. It’s pretty intimidating. I’m still not eating, but now we’re through press day hopefully I will be less nervous.”…
Sarandon’s marvellously naturalistic, easy performance as the older Mary has been warmly received. It has come at a good moment for her, because her long held and outspoken support for Palestine led her agency UTA to drop her as a client after she spoke at a pro-Palestine rally in November 2023. “All my projects were pulled,” she says. “I was fired from everything in the US. So I was very fortunate to come over here and find people who would rep me. I have friends here, I’ve worked here but not on stage. I feel safe here.”