Jill Hennessy, Alec Baldwin Star in Lymelife
Hennessy Releasing Online Album, Ghost in My Head
Mar 4, 2009
Chatelaine’s April cover girl, Jill Hennessy has left Los Angeles for more familiar territory, her old stomping grounds of New York City, where she originally starred in Law & Order. The tepid TV drama about forensic pathology, Crossing Jordan, was cancelled after her years and Hennessy was ready to try something new.
Now 40 years old, the Canadian actress has two kids, Gianni 5 and toddler Marco. She stars in the upcoming feature film, Lymelife, opposite Alec Baldwin (the two starred in the TV mini-series Nuremberg with Brian Cox in 2000) as a wife whose marriage is disintegrating. Hennessy’s parents separated when she and her twin sister were 13 so she had a clear connection to her character, Brenda.
Act 1: Acting Act 2: Parenting
Hennessy began by talking to Chatelaine about how she was concerned about leaving acting: “I’m really enjoying the day to day of having two kids. I didn’t know how I’d react with not doing the acting thing every day.
“I wondered if I’m not doing that on a day to day basis am I going to become depressed? Am I going to start to feel that I’m no longer viable as a human being? And it’s amazing: I look forward to taking my son to school on our scooter and doing class things with him and saying hi to the other kids and hanging out with the other moms, getting a coffee after drop-off.”
Autobiographical Album, Ghost in My Head
Hennessy tells Chatelaine that singing is her first love and that she wrote most of the songs in Ghost in My Head herself. As a result many of the songs are autobiographical.
“I have memories of feeling very alone, which is reflected in a lot of the imagery of the songs. There’s the prairie wind in Edmonton, staying in the art class way too late because you don’t know if your parents are going to be home or not when you get there.”
Desperate Measures in Lymelife
There’s a scene in Lymelife where Hennessy’s character, Brenda, is desperate to shock her husband and get some attention from him. She goes to the roof of her building and smokes a cigarette in the middle of winter wearing a bikini and shorts. The film was filmed three months after Hennessy’s Gianni was born.
“I realized a long time ago that I’m always going to feel like something’s not right – I don’t like my legs or I don’t like my knees or my face or my hands. I know myself well enough to know that I will always find fault with something, which is kind of freeing, actually.”
The complete interview with Jill Hennessy by N.Y. writer Simon Houpt can be found in the April issue of Chatelaine.
