Sissy Spacek on living away from Hollywood and fighting the abortion battle again

Yahoo Entertainment
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Night Sky star Sissy Spacek talks about the new series and its portrayal of an older married couple, and weighs in on her decision raise her family on a farm away from Hollywood. She also looks back on her 1996 film If These Walls Could Talk and reflects on fighting the abortion battle again.

Video Transcript

- Are you ready to make history?

- You say that every time.

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ETHAN ALTER: Your relationship with J.K. Simmons is really the heart of "Night Sky". And I wonder-- it's a relationship you don't often see on television. I wonder if you're happy to be representing older married couples on TV for the younger folks out there.

SISSY SPACEK: You bet. We're not all bad.

ETHAN ALTER: Obviously, in real life, you've got one of Hollywood's most famous, long lasting marriages to Jack Fisk. You two have been together for a long time.

SISSY SPACEK: That's what attracted me to the role, because I understood that deep, deep, long time growing up together, and I understood the relationship.

ETHAN ALTER: Do people come to you for relationship advice that way? To have a--

SISSY SPACEK: Never. Never. Never. Nobody comes to me for advice, not even my children.

ETHAN ALTER: I know you guys live on a farm in Virginia, outside of Hollywood. Do you credit that with part of it, like not being part of the industry in that way?

SISSY SPACEK: We got the farm in 1978. But when we had our first child, we moved there. But mainly, because-- not because we didn't love LA, but that we wanted to raised our children in a more natural environment where they could make mistakes, and ride ponies, and do stupid stuff, and climb trees.

ETHAN ALTER: Along with this, you recently romanced Robert Redford in another movie, not too long ago. Do you like playing these love interests now, later in your career?

SISSY SPACEK: Yeah, I do rom-coms now. And I just worked with Dustin Hoffman. So we're just having a big old time. I'm knocking them off.

ETHAN ALTER: A performance of yours that's really been on my mind recently is the HBO film you made, "If These Walls Could Talk".

- I'm pregnant.

- Kidding me?

ETHAN ALTER: Is it one that you've been thinking about, given what's in the news right now?

SISSY SPACEK: No, I had not even thought about it. Yeah, we're in of a strange place right now. No, it was just a wonderful project with three wonderful directors. And I was a young woman, and all those things were very much on my mind, and used to be an opportunity to do something that had personal significance to women, and in a way it certainly political.

ETHAN ALTER: I was surprised that the movie isn't currently streaming on HBO. Do you hope that they make it available? Do you think it's something that people should see right now?

SISSY SPACEK: Oh, I don't know if people should see it. I think people pretty much understand what we're up against. We just never thought that after fighting that battle in the early 70s, that we would have to fight it again, you know? But that's kind of the way the world works.

ETHAN ALTER: Are you afraid for the future at all? Do you feel-- or I mean, the "Night Sky" is certainly a more hopeful series. How do you feel personally about the future?

SISSY SPACEK: I'm hopeful, you know? I'm hopeful. I hope we can stop climate change, slow it down, stop it. And the thing that is sad to me, is the division in the country. And we've been down that road.

So there are a lot of things that I think that they're not insurmountable. I have grandchildren now. I want the world to survive for them.

And I think a lot of people feel that way. And I-- so you know, hopefully, we will be able to. Character, and values, and truth, and courage, all of those things are really important, and personal privacy, and our protecting our planet. We got to get busy.

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