In a career of sinister roles, Margo Martindale shines as a sweet mom in ‘The Hollars’

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In person she has a big, Texas-girl laugh and an agreeable manner, yet Margo Martindale’s splashiest roles, Emmy-winners like backwoods crime boss Mags on TV’s “Justified” and the ex- KGB supervisor Claudia on “The Americans,” are shiveringly sinister. Then along comes “The Hollars,” a four-tissue weeper directed by actor John Krasinski, and Martindale proves that she’s just as effective a scene-stealer when she’s playing a selfless, sweet-faced Midwestern housewife named Sally Hollar.

Because Sally’s been diagnosed with a brain tumor, in most of Martindale’s key scenes she’s dressed in a thin cotton gown delivering dialogue from a narrow hospital bed. Yet instead of being hemmed in by wardrobe and location, Martindale draws the biggest laughs and tears, as the trio of men who see Sally as their emotional touchstone -- her husband (Richard Jenkins) and two adult sons (Sharlto Copley and Krasinski, doing double duty) -- huddle around her, falling apart at the seams.

As much as critics have raved about her performance, perhaps the New York-based Martindale’s most cherished “Hollars” review comes from her 28-year-old daughter. “She said, ‘This is my favorite movie you’ve ever been in,’” says Martindale, with a catch in her rasping voice as she sat with The Envelope to discuss “The Hollars,” late-in-life fame and “BoJack Horseman.” “That means so much to me.”

The story goes that when Krasinski reached out to Jenkins, he said, “If you get Margo Martindale to play my wife, I’ll do it.”

Yes, and I think I need to tell everyone I know to say that. [Laughs] I love Richard Jenkins. I mean he just brings this unique perspective to everything he does.

Talk about playing someone who puts everyone’s interests above her own.

It was different. Mostly I do people who are pretty far away from [who I am]. Although I am certainly not Sally, I guess there was a challenge in that. What I do know is that I had to push down my emotions – because that’s who Sally was. That was really hard to do with John. Both of us are really big crybabies.

What was it like to work on a film made in 22 days?

It was very concentrated. We met. We did a read-through and we were instant family. And that’s the truth. Richard and I turned into Mom and Dad right before those boys’ eyes.

One day into filming, the production lost its main location – the hospital where Sally is brought after her seizure. What happened next?

John scrambled around and found a working hospital. We were shooting in their ICU and hoping that no trauma [patients] came in. That hospital was almost like a character in the movie. All around us [were doctors, nurses and patients]. We lived it. We saw it. The nursing team [in “The Hollars”] was the hospital’s nursing team. The whole experience was odd and amazing. Sometimes it felt like there were no cameras there, that we were just a family in a hospital, talking with each other.

How did you say goodbye after shooting your final scene?

I went out and bought a lot of barbecue and then I went to the liquor store and bought booze. Then Richard and I threw a party in the lobby of our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. We’d never all been together on a weekend. It was so fun. We kind of owned the hotel that night.

Do you think that winning awards at this stage in your life makes a victory sweeter?

You bet. Getting my first Emmy at 60? That feels good. It feels like I’m not withering away, I’m becoming more bold and alive.

You’re now so famous that you voice a character on the animated Netflix series “BoJack Horseman” and her name is, “Character actress, Margo Martindale.”

Here’s something hilarious: When I won the first Emmy for “The Americans,” my husband went online just to see how quickly Wikipedia would put that up. And I heard him go, “Oh, no,” and I said, “What is it?” And he told me that it said on Wikipedia that I’d spent the last year and a half in prison for armed robbery. [Laughs] Now [on “BoJack Horseman”] Margo Martindale, character actress, went to jail for armed robbery. But I didn’t. [Laughs] Who did that? Who even put that on Wikipedia? Do they think that just because it’s [my name and my voice], it’s real? I mean, the other characters are horses and dogs.”

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