Foinnula Flanagan may have four decades of television and movie roles to her credit, but it is recent years that the Dublin-raised actress has been the most in demand. In addition to her role as Rose Caffee in the Showtime series “Brotherhood,” she played Felicity Huffman’s judgemental mother in “Transamerica,” Mark Wahlberg’s foster mother in “Four Brothers” and had memorable parts in “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “The Others.”
“Well, you know, I sleep with everybody. It’s well known,” she joked when we spoke recently at an Outfest event. “I’ve been very fortunate. I think what has happened is that good writer-directors have seen me do something and said, ‘Oh yes, that’s what I want.’ That’s how I got the role in ‘The Others.’ There was some quality there of madness or whatever. They said, ‘Well I can put that to use to serve MY script. And I feel very fortunate because these are talented director-writers who have guts and I admire guts. Just somebody you want to go the extra mile with them because look what happens on the screen.”
Flannigan is a Tony Award-nominated actress with considerable stage credits who first made a big impression with American television audiences in the late 70s opposite James Arness in the epic miniseries "How the West Was Won," a role which earned her an Emmy nomination as best actress in a drama. She had won an Emmy two years earlier for the miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" which launched the career of Nick Nolte.
Although "Brotherhood" is her most high-profile current gig, Flannigan also made quite an impression a few years back as the unaccepting mother of a transgendered woman (Huffman) in "Transamerica." Flannigan was utterly convincing in a role that could not be more opposite from how the actress really feels about gay an d transgender rights.
"I think numbers are building aming people who have never even given it a thought before and that's good," she says. "I think pictures like 'Transamerica' that have something to say, that showed, why should you have to live what's a stealth life? Why should you have to live in the shadows and always afraid? Always less than or treated less than if you choose to be different? If you are born different? If your lifestyle is different? If you love and care for the people around you and you do your best to make the universe a better place, then aren't you entitled to be treated olike everybody else? To be treated well?"
I mention that Felicity Huffman's character in the movie certainly could have used a mother like Flannigan in the film - and not the monster mother who she portrayed.
"But you know, give her her due, the character I played. She did have the tiniest little change - a little bit of redemption. It wasn't much but given where she came from, it was considerable."
Anyway, it's a good thing Flannigan has found steady work as an actress all this time because, she jokes, it's kept her from her original career goal: “I always wanted to be an international jewel thief but I didn’t have the courage so I thought, ‘Why not try acting?’"