When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.I went to a Broadway play today and the playbill had an interview with a young actor who was quoted as saying that he chooses roles based on working with people he likes and parts that will help him grow. The fuck! I choose parts based on working with people who will hurt and humiliate me, and roles that will help me regress and fill my heart with self-loathing. I’d like to play a potato, Cordelia, or Carmella Soprano. I once read that Michael Caine would look at the first and last page of a script and if his name was on the first and last page, he would take the part.
How do you choose roles?
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Betsy Lerner 
What a namby-pamby. (him, not you)
That Michael Caine was astute with his decision making
The Sopranos was one of my all time favorite series. (Boardwalk Empire too.) First run of True Detective.
Anyway, this is easy for me – I’d absolutely choose all the same roles as Frances McDormand, because she chooses roles that get under the other characters skin like a bad rash.
“How do you choose roles?”
I don’t. They choose me. Resistance is futile.
With finesse and aplomb. I choose the role of the cautious cowboy, hesitant to get on that untamed wild horse and relieved/pissed when a rival cowboy jumps right on and goes for a decent ride. Later, the schoolmarm, new in town, leaves with confident cowboy, but he’s battered, tired and nursing a pair of crushed testicles, so when she goes out into the night and sees my opportunistic self hanging around down by the corral we talk about books and movies they’ll some day make about the west and eventually we retreat to the cover of the cool, moon shadow pines and all is well; back in the saddle again.
Do I have to leave the house?
My roles?
A touch of Goldie and Gilda, add a little Lucy, Carol, and now a lot of Erma, and I am a wannabe twice baked double stuffed grandmother who likes to say “fuck” and write “fuck”. No one thinks gray haired matrons should use that word, which is precisely why I like it.
How do you choose rolls?
Carefully, with tongs or a piece of paper supplied by the bakery department at my local Stop and Shop. Hard, soft, poppy seed, sesame or onion I like them all.
There’s a choice?
I like roles for which I am entirely ill-suited. So I must make apologies that my being elected president of the USA or even Brazil would be much too good a fit. Sorry about the ongoing and upcoming suffering.