MIFF presents award to actress Mary McDonnell

Her expression tightened as she viewed some of the more serious scenes from a stage, television and screen career that has spanned more than 30 years.

McDonnell, 52, then stepped on stage to receive the Marco Island Film Festival's Crystal Palm Award, with her newfound friend actress Patricia Neal in the audience.

Pat Berry, film festival executive director, and Vickie Kelber, festival artistic director, were co-presenters of the award, which is given to an actor or filmmaker who makes a strong impact through film or individually.

Besides being nominated for two Academy Awards, McDonnell also is passionate about working with children with learning disabilities. While here, she took part in the Young Filmmakers Program, which involves more than 400 Collier County Schools students who are educationally challenged.

Cosponsored by the film festival and the school district, filmmakers in all aspects of film making visited schools to inspire students making their own two-minute videos.

Neal received the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award the day before and came to McDonnell's ceremony.

"Thank you so much for my honor," McDonnell said. "It is an outstanding feeling to be in the same room with Particia, whom I admire. I am very pleased to be part of a festival that has provided a very different experience."

The ceremony followed the showing of Passion Fish, the movie that brought McDonnell her second Academy Award nomination. Her first nomination came for her breakthrough role as Stands With a Fist in Dances with Wolves.

The Q&A portion was light, with McDonnell stopping at one point to wave goodbye to her daughter Olivia, who was catching a plane. "I love you; call me when you get home," she called.

Of her nominations, a theatergoer asked her if she could tell when she was working in something special.

"In Dances with Wolves, I didn't know much about the Academy Award, but I did know that I was in a zone and that it would be an important piece of work that I would never forget. In both cases I knew I had been given a special opportunity and knew the roles were right,"

She recalled how, at the time of Dancing with Wolves, "I was so innocent. When some L.A. people, like people that Costner had around him, told me to get my people ready, I didn't understand. At that point the only people I had were the Native Americans I was working with in the movie. I got a publicist because they said, 'This is going to be big.' What I really found was that a publicist costs a lot of money," she said with a laugh.

Nagged by the audience to reveal her favorite leading man, McDonnell said she enjoyed playing opposite Costner; Robert Redford, whom she starred with in Sneakers; and Alfre Woodard, with whom she has starred in six movies, including Passion Fish.

Of the kissing scene with Costner, she said, "We went through all four seasons in shooting the movie. The kissing scene was in the Black Hills in freezing snow. It was so cold we had to do something" she said laughing.

She calls Woodard her soul mate.

The star she would most like to work with is Robert De Niro. "When I saw him in Deerhunter, he was incredible. There is something in him as a human that I respond to. I'd like to play his sister."

She said she also would like to act alongside Meryl Streep, and quickly added, "I love actors, so this list could get very long."

McDonnell's favorite director is John Sayles, with whom she made Passion Fish and Matewan.

"John is very smart, a good writer and director. He also is a really big man that when you are around him you feel safe."

If there is a complaint, she said, it's that Sayles may be too efficient.

"He makes direction simple and he shoots so quickly that it is over before you know it," she said.

She recalled a scene with Woodard that they thought could have gone better.

"We set up our game plan to deal with John, then realized no one else was still in the room. They were already in the dining room shooting another scene."

McDonnell met her husband, Randall Mel, while doing a play, Still Life, in 1979.

"I played a women eight months pregnant, and an alcoholic married to a very angry and depressed Vietnam veteran," she said. "Somehow he liked what he saw, we fell in love and have been married for 18 years."

It wasn't until college that she realized she had an interest in becoming an actress.

"It wasn't until I took theater history that I got so excited and discovered I had a brain and realized acting was going to be a way into life for me," McDonnell said. "I like studying life in human behavior. It made sense to me and has been something that I can respond too. I enjoy my life."