I'm not a mom of boys, but I play one on TV.

Actually I'm also a mom of boys IRL too

My friend Tiffany is a professional actor. In 2019 I saw her in the play “Yen,” which absolutely wrecked me. She played Maggie, a tragic mom of two troubled teenage boys she had when she was a child herself. The brothers’ violence, sweetness, danger, doom, and fractured innocence were beamed right into my soul as a mom of a son with special needs that can translate to behavior issues that can make a mom worried and mad and sad. I know that Tiffany, as a mom of two boys herself, has dealt with similar struggles and fears, so I watched the play three ways—as a regular spectator, as a mom of boys who could ostensibly end up in the tragic state the characters were in, and being aware of Tiffany’s personal experience as well.

Then, about a month ago, I went to see Tiffany in an indie movie called Good Guy With A Gun—and again, she played the young mother of a teenage boy in danger of one of my greatest fears—getting swept away by a toxic male culture that glorifies guns and male white supremacy. (Prior to these roles I tended to catch Tiffany in Brechtian surrealistic plays, including one where I got splattered by onstage paint. Very different vibes.) After the premiere, when I told Tiffany it was funny that twice now she’s played a young mom of boys-in-trouble, she told me that she just got cast in a similar role for the third time! So I had to schedule a separate conversation to ask her what it’s like to get cast in the role of being a mom of sons and then go home to her actual sons. Who, it turns out, are also actors.

When was the first time you ever played a mom?

It was a commercial for Perkins restaurant. I was paired with an 8-year-old girl, and I was 31 or so. Unless you count committing infanticide as a mother at Trap Door theater or a character with a mysterious pregnancy with no child present. Ghost children. I think “Yen,” might have been the first time I can really think of, and those characters were teenagers. That was a bit of a jump from ghost pregnancies. “Yen” was on four years ago when I was in my late thirties—the actors playing my own sons were 22-ish. 

How much of yourself as a mom did you bring to playing this troubled mother of troubled sons in “Yen”? She’s so damaged, and then she also snuggles one of them in a sort of uncomfortable and deeply sad way.

I was imagining my own children [at the time, 5 and 7 years old]. I was projecting into the future and imagining them and bringing some of the same dynamics. The snuggling, the cuddling, petting them on the head. I think that character would say, “Let’s have a cuddle,” at least with her younger son, and treat him like a baby. He was supposed to be 13 or 15. When you’re the mother of a child, that child is all the ages they have ever been to you. You remember all the versions of themselves. They’re sort of living them all at once. I find it a little difficult to separate sometimes. My son is 9 now; he’s not 2. I get told sometimes by certain family members, like, “Hey he’s older than that now. You might want to treat him accordingly.” I’d see a mom at church, she’d have two boys, maybe 9 and 12, the way they’d snuggle up on her. Maggie had that dynamic with her younger son but not with her older son.

A lot of my mom friends had the same response you did to the play. Standing in the lobby with a bouquet of flowers staring at me like a deer in headlights. Just distraught completely. Up until pretty recently, I sort of prided myself on being all, “Oh no. I’m an actor who can turn it on when I’m on the stage and walk off and leave it at work and come back and it’s there.” I’m starting to realize it’s simply not true. You have to process it a little bit.

I had mothers watching those performances who said I know now what to watch out for, like with screens. In “Yen,” they were on video games all the time in a dark room, sleeping in and shirtless and very coarse. Watching porn, too. Horrible stuff, and my character wasn’t present for that as the mother. [The message being], that’s what letting your teenager go and run rampant on screens gets you: a horrible tragedy and the child ends up in prison. And then in Good Guy With a Gun, screens were a secondary issue when your kid is around guns. Plus the perversive disrespect that some of these fictional sons gave me as a mother. I don’t look forward to the teenage years.

What is the emotional connection like with a fictional son in a movie compared to a play?

Film is so different from theater. It’s never going to be the rehearsal process every day five days a week that you have for theater. You have to do a lot of that work on your own. You don’t get to discover it together with the people who play your sons. Be ready to hit the ground running. Just take things that already exist inside of you because you’re not going to try to manufacture a lot or make decisions. 

What’s the next young mom of a young man-in-danger role for you?

It’s this awesome indie feature film by Vincent Singleton called “Survivor, Soldier, Sinner, Savior.” This character, to me, feels similar to Maggie from “Yen” because of her station in life. They both have a hard life and got dealt a real shit hand, where you’re doing your best with it, and your best is not good enough for your child, basically. I love the challenge of finding sympathy and justification for the horrifying choices they make. To bring that out to audiences and challenge them to look at that and say, “Oh, my gosh, I kind of see why she does that in a way that’s horrifying.” Instead of just a villain who abuses her son.

You often play a mom who had her kids young and whose life has been hard. What about you gives off the energy of that role?

I wonder a little bit if this isn’t because my mother had me young and lived a rough life. She had me when she was 21 and went through a divorce when I was one and was a single mom with a disability—she’s Deaf—and had to make her way. Maybe I have sympathy for mothers—all three of these characters are single mothers. They’re struggling through it, having had them young. It manifests in different ways. Two of these three characters become an addict. They’re all searching for themselves.

You talked about what you bring to your mom roles at work—do you bring anything home from your work?

I think overall, I am a better mother by playing these characters because I’m confronting a lot of the dangerous and “bad” choices that a mother can make. I’m trying to understand them with sympathy and grace and extend grace to choices in our society that make choices like this and bring that to them. Why is this character doing this?

When they were pretty young, my older son always sided with the bad guy characters. He wanted Darth Vader, he wanted Darth Maul, whatever bad guy was in “Toy Story.” He was always intrigued by them. I remember my husband and I would be horrified. Why does he keep wanting the bad guys? As we got older, we started to see he’s looking at people who are making bad choices, and he’s more intrigued by that and bringing understanding and sympathy.

Do you mind doing these mom roles repeatedly?

With the Perkins commercial, I remember being horrified. “You think I’m already a mom?!” Then it went to, “Wait, is this marketable? Is this a new untapped segment of work now that I can go into?”

All three of these stories focus more on the story as told through the son’s eyes. Obviously, that’s not how I’m going to play it. It’s a story about me! It’s a gift, it’s a great privilege to tell this story as though it is her story, as though she is the main character. My son’s always talking about video games, “Dude bro, you’re not the main character.” I’m bringing that main character energy. You’re not going to upstage the people it’s really about. But it’s important to show the mom is a whole person.

Did you ever play a mom of daughters where the relationships were explored?

No. I have not. There’s time, baby. I always thought I’d be a mom of daughters, and now I have sons. I was shocked when they put the ultrasound past his little parts. “That can’t be right.”

“Yen” messed me up because it was so heartbreaking, and we both have had, like every mother, hard times with our kids, which brings its own worries about how they’ll grow up. What do you do with all that?

You gotta do your best while you have the chance with them while they’re malleable. And then you unleash them into the world. It’s like flying a kite, and you hope that it takes and it stays up or it crashes to the ground. Outside factors play a role. It’s just so sad. You look at Maggie—was that her best? It actually was, but tragedy ensued.

When my husband saw it, he was so cringed out. He usually will see opening and closing night and maybe one more time in between. He came to the opening of “Yen,” and he was like, “Tiff, I don’t know if I can see that again. That was so hard to watch.”

I think I’m a bad mom a lot of the time. He was able to be like, “No Tiff, you have your moments, but you will never be Maggie.” More or less, he talked me down from thinking I’m close to being that kind of parent.

What have you taught your kids about acting so far?

Some of it is practical. A lot of it is self-taped at home. Teaching them eyeline, where to look. How to establish that you’re interacting with something that’s not there. But then also character building and relationship things and psychology. Yesterday my 11-year-old son had an audition; it’s a feral character that lives underground. He’s giving me the monologue, and I ask, “What do you think happened right before this? That’s called ‘the moment before’ and you need to know that.”

I’m doling out bits of what I learned in acting school, but they get it in car rides home from school. They’re learning as they go without realizing it. They’re synthesizing it, and I see it coming through slowly every time in their acting. They’re growing as actors. I wasn’t acting at their age. I’m a little jealous of them.

Do they ignore your advice when you try to give it to them?

Oh my god, all the time. Dang, you don’t know how much information I could take you if you’d take it! But they just see me as their mom. Part of me is like, maybe you just need a separate human to relay this information.

What do you tell them about playing someone else’s mom?

They’re always intrigued to meet mom’s other kids. They’re just staring inevitably and invariably, it’s this man to them; it’s scary that it’s men. “Hi, I play your mom’s kid; isn’t she a great mom?” or whatever. And they’re just staring. 

Does your husband, the only non-professional actor, feel left out of the family biz?

Just recently, he got some professional photos for his work. When he posted them, he was like, “Now I’m finally part of the club, as the last member of the family not to have professional headshots.” I think he’s mostly just super excited to see them create characters. Even when they just audition and don’t book stuff, it’s cool to have an audition tapes they can have forever and watch themselves grow. It’s a cool body of work.

How do you thread the needle of wanting your sons to do their best work as performers but not pressuring them or otherwise being a stage mom?

I’m two humans when I’m standing in my little studio with the light and the backdrop. For me, it’s a constant struggle. As the manager, I’m like, “Dude, you could do two or three more takes.” The other part of me is like, “He’s yawning. He’s been up since 6. He still has homework, he needs to go to bed.”

Sometimes I’m just like, the casting people get what they get, and they have to know these are children, and if they see something that they see a little bit more of, they can call them back and do a second audition.

Sometimes I’m like, “Man, we nailed it.” For Chicago Med, I hit ‘stop’ on the tape, and I was like, “He’s going to book it on that.” [And he did!]

What gets easier the more experience you get, acting or parenting? 

I think acting is getting easier. I think parenting is getting harder. I don’t know. That’s how I feel. With roles now, I have my formula. I know how to do it. ABCDE. With parenting, it’s constantly changing. If you have a formula, if you have a rulebook, it doesn’t matter. It’s expired.

What advice would you give to other parents whose kids are acting?

I’d emphasize for adult actors and child actors that the job is to do your best audition. I have this mantra prayer thing that I got from a coach in an email/newsletter:

Place your hand over your heart or just pause and take a deep breath. And say:

“THANK YOU for allowing me to hold space for this character.

I am so proud of the work I am submitting

I trust my version of this character.

Thank you for moving through me. I am complete.”

It’s so easy to get lost in the audition—you need to do 80 auditions for one booking. But that is the job. I see stage moms of kids, and I’m like, “Ooh yikes, I think they’re focusing too much on getting it or not getting it.” My younger son had a big audition; he did not book it. He doesn’t really care about the way I care about acting, but he cared. He cared as we waited for the Zoom to light up and the famous people to show up. He did his thing. And I thought, “Right now, he’s managing the audition psychologically; he’s taking a deep breath and shaking it out. He says his own little prayer” —“It’s OK if I don’t get it. I’m doing my best.” He’s psyching himself up in the right psychological way. I didn’t care whether he booked it or didn’t book it. I was happy with his psychological journey.

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One witchy thing

These feeding/bathroom notes I found from our firstborn’s first month or so of life.

“thanks for making me get up for nothing”