Martha Plimpton says she was “so excited” to reunite with Tommy Lee Jones, the actor who once played her father on screen, now that the two are working together again on FX’s “The Lowdown,” a drama set in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Plimpton, 55, played Jones’ daughter when she was 14 years old in the 1984 film “The River Rat.” More than four decades later, the two are sharing a set again in Season 2 of “The Lowdown,” which follows Oklahoma-based citizen journalist Lee Raybon, played by Ethan Hawke, as he digs into corruption in Tulsa.
“A lot of people think of [Tommy Lee] as a rough, gruff kind of guy, but I think he’s just a teddy bear,” Plimpton told Page Six.
She described the lingering effect of having once played his on-screen child. “When you meet someone and work with someone who played your father at that age, there’s always a little part of you that sees them that way,” Plimpton said.
Jones, 80, didn’t immediately place her when they crossed paths again. Plimpton said he “didn’t quite recognize” her until Hawke said her full name on set, prompting Jones to “perk up.”
“And he turned around and saw me, and we just had the biggest hug… it was incredible.”
In Season 2, Jones takes on the rare television role of Lee’s estranged father. Plimpton joins the cast as Vela Thorne, a tough sheriff who butts heads with Hawke’s character.
Plimpton said she doesn’t put much weight on the size of a role when deciding whether to take it. “I think that’s self-evident at this point, given my career,” she said. “But as long as the character is necessary to the story, it doesn’t matter how big [the role] is, for me.”
A Decades-Long Friendship
Plimpton and Hawke, both 55, have been friends since coming up in Hollywood in the 1980s. The two also appeared together in Tom Stoppard’s Broadway trilogy “The Coast of Utopia” in 2006.
“We haven’t really ever lost touch,” Plimpton said, adding that it’s been “wonderful to see someone that you’ve known for so long, at different phases of their development in life.”
She described Hawke as always having been “smart, a cute and silly and fun guy, a curious person, a real reader – someone interested in the finer points of literature and poetry,” but said he has changed with age. “I think he’s mellowed into this really extraordinarily good person,” she said. “There’s something about when a person feels comfortable in themselves – in horse riding, we call it ‘finding your seat.'”
A Busy Stretch for Plimpton
The role comes amid a notably active run for Plimpton, who has also appeared in Netflix’s “East of Eden” alongside Florence Pugh and HBO’s “Task” with Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey.
She offered a preview of “Task,” currently filming its second season in Philadelphia. “The entire cast apart from Mark’s character and his family and my character is brand new,” she said. “So, it’s a completely new storyline and it’s opened up quite a bit. Mahershala Ali is in it. Edgar Ramirez. We’re having a good time.”
“The Lowdown” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on FX and is available to stream on Hulu.
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