BY KAREN BOSSICK
They say that you have to be young and beautiful to make it in Hollywood.
Danielle Kennedy didn’t let that stop her.
Kennedy put her acting aspirations on hold for 50-some years as she raised eight children and had a successful career in public speaking and training sales people.
When the time was right, she pried open the door and made her way onto the sets of numerous TV shows and movies.
She is currently appearing as Ambassador Noonan on the popular Netflix series “Narcos,” even as she portrays the scathingly acidic pill-popping matriarch of a family full of repressed truths and unsettling secrets in the Company of Fools’ production of “August: Osage County.”
The play runs through Oct. 17 at The Liberty Theatre.
“If I had realized how hard it was going to be, I might not have done it,” she confessed. “I came into the business in my 50s when there’s such an emphasis on youth and looks. And here I am anything but wrinkle free. But I think it’s worked because the casting directors focus on who I am and all my life experiences and my ability to create characters as written.”
Born in Chicago, Kennedy majored in theater at Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, before trotting off to California in the 1960s with her husband Mike.
“I loved acting since I was little. I put on plays with my cousins—I was Debbie Reynolds, Doris Day, Esther Williams. As an only child, I had imaginary friends for whom I wrote imaginary plays. But I wanted a big family because I was only child. So I put my acting on hold.”
Even though she was itching to get back into theater, Kennedy and her husband decided to fulfill another dream—that of living in Sun Valley, which Danielle had fallen in love with while testing her mettle here as a 13-year-old competitive figure skater.
She was introduced to the valley’s vibrant theater scene when she saw Bruce Willis perform with the Company of Fools, a group he had encouraged to move here from Richmond, Va.
She wrote Fools co-founder Rusty Wilson a fan letter. And, soon, she found herself looking up from her breakfast at Perry’s as Willis asked her: “Would you be my mother?”
She followed up her debut as Willis’ mother in the 2002 movie “True West,” by immersing herself in the Fools’ acting classes.
“I consider Bruce and Demi (Moore), Denise (Simone) and Rusty and John (Glenn) my real mentors. They were constantly feeding my creative juices,” said Kennedy, who also returned to college for a master’s degree in stage writing.
By her count, “August: Osage County” is the 14th production with the Fools that she has either directed or appeared in. That long list includes “Always, Patsy Cline,” “Sideman,” “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and Lee Blessing’s “Eleemosynary”
In 2005 Kennedy decided it was time to head to Hollywood. She and her husband sold their 4,000-square-foot log home and moved into a 500-square-foot condo in Los Angeles with a Screen Actors Guild card she had gotten for her work in ”True West.”
“My friends thought I was crazy. But I was totally willing to make the sacrifices, and Mike believed in me more than I did,” she recounted.
In Hollywood Kennedy found herself in rooms packed with men and women she’d been watching on sitcoms for 30 to 40 years.
“They might get a thousand head shots or clips for a one-line role on ‘Parks and Recreation.’ They look at a hundred of them and bring in 50 for the audition,” she said. “I’d look around and think, ‘Ohmigosh, nobody knows me.’
“I was going to audition after audition up against some of the most talented people in the world--there’s no shortage of talent. And they’re not going to say, ‘Great job.’ To go to Los Angeles and face that rejection you have to be really resilient and you have to really, really love acting.”
All she could do, Kennedy said, was keep putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe she would get the role she’d applied for. If not, maybe they’d remember her for another.
“L.A. is a town that remembers you for the audition you give them,” she said.
She got an acting coach and immersed herself in acting classes. And she began acting in small theaters with 99 seats where, she said, casting directors come to see the actors.
And she began landing guest roles—often as “the angry woman”--in a long list of TV shows that included “Grey’s Anatomy,” “C.S.I.,” “2 Broke Girls,” “The Middle” and “The Mentalist.”
She played a woman who didn’t want a shelter home for teen-age girls next door opposite Rosie O’Donnell in “The Fosters.”
“She’s real down to earth,” Kennedy said.
And she drew on her experience as a string reporter for a Wood River Valley weekly when she put Amy Poehler on the spot in “Parks and Recreation.”
“They loved what I did so much that Amy invited me to the campsite where she and Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones were having lunch because they wanted to thank me,” she recalled.
Kennedy spent six months off and on in Bogota, Colombia, making the biopic “Narcos,” about Colombian cocaine gangster and mass executioner Pablo Escobar.
“It’s fun to watch the ambassador. She’s a tough broad who’s been rode hard and put away wet,” a reviewer for the Wall Street Journal wrote, referring to slang for a horse who’s been ridden hard and returned to the corral without having the sweat wiped off.
“I love that review,” said Kennedy. “I was pretty thrilled because it showed I could play a tough politician, holding my own among a cast of tough characters. The story itself is just a fascinating one. You can’t believe what went on during that time.”
Though thousands of miles from her own family, Kennedy came to think of the “Narcos” cast as family.
“That first day with Pedro Pascal and Boyd Holbrook I felt completely at home. The vibe on the set was so good—I think that had a lot to do with the show being a hit. When people feel comfortable, they relax and let their creative juices flow.”
As filming for “Narcos” wound down, Kennedy set her sights on a stage production of “August: Osage County,” in Penobscot, Maine.
“My coach told me, ‘Don’t be too general. Bring specificity to Violet based on who you are.’ I figured: Violet is an addict, and parts of my personality can be obsessive, whether it’s worrying about something or craving candy,” she recounted.
Kennedy was happy when the show closed in Maine, knowing that she would get to reprise her role of the incoherent self-medicating Mom for Company of Fools. Even after weeks of rehearsing and playing Violet, she says she’s still discovering new things about her every day.
“She’s a piece of work!” Kennedy said. “She is terrifying, yet she’s very funny, as her dysfunction makes her very quirky. And I’m finding new colors to paint her with, in part because I’m working with her here under a new director.”
Kennedy says she’s glad she pushed the throttle in her 50s.
“It’s been wonderful, with ‘Narcos’ hitting No. 1. And now I’m working with a cast of incredible people—they feel like family, just as the cast of ‘Narcos’ did. And, really, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing than acting.”
WHAT ROLE WOULD DANIELLE KENNEDY MOST LIKE TO PLAY?
Auntie Mame would be fun because it would allow her to sing and dancing in a musical. “And I have that smoky low voice,” she added.
Or, how about Peter Pan? “An old Peter pan—I won’t grow up!” Kennedy opines. “Mary Martin, who did the first Peter Pan on Broadway, was one of my heroes.”
SEE DANIELLE FOR YOURSELF in AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY:
What: “August: Osage County
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 2-3, Oct. 7-10, Oct. 14-17. 3 p.m. Oct 11.
Where: The Liberty Theater, 110 N. Main St. in Hailey
Tickets: Tickets are $35, $30 for seniors and members of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and $15 for students 18 and under. Groups of eight or more receive $30 tickets. The 10 front seats cost $10 for each performance. Tickets are available at sunvalleycenter.org, at 208-578-9122 or at the Liberty Theatre box office.
What’s more: Girls Night Out on Saturday, Oct. 3, includes a chance to win a goodie bag, wine and beer discounts at the theater, 40 percent off wine at CKs and a chance to win a $500 shopping spree at The Wildflower in Hailey.
There will be a Post-Show Chat Back with actors immediately following the Sunday, Oct. 11, matinee. And set designer Joe Lavigne will lead a Backstage Tour following that show, as well.