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The novel haunted the actor, even as she was living it up with her theater mates.
In 1985, a 28-year-old Cherry Jones was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, pondering Americas fall from grace.
Did it seem inevitable back then?
It absolutely felt like it could go either way, the actor says.
Perhaps because the battle lines had yet to be drawn.
No one had a field day with Tammy Faye Bakkers mascara like gay men, Jones says.
Heterodoxy: a relic of another time.
Some things, at least, have changed for the better.
Jones was able to marry her wife, filmmaker Sophie Huber, because of laws only recently certified nationwide.
Take me back to 1985.
How were you feeling about about your life and career?
Oh, I was having a wonderful time.
But I came back and did a few things.
Then I was in New York.
I had been in a relationship and we had ended amicably.
Well, I was always on my bicycle.
So when I would hang out, I would hang out more in Manhattan, I have to admit.
And Id go to things in the park.
The city was getting ready to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge.
What are you proud of from that time?
And Im a slow learner.
So I was proud of myself for sticking with that.
So I benefited tremendously.
And thats hopefully a very antiquated situation now and will never, ever, that cannot happen again.
And thats a glorious thing about the progress in the United States in the last several years.
No going back to the white bastion of theater.
Whats it been like to see the industry change over the years?
Its been a sigh of relief.
And I will say that when I graduated from college in 1978, there were 12 of us.
And four of us were African American and the other eight were white.
I had a friend a Black actor who went straight intoA Chorus Line.
And then I think another friend went in as a dancer, into the theater world.
And then my other two friends became teachers, but it was just hard.
And thats just the way it was.
So whenHamiltoncame along I mean, there was a lot that came along before that.
And an organization calledThe Non-Traditional Casting Projectwas started, I think, in the 80s … And that was sort of the beginning, but its taken another 30 years to make a dent.
Weve spoken about the privileges that you had going into the industry as a white woman.
But was it challenging at all to navigate the industry as a gay woman?
You know, in the theater, which is rife with homosexuality, it was not a problem.
Had I had a budding film career as a 28-year-old gay woman, that mightve been quite different.
Then I mightve been encouraged to keep my mouth shut.
But it was easy-peasy for me.
What advice you would give your 28-year-old self?
I think that would be it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
This article was originally published onSep.
