Sitting Down With Michelle Williams: Glinda in Oz The Great and Powerful #DisneyOZEvent

Sitting down with Michelle Williams after watching her play Glinda in Oz The Great and Powerful was like a dream come true. I mean, Michelle Williams is about the same age as me, she’s an excellent actress, and she’s a mother too. She’s the career woman that I wish to be like. When we sat down with Michelle we were told not to ask her any personal questions, but I really was interested in how she juggles being a famous actress and being a mother. She was so modest in her answer saying basically that it’s impossible to do both well, so you have to focus on one at a time. It’s about quality of time and not quantity of time.

Photo Credit Jeanne Eschenberg Sager

Here’s what she said:

I was afraid you might ask something like that. How does anybody do it. It’s an Olympian undertaking. What have I figured out? When you really arrive at something that’s true and honest, it’s taken you so long to get there, and you had to work so hard for it. Nobody really prepares you for it, and nobody really tells you the truth, which is that it’s not possible. It’s not possible to do both things well at the same time, especially not if you are exacting, and maybe a Virgo, and really critical. Every mother that I know asks a lot of themselves. What I’m trying to wrap my head around is to get comfortable with the moments, to get comfortable with the fact that it’s going to feel like a scale, and there’s never going to be a perfect balance, and it’s always going be a give and take.

As a working mother myself, I really appreciate her honesty and how she is so critical of herself. As mothers we all feel that way and we always feel like we’re not giving enough time to something. I like what she goes on to say.

Something’s always going to feel like it’s suffering, like it’s underserved. And that’s really hard on your heart, to feel like you’re not being the best parent that you could be, or you’re not being the best at your job that you could be. That’s what I’m really trying to get peaceful with the fact that I’m always going to feel like that and that is the equation for as long as I choose to or have to stay in this position where I work and where I parent. It’s so hard. It’s really overwhelming.

Then she goes on to say that she has figured out how to cut out a few things like hand washing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. They all just go in dirty. It made me laugh to picture Michelle Williams in her kitchen washing dishes, I mean, we don’t picture actors and actresses doing normal things. Because playing Glinda in Oz The Great and Powerful is not a normal thing. It’s a normal girl’s fairy tale dream but few get to live it out. And Michelle Williams did such a good job playing Glinda, I even told her that. As I told her that I also asked her how she prepared for the role because it was spot on.

I thought a lot about her. I’ve watched the movie The Wizard of OZ passively for years, and watched it with my daughter and I thought a lot about her. Sam said something really interesting to me in the beginning. He said there’s a reason that Glinda, the Good Witch doesn’t go down the Yellow Brick Road, she’s not on the journey, because she’s one dimensional. She doesn’t have anything to learn. She’s like the least relatable character. I though that’s a good point. We want people to feel like they’re on a journey with Glinda, too. She isn’t this sort of crystalized version who knew it all along and we want her to have struggle. We want her to be human. But what does she have to struggle with because she doesn’t have a split nature. She’s not struggling with herself, how can she still be good, and innocent, and believe the best in people, but still have a struggle?

And obviously, she’s struggling for the freedom of these people, and she’s struggling, with her own self doubt. I thought a lot about transformation. She’s not somebody who’s had a perfectly easy ride. She lost her father. She’s in charge of these refugees, but she doesn’t really know how to protect them. I can’t say that those are things that I’ve, weighed in my life. And so I thought a lot about transformation and how Glinda transforms these dark and dire situations and how she transforms tears into bubbles. She makes the best out of a rotten situation because of a way that she chooses to look at it. That takes a lot of energy and it’s not entirely human. It is a super-human quality, although I have seen it on Sam, our director. By the way, one wife, five kids. One wife and five kids. It’s amazing. He’s such a cool guy. He had that attitude, you know. It’s like a really tough job to make a movie that’s this big. Can you imagine all those personalities, a hundred and fifty people, all their personalities, all their jobs, all their questions, and Sam is the funnel for all of it. And he maintained this exuberant buoyancy, and this belief in the possibility, and he was interested in what everybody had to say.

And as a mom I love the final part of her answer because I would have been thinking the same thing.

I was inspired…-I think a lot about my daughter….I just think a lot about my daughter, I thought a lot about Sam as Glinda the Good Witch. And I thought about Joan of Ark and heroes.

AND I LOVED that we got to take a picture with her.

Michelle Williams did an amazing job as Glinda in Oz The Great and Powerful. She was spot on as someone with complicated thoughts all internally planned as if she knew how it would end all along, simple yet complicated and very beautiful.

OZ is in theaters March 8th, also OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL will play at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, CA from March 8^th – April 30^th in Disney Digital 3D and Real D 3D

· For the First 3 weeks only (March 8 – 31) See “Disney Mysteries of Magic” live on stage!  Be dazzled by the artistry of illusion in a magical showcase.  See our expert wizard perform mystical magical illusions before your very eyes! 

· Plus, see an exclusive display of costumes from the movie from March 8 – April 30.

For tickets call 1 (800) DISNEY6 or visit www.elcapitantickets.com