Staying Fit
Brat Pack actress Ally Sheedy tackles her first-ever TV series role playing the mom of the title character in Single Drunk Female (on Freeform cable channel Jan. 20 and Hulu Jan. 21). “This script was wonderful and the character was complicated and great,” says Sheedy. “It was exactly the right thing at the right time.”
AARP talked to Sheedy about her new role, which TV shows got her through the pandemic, and how the next generation may have it better than she did.
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Her new role on Single Drunk Female, explained
In real life a mom to a 27-year-old son, Sheedy plays Carol, an overbearing mother whose alcoholic daughter is forced to move in with her to avoid jail. “It’s a transitional time for mother and daughter,” Sheedy says. “It’s about having to navigate the mundane, the frustrating, the painful of daily life and relationships for a young woman who has to start her life all over again at about 30. And everything in Carol’s life is thrown into chaos.”
Finding the value in TV during the pandemic
Sheedy herself didn’t have many cable or streaming services before the pandemic, but with time on her hands during COVID lockdown she discovered “wonderful stuff”: Succession, Fleabag, The Crown, My Brilliant Friend, Empire, Atlanta, The Underground Railroad, When They See Us, I May Destroy You and Fauda. A high school and college film teacher in New York, Sheedy says she was finally able to take the advice of her students to find new favorites. “They love Euphoria,” she says, adding that she is now a fan. “I used to watch the news all the time. Now I watch these shows.
”While she sees the movies overrun by superheroes, Sheedy says it was revelatory to see amazing opportunities for actresses on TV. “There are different audiences watching everything,” she notes. “It isn’t always a comic book; everything isn’t always about cops and detectives. It’s actually more interesting stories about women and women’s experiences. There are myriad stories to be told with so many different people watching so many different things on online streaming platforms. It isn’t just like having three network channels trying to get the broadest possible audiences. Now it’s a niche show. I love finding them and watching them.”
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