“Charlie trusts Kevin,” Lopez continues. “That’s a very important aspect of the movie. She knows that she and Kevin truly love each other and want to be together. It’s that bond that gives her the strength to go beyond the call to make things work with his mother.”
Lopez was not the only actor enamored of their character. Fonda also found herself excited to take on a character so different from anything she had done in the past.
“I’ve never played a character like Viola,” says Fonda. “I’m just glad that after 15 years, my first character isn’t dour or serious, but outrageously over-the-top. In the 50 films I’ve done, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun. I didn’t expect it.”
Fonda loved the idea that Viola was a Barbara Walters-type. “Viola is a major television personality, a serious journalist who interviews heads of state, but the network wants fluff and she doesn’t do fluff,” says Fonda. “She’s considered old so they fire her in a horrible way and she has a breakdown. Then she comes back from a retreat and discovers that she’s going to lose her son, too.”
The setup adds to the tension of the plot.
“Viola’s son chooses to marry at the moment when she’s lost all identity in the world,” says Paula Weinstein. “Kevin is her only anchor; the only thing she has left is being a mother, and it frightens her that she could lose him.”
The resulting conflict is one in which Fonda is painted as an “antagonist with shades of gray,” according to Robert Luketic.
“Viola is very isolated and that informs her behavior in order to allow the audience some sympathy and understanding,” the director continues. “When we meet her, she is in a crisis moment and goes completely over the edge.”
Nuts or not, the fun begins when Viola determines that no matter how in love Kevin and Charlie may appear, she knows what is best for her son, and Charlie does not fit the bill. “While Viola’s behavior is completely inexcusable, she’s so outrageous that you forgive her,” says Fonda. “You go along with her because she’s just so terrible. She’s like a volcano or an animal that pees everywhere to mark its territory; she just can’t help herself. That’s what I love about her.”
Fonda’s motivation for the grand dame was culled from a wide combination of personalities including Mae West, Ted Turner and her grandson, Malcolm, to name a few. “Viola is dramatic and over-the-top, but she’s also courageous, and she stands by her convictions,” Fonda says. “She couldn’t have gotten as far as she did in her career if she didn’t also possess those qualities, for better or worse.”
Because the two female leads are such strong opposing personas, it was important that the character of Kevin not get lost in the mix.
“We didn’t want Kevin to be this forgettable nobody because it’s important the audience respects him and respects that he’s in a difficult situation between two women that he loves,” says producer Chris Bender. “He can’t take a side; he has to be very diplomatic regardless of the pressure. We had to be very delicate in how we chose to handle his obliviousness.”
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