How Rosemarie DeWitt And Her Husband Ron Livingston Got Cast Together In The Estate - Exclusive
In the acidic new farce "The Estate," a group of cousins — played by Toni Collette, Anna Faris, Rosemarie DeWitt, and David Duchovny — converge on the New Orleans mansion of their wealthy, dying aunt (Kathleen Turner), each with the goal of jockeying for pole position in her will. All four of them have different ideas of how to get back in her good graces after being mostly estranged or just disliked by her for years, and some of their plans range from the cynical to the unspeakable.
Beatrice, the character played by DeWitt, intends to be all sweetness and light to her aunt, but Beatrice's seemingly kind demeanor masks a tightly-wound, highly cunning operator who will stop at nothing — not even the loss of her husband's dignity — to get the money she thinks she deserves. As for her hapless husband, James, he's doomed to the lower rungs on the status ladder, even in their own relationship.
James also happens to be played by DeWitt's real-life husband, Ron Livingston, whom she met in 2006 on the TV series "Standoff" and married in 2009. "The Estate" marks yet another time that DeWitt and Livingston have worked together on screen, following "Standoff" and the 2015 film "Digging for Fire," but it's the first time that the pair have played a married couple.
DeWitt told Looper in our exclusive interview that she and Livingston always relish the chance to work together, and "The Estate" was a perfect opportunity. "I think he has an ego about the kinds of roles he plays, but not when it comes to me," she said with a laugh. "He wanted to support me being Beatrice."
A call from a friend got both DeWitt and Livingston roles in The Estate
As two working actors with two daughters at home, juggling career and family life can sometimes be difficult for Rosemarie DeWitt and Ron Livingston. "These days, it's always hard," DeWitt admitted. "So many things shoot outside of LA, so a parent is always leaving their kids. The best way to get one of us to go work is to cast the other one too, so it becomes a whole family affair."
DeWitt added that she has occasionally landed a role in a project and been asked if Livingston would want to get involved as well, which is very much what happened on "The Estate." She explained that it was a call from lead actor Toni Collette — with whom DeWitt has previously worked in "The United States of Tara" and "The Staircase" — that ended up with both her and Livingston getting hired for the movie.
"Toni Collette is a friend and a person I've had the privilege of working with a couple times now, and she said, 'Would you want to do this?'" DeWitt shared. "Then she was like, 'Do you think Ron would want to do it?' I was surprised."
DeWitt added that she felt fortunate that her husband was willing to take the kind of torment from her on screen that would not work in any kind of normal marriage. "He wanted to support me being Beatrice. Then I was like, 'Don't ever do that again. I'm so mean to you [in the movie]. That's so awful. It's so emasculating.' But it was really fun to work together."
"The Estate" opens this Friday (November 4) in theaters.