In Plain Sight's last episode, "Trojan Horst", found US Marshals Mary (Mary McCormack) and Marshall (Fred Weller) caught in the middle of cross-fire while trying to protect a sickly witness. Unfortunately Marshall gets shot in the process and Mary believes he may die. In this sequence of events there is a very heartfelt exchange between the two characters, and is consequently Mary McCormack's favorite episode.

"It's a scene where I think he might die and he thinks I might die, and I think it’s a really beautifully written scene," says McCormack about the abandoned bar storyline.

Mary has spent a lot of her time on stage (she is actually in the middle of a play-run right now), but the character Mary, and the writing for this new TV dramedy, really drew her in for many reasons. 

"The role is such a nice fit for me," she says, "It's such a great part. You see her at work and you see her at home. I was looking for a show to do and I was reading lots of scripts. It was in a stack of scripts, and I remember just laughing out loud a bunch of times, which I rarely do, even with really funny scripts. With this one, I just remember actually sitting in my living room just laughing. I just called my agent and said I really, really want to go in and meet on this one. Then I went and met with Paul and David and they didn't ask me to read actually. I was willing to read, but they didn't ask me to read. We just sat and talked for a long time. And then they offered it to me after that."

The character is a fun one for Mary to take on as well. "It's fun. She's kind of a bad ass. She's a bad ass without being a superhero, which I like. When she has a fight, you'll see in some episodes she actually gets hurt. It's not always pretty, but she still can look after herself and really mess somebody up if she needs to, which I just love. It's great. I'm built for that as well, and I feel like I've never really gotten to do it. I look like - you know my body looks like I might be a Marshal and I've never really played a cop. So it's nice," explains McCormack.

Although her character is very capable when it comes to kicking ass and transporting witnesses to their new lives, she doesn't fair so well in her home life. With a dead-beat mom and a drug-addicted sister, Mary's family life couldn't be further from her hard-nose approach when she's on the job. How does a law enforcement officer emerge from such a chaotic upbringing though? 

"I think Mary Shannon sort of raised herself and had to look after herself from day one and probably is really, really frustrated, and really, really angry about not having a mother who was into the law and into structure and rules and all that. So, she went as far as you could go with that and now keeps everybody in line, and keeps a to-do list on her dashboard. All of that is sort of a reaction to what she comes from, I think," reflects McCormack.

Her character may have organized herself into a ruled survival, but what does that say for her personal relationships? Well...if you've watched the show thus far you know she only has one real friend (Marshall). "I think it's probably something we see a lot. I mean, with successful people, they focus their energy on their work and unfortunately some things like marriages or relationships and other things slide a little bit. Usually it's people hiding themselves. They're hiding from something they don't want to look at and so they hide in their work. I think that happens a lot.

"I love that David sort of has her hiding as well. She's hiding from her own fear of intimacy and she's hiding from her own anger at her mother. She just focuses on work. I think it's sort of a beautiful backdrop that she hides people for a living and she's sort of hiding as well," she reveals.

With last week's episode almost killing the only friend Mary McCormack's Mary Shannon has, viewers finally got a glimpse of the softer side of her character. Ending with a gut-wrenching display of tears and bellows, Mary is certainly not all stone wall and no emotion. It brings about a great dynamic to the character. 

In this week's episode "Who Shot Jay Arnstein?", Mary Shannon works to solve the mystery of who tried to kill her art-dealer witness. To complicate matters, both his mistress and his wife are in the program...and both are key suspects. Don't miss it!

In Plain Sight airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET. 

---

Comments

Add New Search RSS

angela   |2008-07-22 08:35:48 mary kicks ass! Reply 0   0

john   |2008-06-30 13:18:45 I saw this show this past weekend when they were airing replays of the last few episodes and I thought it was great! Mary is a fun character without being too butch, and Mary does a good job portraying that. I wonder if it is weird playing a character who has the same first name as you? Reply 0   0

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."