Senior Planet Talks to…Melissa Leo

Oscar and Emmy winning actress Melissa Leo brings her fierce talent to playing a detective investigating a break-in at the home of a Black family in Nnamdi Asomugha’s provocative new drama, The Knife.  Today Leo, 64, talks to SENIOR PLANET about pottery, movies and how she can’t wait to return to the New York stage.

After five years playing a cop on 90s hit TV series Homicide: Life on the Street, it was a familiar beat for The Fighter and Frozen River star.

Q: Did you do any drive-alongs with the police for The Knife?

MELISSA: No, I drew on my pretend experience as a police officer when I got a lot of up-close time with homicide detectives back in the day on Homicide. For me, The Knife is a movie and what works for the film is much more important than what works for the police department.

Q: You’ve worked steadily since the mid-80s. As you approach 65, do you see yourself slowing down?

MELISSA: I have been a very busy actor all my working days, and then I played Alice Ward in The Fighter, and I got a fancy prize (an Oscar!), and I have worked less in the last 10 years than ever before. I don’t mean to complain. I’m very blessed, but I’ve gotten to a point where I want to be very careful of the portrayals of women that I put forward from hereon. I am conscious of not wanting to add to the lexicon of crappy portraits of women.

Q: Any trepidation about turning 65?

MELISSA: Not particularly. Maybe it’s because of what I do for a living – I aged 10 years when I was 30, because that’s the way they cast you. And then when I was 40, I aged 20 years. And so age is a relative sort of a thing. What I do notice in this mid-60 point, my body is not what it once was. I have to be more careful with what I eat. I’ve always had a very strong stomach; eat whatever I want kind of thing. But now in my 60s, I notice the aches and pains more than any other time. But I have no trepidation. I think we grow wiser and more wonderful. That’s my opinion.

Q: How about nutrition and exercise?

MELISSA: I fail exercise. I get a big F in my exercise – and this is why I’m now having trouble with my body. I have been blessed with strong, genes so I haven’t had to take very good care of myself, and I’ve remained relatively fit. So for years, I could just do a couple of weeks of one exercise or another and feel quite fit. Not so true anymore! And I’m less interested in it anyway, but I try to eat good food and keep an active, agile mind. For seven years now I’ve been learning Spanish on the computer with Duolingo so I actually have quite a few Spanish words – and one day I might have a Spanish conversation!

Q: Are you still a New Yorker?

MELISSA: I keep a little studio apartment in the city, so I can come and go. But I mainly live up in the hills near New Paltz and I have a pottery studio in Kingston where I spend a lot of time. I really love all my potty pottery friends – although I’d prefer to be working.

Q: Will you return to the New York stage anytime soon?

MELISSA: Oh, you just keep on saying that – really, really loud! I would love to. I never meant to not work on the stage. I meant to only work on the stage. It was all I knew. I have agents that are looking into that now, and I really hope in the next year or so that I can really do something on stage.

Q: What does a day in your life look like?

MELISSA: I’m up anytime between 5am and 7.30am. I have two cats and a dog, and if I’m not up by 7.30 they’re gonna let me know – and when the sun goes down, I go to bed. But, if I’m working, I’ll stay up all night; whatever’s needed. I spend quite a bit of time at my pottery studio or puttering around my house, fixing things. I do have a garden but it’s a bit sad this year – a deer got in and ate everything. And then I probably watch a little bit too much bad television, competition shows, when my day gets a little long in the tooth. This past June, I became a grandma for the first time. So that‘s a little distracting.

Q: What’s your secret to aging with attitude?

MELISSA: I guess I have to face it, that I am aging, but aging just gets to be such a negative thing; they don’t talk about that in wine aging – but in people, it’s like urgh, aging! So I tend to not pay attention to that. That’s what I do.

NB: The Knife is in theaters from August 15

Gill Pringle began her career as a rock columnist for popular British newspapers, traveling the world with Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson. Moving to Los Angeles 27 years ago, she interviews film and TV personalities for prestigious UK outlets, The Independent, The i-paper and The Sunday Times – and, of course, Senior Planet. A member of Critics Choice Association, BAFTA and AWFJ, she wrote the screenplay for 2016 Netflix family film, The 3 Tails Movie: A Mermaid Adventure. An award-winning writer, in 2021 she was honored by the Los Angeles Press Club with 1st prize at the NAEJ Awards.

Photo: Melissa Leo in The Knife, Courtesy of iAm21 Entertainment