‘Learning to Drive’ actress Patricia Clarkson on ageist, sexist Hollywood

Much like her character in “Learning to Drive,” actress Patricia Clarkson has adapted to the life without a car. The New Orleans native has called New York home for many years, where very few own their own vehicles in the nation’s most populous city.

“As I became more and more a New Yorker, my driving ability lapsed. And so now I’m not really a driver,” the 55-year-old actress of stage and screen told The Washington Times. “I don’t even drive when I go home to New Orleans. Someone has to putter me around. Thank God I have a lot of nieces and nephews.”

In “Learning to Drive,” which opened Friday in the District, Miss Clarkson plays Wendy, a Brooklynite whose husband unceremoniously delivers the news that he is leaving her for a much younger woman. The couple’s collage-age daughter Tasha (Grace Gummer) entreats Wendy to visit her in Vermont. The only people: Wendy has never had a license.

Enter Darwan, a Sikh immigrant portrayed by Oscar-winner Sir Ben Kingsley. Darwan patiently but determinedly guides Wendy through the miasma that is New York traffic.

“It’s very real, it’s not a tow truck,” Miss Clarkson told The Times of the scenes of herself driving “Sir Ben” about New York streets. “Sir Ben had to trust that I could drive him around Manhattan. Oh my God, the trust and faith that that man put in me to actually get his very talented and very famous person around,” she said, adding a deep laugh.

The title “Learning to Drive” not only refers to Wendy’s mastering the art of war that is piloting a motor vehicle in Gotham, but also of spreading her own wings as a middle-aged divorcee adjusting to single life after a lengthy marriage. A scene that is both humorous and honest-to-life sees Wendy engaging in a one-night stand with a man whose tantric practices grant him rather Herculean sexual prowess.

The sequence comes as a bit of shocker for a culture that worships youth and perhaps would rather behold youthful lovemaking, but Miss Clarkson insists that sexuality — particularly female sexuality — is something to not be hidden but celebrated as people age.

“You know, we don’t stop being naked as we get older,” Miss Clarkson said with a smile, about the scene. “I think nudity is a valuable part of filmmaking because film is about exposure. It is about revealing our inner selves to the best of our ability, and sometimes that requires nudity. And it should be valid whatever age we are … and we should see that.

“This is a newly divorced woman. She’s going to be with a person, she’s gonna hook up. [But] she’s in her fifties, my God!” Miss Clarkson laughed of a culture squeamish around middle-age sex.

Add to that the ongoing dearth of quality roles for women, particularly women over 40 — a fact that Miss Clarkson continues to face in her own career.

“It is a male-dominated industry; it is an ageist industry,” she offers bluntly. “Those are things that will not change in my lifetime. But at some point you have to say ’I will change this. There is somebody out there that will want to make this film starring middle-aged women.’”

As Wendy gets more confident behind the wheel, the relationship between her and Darwan deepens into something ambiguously. Miss Clarkson, who previously with Mr. Kingsley in “Elegy” in 2008, heaped praise on her much-lauded co-star not only for his artistry but also his professionalism.

“Sir Ben’s a consummate actor; he’s a workhorse,” she said. “He shows up to work. He doesn’t show up to do anything else, and it’s a beautiful thing.”

New York may be far from her native Louisiana, but Miss Clarkson hasn’t forgotten her home in the bayou. On the recent 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, she spoke of her family’s experiences weathering the awful storm, and her hopes for the Big Easy’s future.

“I was in the city five days after it happened,” she said. “My mother was president of District C at the time; she never left. It was a remarkable time for the people in that city, and the remarkable people who came to the aid of that city was astonishing.

Miss Clarkson memorably portrayed a Louisiana housewife who was “cured” of a mysterious ailment by the magical character portrayed by the late Michael Clarke Duncan in 1999’s “The Green Mile,” which gave her a chance to play someone who was closer to her nativity.

“My heart is always a New Orleanian,” she said. “I can live in New York as long as I have — maybe my driving can lapse, but I am forever and always a New Orleanian. It’s in my blood.”

At the same time, “Learning to Drive” afforded her the chance to get to know her adopted city anew by driving about its various boroughs.

“I fell in love with [New York] all over again in a very different way. And it is genuinely a city of people from everywhere. To me [it is] like New Orleans. It is a beautiful collection of people.”