And now, here's Patricia Clarkson with The Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cafferty.

The Burglar's Christmas.

Two very shabby-looking young men stood at the corner of Prairie Avenue and 80th Street looking despondently at the carriages that whirled by.

It was Christmas Eve, and the streets were full of vehicles, florists, wagons, grocers, carts, and carriages.

The streets were in that half-liquid, half-congealed condition that is peculiar to the streets of Chicago at that season of the year.

The swift wheels that spun by, sometimes through the slush of mud and snow, over the two young men who were talking on the corner.

Well, remarked the elder of the two, I guess we are at our rope's end, sure enough.

Well,

Is your preparation always kind of the same? Do you have a, a similar way of doing it?

No, it's similar in that A character is a character, whether it is... 'Cause even if it's comedy, it's still rooted in emotion.

And so, and I've played some very emotional characters, but it doesn't really change.

You know, doing Easy A wasn't any different than shooting some of those brutal emotional scenes I had with Amy Adams in, in, you know, uh, Sharp Objects.

So it's all the same.

It's all, it's all about how, uh, what side of me, you know.

The, I think the more you can input whatever you are into a character, the, the, just even a piece, a facet of you, so you keep it grounded and tied and inseparable.

Is there something that comes to mind when you think of the best lesson that your parents gave you or taught you, even?

You know, what gave you the confidence, though, to just follow your own path?

Well, I think my mother raised five very strong, independent women.

And I'm thankful for that.

My father also was an extraordinary father.

I had remarkable parents.

And I knew I didn't think I could do that.

And so I chose not to marry and have kids.

is that project feeling like?

[laughs]

And it was.

So it really was the privilege of my life, of my career, of my being, to step into these very big shoes.

But in order for me to do that, I had to take her off the pedestal.

I had to see her eye to eye.

You know, as actors, we imprint very easily, and I felt I owed her the best of me, and, and I felt I owed her everything, and that I didn't want to play her and portray her.

I had to take her through three decades.

What are your hopes for the film, and then do you have any advice for others who want to make similar kinds of film engaging people around really important issues, using storytelling, uh, to engage people in these issues?

So when it came to Lily, what were those facets that you wanted to see through into the performance?

Well, I did something rather radical.

People are shocked I didn't meet Lily Ledbetter.

First of all, it was the greatest privilege of my life and my career to play this woman, and I don't say that lightly.

But Lily, I'm the baby of five daughters, and Lily was on such a pedestal.

And as an actor, I'm going to get a little methody, but you cannot play someone who's high in your life.

You have to put their feet on the ground.

Since we weren't in the audience of that local competition, I thought if you're open to it, you could do a little reading for us.

But New Orleans really is that for you.

Well, because I was born and raised there, my mother ran the city under the great mayor, Mitch Landrieu, saved it from Katrina, after Katrina, rebuilt it.

Talk about what your mom did with that.

First of all, she was president of Louisiana Realtors, and then she... became a state legislator and then she really got to the heart of her soul which is her heart and soul is city is the city the great city of new orleans and she became president of district c councilwoman of district c which is the french quarter and algiers so i grew up in algiers i didn't grow up fancy i didn't grow up uptown or in the garden district but my mother finally ran for District C because she had a grandmother, her Bubby, my great grandmother, my Jewish grandmother, who lived in the French Quarter.

So Bubby would hire a horse and cart to take them in their gowns and their long gloves, like when my mother was like 12, 14, to take them to the opera, to take them to the ballet, to take them to the symphony.

And, you know, when after Katrina, my mother said, well, we're going to rebuild every single artistic venue in this city.

This is the soul of this city, along with our music and our culture.

inspiring, by the way.

Right.

But she also had a remarkable husband, Charles, played by the great, uh, John Benjamin Hickey, who was the wind beneath her wings.

And, you know, often these people who rise, uh, it's sometimes the person behind the scenes.

And he really was so supportive for her to keep fighting, because can you imagine? She was giving up...

She was working these brutal shifts at this factory, giving up valuable time with her family, working overnight shifts, and being paid 40% less-

Is that true?

Yes, we did.

He was very authentic.