In ‘The Hills of California’ Laura Donnelly Plays a Mother Whose Tragic Decision Destroys Her Family — Just Don’t Call Her a Monster

variety.com:

Brent Lang Executive Editor “I’m smaller in real life,” Laura Donnelly tells me after I admit that I didn’t recognize her, standing pensively by the entrance to the midtown bar where we’re meeting, scanning the room.

Indeed, the Donnelly who sits before me — diminutive, retiring, her dark hair cut short and in curls — seems far removed from the steely women she has portrayed to towering effect on Broadway.

She went fly-fishing with Hugh Jackman, entering the stage while brandishing a freshly caught trout in 2014’s “The River.” She held a sprawling Irish family together while nursing a forbidden attraction to her brother-in-law in 2019’s “The Ferryman.” And she’s currently delivering two commanding performances in “The Hills of California,” playing Veronica, an iron-willed single mother dreaming of fame for her four children, and Joan, the adult daughter who fled for America and took shelter in a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. “Jez always wanted the same actress to play both the child and the parent who had done the damage,” Donnelly explains.

By “Jez,” Donnelly is referring to Jez Butterworth, her partner in work and in life — the pair share two children, ages 6 and 8 — and the author of each of her biggest stage successes. “I’m always telling him, ‘I will never hold it against you if the next one doesn’t have me in it,’” Donnelly says. “I’m not going to be offended if there’s nothing I can play.” In fact, Butterworth didn’t write to all of Donnelly’s strengths.