As a Hollywood film and TV mainstay, Rosemarie Dewitt has had a “buzzy” few months. In October, she starred in the much-anticipated Halloween blockbuster Smile 2. This week, she shines in Disney’s heartwarming Out of My Mind, portraying the mother of a young girl with cerebral palsy. Beyond her on-screen talent, Dewitt is known as a dedicated mother to two girls and the wife of Ron Livingston. (He may have played Berger on Sex and the City, but she played not only Aidan’s ex-wife, Kathy, in the reboot but Miranda’s colleague, Fern, in the original series.) In between it all, as Dewitt shared with us, she’s working on teaching her daughters about self-care and beauty, all while carving out a little time for herself when she can.
Congrats on Out of My Mind and Smile 2. That franchise, obviously, is scary. How do you get into character for something so frightening?
It was funny. I haven’t done many things like this. And I don’t think I could do this one if there wasn’t a deeply human component to my storyline. It was about a mother pushing her daughter past the breaking point. Hopefully, I’m not that mother, but that angle was interesting to me. There was a scary element—a very scary human element. That got me into the scenes. Then, honestly, there is just a lot of that disgusting, fake, wet, cold blood. That does a number on you. You wake up in sweat in the middle of the night, reminding yourself: “This isn’t real!” But all that fake blood starts to work on your nervous system.
That’s funny—and scary. How do you get all the makeup and fake blood off before your head hits the pillow?
I will tell you this: A makeup wipe is not going to do it! You are in there with the cleanser and the scrub and the scrub again and a hot shower. There was a day I had a particularly gross day on Smile and I took three or four showers. Not because I was worried about clogged pores—you literally cannot live with all this stuff on. It’s not fun to have all that fake blood on you.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more minimalistic with the skin-care stuff. I’m doing less facials and more Retin-A. But, at the end of shooting, you need a lot of hot towels. Hot towels and a good, old-fashioned cleanser.
It’s funny. I have two girls, 9 and 11. And they are more into their beauty routines than I am. When I asked my daughter—just before she was about to turn 9—what she wanted for her birthday, her answer was skin care! I was shocked! “Girl! Skin care! You want skin care? What do you even mean by skin care?” I think I’ll get her a panda sheet mask and call it a day.
But, honestly, I do need to teach my daughters how to take care of themselves. It’s a way to make some time for yourself. And they’ll need to do it when they’re older. But, oftentimes, I find myself not carving out time for the beauty. I just try to remember to floss.
The necessities. Your daughters are young and you are busy. How do you keep things going? How do you make time for yourself in other ways?
Walking is my best friend. Just walking the dog, going outside, getting some fresh air. Taking a breath is key. Doing a yoga class is great.
You’ve had so many varied roles. Is there anything that really sticks out to you for getting into character glam-wise?
I love a wig. I don’t love wearing a wig—it’s hot and it’s hard—but I love a wig. When I did The Staircase and I was playing a real-life person, they put me in a very blonde-blonde wig. I love prosthetics. I love when I don’t see myself in the mirror. I used to not love glam, weirdly. I always wanted to play real people and I wanted people to believe me…so I was always showing up in characters with no makeup on. I really like how, on Smile 2, they were giving me lashes with glitter in them. It was really fun to be like, “What would Beyoncé‘s mom wear?”
That’s fun. As we are getting to the end of the year, what are you excited about?
I’m excited for the holidays. Not the holidays in that frenetic shopping kind of way, but the holidays in that cozy, let’s get together, let’s all be on the couch way. That time when the kids don’t have school for four or five days when we can all get under the covers and make tea. I’m really excited about togetherness—and not just with my family, but with my friends as well. I need some cozy care time with each other right now.
