Martha Plimpton was delighted to reunite with her former on-screen father, Tommy Lee Jones, on her new series, “The Lowdown.”
“A lot of people think of [Tommy Lee] as a rough, gruff kind of guy, but I think he’s just a teddy bear,” Plimpton, who played Jones’ daughter at age 14 in the 1984 film “The River Rat,” told Page Six.
The actress said she was “so excited” to see Jones, now 80, and share the screen with him again in the second season of Ethan Hawke’s FX drama.
“When you meet someone and work with someone who played your father at that age, there’s always a little part of you that sees them that way,” explained Plimpton, 55.
Plimpton said the “Men in Black” star “didn’t quite recognize” her when they first crossed paths on set. That changed when Hawke called out her full name, prompting Jones to “perk up.”
“And he turned around and saw me, and we just had the biggest hug…it was incredible,” she recalled.
“The Lowdown” centers on Lee Raybon, an Oklahoma-based citizen journalist played by Hawke, as he investigates and exposes corruption in Tulsa.
Jones has joined Season 2 in a rare television appearance as Lee’s estranged father. Plimpton plays Vela Thorne, a formidable sheriff whose clashes with Lee add another layer to the story.
The “Goonies” star also told Page Six that she has never been especially selective when it comes to choosing roles.
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“I think that’s self-evident at this point, given my career,” she joked. “But as long as the character is necessary to the story, it doesn’t matter how big [the role] is, for me.”
The Emmy-winning actress and Hawke, 55, have been friends for decades after rising through Hollywood in the 1980s. Their professional history also includes Tom Stoppard’s “The Coast of Utopia” Broadway trilogy, in which they both appeared in 2006.
“We haven’t really ever lost touch,” Plimpton said.
She described it as “wonderful to see someone that you’ve known for so long, at different phases of their development in life.”
The “East of Eden” actress said Hawke has always been “smart, a cute and silly and fun guy, a curious person, a real reader – someone interested in the finer points of literature and poetry.”
As Hawke has grown older, Plimpton said, “I think he’s mellowed into this really extraordinarily good person.” She compared that sense of ease to horseback riding: “There’s something about when a person feels comfortable in themselves – in horse riding, we call it ‘finding your seat.’”
Plimpton is also enjoying a particularly busy stretch in her career. She recently appeared in Netflix’s “East of Eden” alongside Florence Pugh, as well as HBO’s Emmy-winning “Task” with Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey.
The actress offered a preview of her upcoming role in “Task,” whose second season is currently filming in Philadelphia. “The entire cast apart from Mark’s character and his family and my character is brand new,” she said.
“So, it’s a completely new storyline and it’s opened up quite a bit. Mahershala Ali is in it. Edgar Ramirez. We’re having a good time.”
“The Lowdown” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on FX and Hulu.