Annette O’Toole is known for portraying Lana Lang in Superman III, Martha Kent (the mother of Clark Kent) in the television series Smallville, adult Beverly Marsha in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s epic horror novel It, Tammy Wynette in the TV movie Stand by Your Man and Rose Fitzgerald Kenney in The Kennedys of Massachusetts, a role that earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress.
O’Toole can currently be seen in the role of Hope McCrea in the Netflix romantic drama series Virgin River, which also stars Alexandra Breckenridge, Martin Henderson, Colin Lawrence and Tim Matheson. The upcoming fifth season is scheduled to premiere in 2023. O’Toole and her husband, actor Michael McKean (Laverne & Shirley), are singer-songwriters and share a musical career. They have been married since March 1999.
Smashing Interviews Magazine: Annette, how are you?
Annette O’Toole: I’m good. I never know if I’m being heard or seen. I’m still not used to it after all these years of communicating this way. But, hello. I’m with you.
Smashing Interviews Magazine: I certainly understand that. How’s your day so far?
Annette O’Toole: Well, my day’s pretty good. It’s 10 o’clock where I am. You sound like you’re in the South somewhere.
Smashing Interviews Magazine: Birmingham.
Annette O’Toole: Birmingham. I’ve never been to Birmingham. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Alabama. I was born and raised in Houston, and I have family in Louisiana, and my grandmother came from Arkansas, so I’m all over there.
Smashing Interviews Magazine: Since filming has wrapped up on season five of Virgin River, what have you been doing?
Annette O’Toole: I’ve been doing a lot of personal things, a lot of family obligations that are big ones. My mom’s 97 and has been living on her own in a condo with people coming to help her out. She’s amazingly independent, but she’s at the point now where I had to get her to live in an assisted living facility. The good thing is it’s right around the corner from me. I walk every day, and it’s just part of my routine to see her. She’s so close. It’s a month today since she’s been there. So this was all the holiday was about, gearing up and doing it.
I know there’s no exciting work to talk about (laughs). But personally, there’s been a lot going on like that. Everybody’s okay, and we just got back from San Francisco the last weekend. They have an event there called Sketchfest. It’s a comedy festival, and they’re celebrating their 20th anniversary. They honored the movie The Mighty Wind because it’s also having a 20th anniversary of being released. There was a showing of the movie in the theater room, which was nice because most people have never seen it on a big screen. So they saw the movie, and there was a question and answer period.
My husband Michael was there as was Jane Lynch, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, and it was emceed by Kevin Pollak who’s a wonderful actor. Then after that, as a surprise, I came out, and my husband and I sang two songs from the movie, one of which was “The Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.” So that was really fun. It was the only kind of work-related thing I’ve done since Virgin River wrapped up. But that’s okay. I need time off, and I need family time.
Smashing Interviews Magazine: Let’s go back to the beginning for a moment. Why did you become interested in Virgin River?
Annette O’Toole: Sue Tenney, our original showrunner, called my agent and wanted to have a discussion with me about this project. I think Tim was already onboard, and I’d worked with him three times in the past and have known him for a long time. So that was attractive, and she and I just talked about it. She said it was based on the series of books, romantic genre books. I hadn’t read the books, but Sue told me her vision.
I liked the idea of making that relationship between Hope and Doc prominent because if you’re going to do a romantic story, older people also have romance in their lives or they have issues or relationship things they’re dealing with… or not. But I wanted there to be as much about that couple as there was about the younger people in the show, and Sue probably brought that idea up first. So that was great, and she kind of depended on me to give her insight of what I was thinking about this person.
Our new showrunner is absolutely the same. He committed to that whole thing and asked me and talked to me and gave me information on what he wanted to do and how I felt about that, which is lovely. I don’t think there are many shows where they consult the actors. When it’s on the page, you do make the best of it. You do the best you can with it to make it make sense and make it real for yourself.
