Mercedes Ruehl has a new challenge keeping her so busy she cannot come to Los Angeles to promote her new film. She is hardly complaining, though.
No, the challenge is not in acting. Her career is going well, with an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress for The Fisher King ) and Broadway's Tony (Best Actress for Lost in Yonkers ) to her credit, a recurring role on the hit sitcom Frasier and a prospective show of her own.
As an actress, like the king of old, she seems to have no worlds left to conquer. But rather than weep, Ruehl took on the most demanding of roles: motherhood. She has adopted an infant son, who is near her as she talks on the telephone. 'Jake . . . Jake Javier, also known as J J. He's a remarkable lad. The psychics have already promised me genius and a boy who will love his mother to the death.' She is at her home on Long Island, far from movie-addled Los Angeles in every way. She apologises for her absence, but is far from sorry. Besides J J, she offers another reason, 'a beautiful body of water called Gardeners Bay that's as blue as the Aegean this afternoon,' she laughs. 'I hope you find my honesty refreshing.' 'Refreshing' is a good description for conversation with Ruehl. She speaks of life in a poetic, romantic voice laced with self-deprecating humour.
She enjoys every part of her life, which may be why she is the perfect actress to star in a comedy about death.
In Roseanna's Grave, Ruehl plays an Italian woman with a short time to live. Her dying wish is to be buried in the town cemetery next to her daughter. But there is only one grave left in the cemetery, and it is going to the next person to die.
Her husband, Marcello, determined to give Roseanna her last wish, makes it his mission to keep anyone in town from dying - but a sick old man, an angry ex-convict and a distraught neighbour have other ideas.