Busy Tracy Letts showcases very different character in ‘Lady Bird’

For Tracy Letts, the chance to play the kindly, concilliatory father of Saoirse Ronan’s title character in the film “Lady Bird” (opening Friday) was a happy relief. “I was so delighted to finally get the chance to play something that is certainly different from all the guys who do things like organize military drone strikes [like his Andrew Lockhart on ‘Homeland’] and all that kind of stuff,” said the actor, also a Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.

In his own mind, the Chicago resident and longtime Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member believes Larry McPherson in “Lady Bird” is “much closer to me temperamentally than all of those less appealing types of guys I frequently get asked to play.”

The film centers on quirky outsider Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Ronan) and her desire to escape from her hometown in Sacramento, California, where she feels suffocated artistically. Her parents Larry (Letts) and Marion (Laurie Metcalf) do their best to support their only child, but Lady Bird’s dad clearly is far more sensitive to his daughter’s emotional needs than is her mom — a no-nonsense realist who thinks her child’s aspirations are far beyond her reach.

While the mother-daughter conflict is the central theme of “Lady Bird,” Letts’ calming influence is both a tonic to Ronan’s character and an infuriating irritant to Metcalf’s Marion, who constantly criticizes Larry’s soft touch.

The film marks the feature film directorial debut of actress Greta Gerwig — based on a screenplay she also wrote.

Despite Metcalf and Letts’ long Steppenwolf connection, “Lady Bird” is, according to Letts, “strangely the first time we’ve really acted together. We figured out we first met in 1988, which means we’ve known each other for nearly 30 years. We’ve known each other’s work, of course, and have seen each other on stage many times. Knowing each other well definitely did help to play husband and wife.”

That said, Letts believes the two actors’ strong stage background also “made things very comfortable on the ‘Lady Bird’ set. There was a lot of trust, because we come from the same world and speak the same professional language.”

He also thought Gerwig “was very smart to populate this film with so many people with theater backgrounds” — particularly noting Lois Smith (another Steppenwolf veteran), Stephen McKinley Henderson and Timothee Chalamet. In the cases of Henderson and Smith, Letts said, “they don’t have a lot to do in the film, but they make profound impressions. They’re not big roles, but they leave big footprints, because of all the life they bring with them to their characters. … Theater actors, like Lois and Stephen, are particularly adept at that.”

While Letts carries a reputation as a major writer and director, he insists “I only came to this film as an actor,” adding that Gerwig’s script “was so complete — right from when I first read it. The movie you see finished is the movie she wrote. It looks very much like what I first read on the page.”

Now Letts is turning his attention to his new play, “The Minutes” (beginning previews Thursday at Steppenwolf). The playwright is delighted to have a cast that includes veteran Chicago actors William Petersen and Kevin Anderson, who have not graced a local stage in a number of years.

While his play is set in a small town’s city council, Letts said the political slant “does not speak specifically to what’s happening nationally with Trump or Hillary or any of that. The lens is a bit wider than that. It’s not necessarily a red state vs. blue state sort of thing.

“However, it is about asking ‘How did we get here at this point in time?’ … It’s about not only just our politics, but our public discourse as well — the way we are in the world today.

“At the end of the day,” he added with great emphasis, “I also hope it’s damn funny too!”