Sony Pictures(NEW YORK) — Actress Mamie Gummer stars opposite her mother, Meryl Streep, in Ricki and the Flash. Gummer plays Julie, the onscreen daughter of Streep’s Ricki, a minor-league rock musician who gave up everything — including raising her children — to pursue her musical dreams.
Gummer said on Wednesday’s Live with Kelly and Michael that being on set with her mom was awkward, especially since she didn’t know her mom was told by the director to purposefully ignore her on set.
“I just sort of felt like, ‘Why is everybody ignoring me? What did I do? I thought I was really good in that last take.’ It was weird,” she admitted. “But I think that, you know, in hindsight I think he was trying to feed into the abandonment and the anger that Julie had.”
When moviegoers are introduced to Gummer’s Julie, she’s going through a hard time in her life. “Her husband’s left her but I feel that her mental state predates all that,” the actress explained. “I think that unfortunately, [or] fortunately, she shares more in common with her mother than she would care to acknowledge.”
Gummer says her character is “mad at her mom. Her mom’s abandoned her and her brothers at a young age, and she comes home kind of out of the blue to try and help Julie through this time.”
Ricki and the Flash, also starring Kevin Kline and Audra McDonald, is out Friday.
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