Virginia Madsen is best known for dark, serious, and sultry roles, but when she gets a chance to do some comedy, she’s going to nail it. That’s what she did in the new indie film One Day as a Lion, which she plays a woman who might be dying of cancer — but she’s still going to make life hilariously more difficult for everyone around her along the way. It’s the kind of character who can exist in shorthand — once you see her in her hospital room, but still clinging to the trappings of glamor, you know what kind of person you’re dealing with.
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The role wasn’t huge, but it was a scene-stealing turn — and maybe a boyfriend-stealing one? She’s pretty crafty.
“I knew immediately that I was going to play her, and it’s just really fun to be in a comedy for a change,” Madsen told ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian. “She was just so hateful with a capital H, you know? She just so enjoys torturing her disappointment of a daughter….When you play somebody who’s a baddie, they don’t think of themselves as hateful or bad. She feels righteous. She feels like, ‘if you’d just listen to me, everything would be fine, and you wouldn’t be a waitress.’”
“She’s dying of cancer in a hospital bed and she still has curlers in her hair,” Madsen said with a laugh. “I knew going in, she has to wear a kaftan, and she has to have false eyelashes on, and she still has to manipulate a man. Look at that guy! He’s a keeper, and I’m just going to take him away from you for a day.”
In One Day as a Lion, Jackie Powers (Scott Caan) is a nice guy but a lousy hit man, and when he’s sent to take out a crafty debtor (J.K. Simmons), Jackie only pisses him off. Fleeing the scene, Jackie takes bored waitress Lola as a hostage. When Jackie reveals he needs money to get his son out of jail, Lola cooks up a scheme for them to get cash from her dying mother (Virginia Madsen). Meanwhile, a thug sent to kill him is sleeping with Jackie’s ex. Also starring Frank Grillo, this crime-comedy is a witty homage to Tarantino and the Coen brothers.
You can get the film on digital video on demand platforms now.
