Christine Lahti stars in "Yonkers Joe" as the girlfriend of a scammy gambler (Chazz Palminteri). It opens Friday. She also appears in "Obsessed," coming this spring. She is married to director-producer Thomas Schlamme; the oldest of their children is 20 and the twins are 15. We found her in Aspen over the holidays.
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Are you always up and about at 7:30 a.m.?
Yes, I am! If it's not skiing, I am up with my kids who are still in high school. I love getting up at 6 or 6:30 -- and I take them to school, or I go spin. Have you done that?
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Yes! You must be in great shape.
I'm in pretty good shape. Here in the high altitude of Aspen I did pretty well yesterday. I only fell down once. And I was standing still.
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And the kids are surviving high school?
They're doing great. I remember having a lot more sort of issues in high school. I don't know about you. But they're doing really well. I remember high school as being fraught with constant self-consciousness.
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I remember it being a nightmare.
Yeah! But I dunno, I was doing theater. What about you?
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I had dual interests: the theater's stage crew and marijuana.
Well, that's an interesting club, the marijuana club.
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We got a lot done.
I bet you did. I didn't know that existed in high school. I was so naive. I was in Birmingham, Mich., a huge public school, just massive. And I did theater, then went to the University of Michigan. Then I heard about things like marijuana. That was an exciting time -- the late '60s, early '70s, the hotbed of radicalism. That became the reason I still am such an activist. I'm so grateful for those years.
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What are your political goals for 2009?
Well. I'm full of hope for the first time in eight years, as a lot of us are. I'm hoping first of all for a lot of the women's rights issues to be addressed by Obama. I think the gag rule and a lack of funding for family planning, sex education -- all that stuff that Bush really pulled back. Certainly I'm grateful that Obama will not be reversing Roe vs. Wade.
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Are you going to D.C. for the shindig?
I'm not. I'm shooting a pilot in mid-January. I went to Clinton's inauguration, the first one.
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So what is this pilot?
