Remember Spartanburg's Celia Weston from TV show 'Alice'?

Celia Weston’s latest movie role is designed to make us laugh. In the recently released movie “Poms,” Weston, a 40-year veteran of television, stage, and screen stars alongside Diane Keaton as Vicki, the film’s villain.

“Poms,” a comedy, chronicles the story of Martha (played by Keaton), an introverted teacher who relocates from New York City to Georgia and decides to join a retirement community. While dying of cancer, Martha decides to correct one of the major mistakes she made as a youth: quitting the cheerleading squad to take care of her ill mother. Realizing it is never too late to pursue a goal, Martha starts a retirement community cheerleading squad. Vicki, the resident mean girl, queen of pastels and parallel parking a golf cart, does all that she can to sabotage Martha’s plan. Jacki Weaver, Rhea Perlman, Pam Grier and Bruce McGill round out the hilarious cast.

Weston, who grew up in Spartanburg but now lives in New York City, spoke about her latest role, her lengthy career and some of her favorite Spartanburg memories. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Spartanburg Magazine: Congratulations on the release of “Poms!” It seems 2019 has been quite a ride, and women are embracing this movie.

Celia Weston: “Poms” really hit a spot with all of my contemporary women friends who can relate to this stage of life. This movie is about a life journey. It’s triumphing over so many things women take on. The cheerleading club is a little bit frivolous but it’s about overcoming what your body can’t do anymore and celebrating what it can and the joy of that achievement and fulfillment when it comes to new challenges. It is more than just old ladies in spandex.

SM: You have a penchant for playing interesting, intriguing Southern women—across class, across a number of factors, really.

CW: You know how we as Southerners are, it makes our skin crawl for someone to do a caricature or horrible over-the-top rendition of an idiot Southerner. Coursing in my veins is an actor--that's where I start. Having been raised in the South by a Southern belle mother definitely helped. I studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts and then in London and later with the great Uta Hagen in New York City. In these spaces you have to audition for class and you’re studying with other actors who are at a certain level, so you learn from everyone’s work. I tell young actors—you always have to come from a real place—not matter regionally what you’re playing, eco-social circumstances, comedy, drama, you come from a real place.

When you’re a young actor you don’t have a lot of emotional life and experience to draw on, and hopefully not a lot of heartbreak, things like that. In your head there are certain ways you learn to manufacture some depth that will trigger your reality and how to live that for a camera or onstage. As you get older it’s like beer on tap. Southern or otherwise you always go for the most authentic you can be, and if it’s an emotional life, you learn to live it while you’re doing it.

For this role I wanted to come from a real place, and thankfully I do play comedy and a lot of things that happened for Vicki came out of extended ad-libbing beyond what the script’s basics were. It was great fun to have that in my wheelhouse and to be able to go to it.

SM: You seem to love comedy, and the ad libs were brilliant. How often do you get to go off book like that?

CW: I can remember when we did that with overdrive years ago maybe 10 years ago with Seth Rogen in “Observe and Report” where we almost never said the same thing twice. He would say something hilarious to me and I felt like I was at Wimbledon—these fastballs coming at you and you’ve gotta get it back—it was exhilarating and so much fun. I’m glad that I was blessed with an acumen to do that.

SM: You’ve had a storied career, and netted some major accolades along the way. During the 1997 stage season you won an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for "Last Night of Ballyhoo" and was also nominated for a Tony Award for the same role. You’ve done movies, television and live theater. How do you manage all of those things? What does your routine look like?

CW: They’re different disciplines and it’s not just put on the hat, get on the subway, walk to the theater and get onstage. Theater is very tiring because it’s like being an athlete and you do it eight times a week. People think “oh a couple hours onstage how bad can that be?” but your whole day goes to protecting those two hours and making sure your brain is going to work. There is no safety net onstage. That regimen is very tiring.

For film you can wait all day long and still you’ve got to go out and pull out the stops. More often than not, you’re not working in a logical order. In a play you’re living the life of a character as it progresses in the play. In film it can be all over the place so you have to learn how to deliver. Sometimes you’ve got no rehearsal at all. You walk on, meet your fellow castmates right on set. It might be the first time you meet the director. They take a few minutes to give you your marks, and then you start filming. There’s no tomorrow when you’re shooting a film. You’ve gotta be shooting those scenes today and it is for posterity—what makes it to the film is forever. It’s not your medium—when you’re onstage you can grow into a part, and by the third month you think “oh my god, I hope no one saw me before this,” because you’re really ready to shine in the part and be seen. You can learn and progress. In a film—no—you have to have it ready on the day you shoot.

Television is pretty much the same thing. If you’re doing a sitcom you get to relax and build a family, you work all week together. Even if you shoot before a live audience, if you have to, you can stop and retake it, but that’s rare. During the four years we shot “Alice,” I can rarely remember us stopping to reshoot something.

SM: You mentioned the CBS television show “Alice,” which ran from 1976-1985. You made your Broadway debut in “Loose Ends” in 1979, but “Alice” was one of your earliest television roles. Over the years what has changed about how you view your work, and yourself?

CW: “Alice” is on at least in New York, the channel is called LOGO, one of these stations that shows retro sitcoms 24/7 and the other night I woke up about 3 in the morning. My ritual is to turn on the television and set the sleep timer to lull myself back to sleep and I happened to check LOGO. “Alice” was on and I sat up for two-and-a-half hours watching it, just mesmerized at how unique and fascinating it is to have an opportunity to really look at yourself from 30-plus years ago. You can’t fathom that your body isn’t going to be there in that way. I thought about the expectations we have as women—both young and old.

SM: You’ve appeared on shows like “The Blacklist,” “Modern Family,” “American Horror Story” and “Memphis Beat.” There’s a lot happening on television right now. What shows are you watching right now? What are you keeping tabs on?

CW: I’m a TV junkie so it’s not hard for me to find something that I enjoy. I run the gamut from “The Real Housewives” series—not all of them—I’m choosy. Last night I watched the first half hour of Stephen Colbert, our fellow South Carolinian. I think he’s hilarious and the fact that he’s able to do that every night—I know he has a team of great writers that helps but he is the head of it, and he makes me laugh out loud. I was ready to call it a night and I found “A Trip To Bountiful” with Geraldine Paige and that was it—I just sat on the edge of my bed and stared at her beautiful—one of the all-time great performances of her playing the lead in that work. You don’t get much more Southern than Horton Foote—even though he’s a Texan, he’s east Texas, so it is what we know in the Southeast. I get entranced by something as simple and predictable as “Call the Midwife”—I watched that recently and I’m following right along with everyone else. Right before you called I was watching ESPN because Magic Johnson was on talking about his end of tenure at the Lakers. My interests really run the gamut. I have no problem being completely engulfed in television.

SM: You know there’s a big basketball story evolving in Spartanburg right now...

CW: I am a big basketball fan and Zion Williamson being at the top—how often do you get to see a Spartanburg Day School graduate on the front page of the New York Daily News and on the front of the sports section of the New York Times? One of my best friends with whom I grew up with in Spartanburg, but also had her career here (in New York) has grown sons and one of them went to Duke, and so did his wife. December 20 they took me to see Zion Williamson and Duke play at Madison Square Garden and it was such a thrill. I am glad he is getting recognized for his gifts and that opportunity is coming his way.

SM: I know Spartanburg is a place that you hold hold close, even though you’re away from this town quite a bit. Do you have a favorite Spartanburg memory that you would like to share with us?

CW: I have so many. The first thing that comes to mind, just in having a perspective on Spartanburg was back when I was doing “Alice,” it was the year of the sesquicentennial celebration of Spartanburg. I was invited to co-marshall the Christmas parade and I remember a lot about that day. I was sitting on the back of a convertible and I heard my name being yelled while we were going along Main Street. There was this tall man, gray hair, and a little woman standing beside him, and he was yelling “Celia, Celia, this is your third-grade school teacher!” And I just boo-hooed and waved and screamed her name. It was so sweet to know that she was out there and my work meant something to her, that her husband was not gonna let that opportunity for us to see each other for that fleeting moment to get away. I hadn’t seen her since the day I left her class.

SM: When was the last time you visited Spartanburg? Have you had a chance to visit since the revitalization of downtown?

CW: Christmas. I have family there, so that’s my incentive to come back, and Spartanburg is still my home place. My brother and his wife raised their children in Spartanburg and they still live there. I have my haunts that I go to the minute I get my luggage.

SM: What are some of your favorite Spartanburg spots?

CW: I don’t know if I should divulge…well…I hit The Fresh Market for some of my favorite things. I even ship back a box of things like Moravian sugar cake and Duke’s mayonnaise—I bring that back to my friends (in New York). I put pimento cheese made on the Isle of Palms in my carry-on, packed in blue ice to keep it cool. Oh and Bellews Market to get boiled peanuts--that is my caviar, and another thing I bring back in my luggage on blue ice. I used to dream of one day starting an enterprise where I shipped pimento cheese and boiled peanuts.

SM: What’s next for you?

CW: I’ve got a couple of projects in the works. I am not building a career anymore so I don’t have to avoid being stereotyped and limited to just Southern roles. Thankfully the casting gods were with me and I got to play the wife of the diplomat from the Czech Republic in “The Invasion” with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, and I was a Park Avenue maven in “KPak.” At this stage of my career, I’m not putting any limitations on myself. I think acting is a gift. Thousands of people train to be one and not everyone is an actor, regardless of how good the school was that you got into. So I am so blessed and so grateful for the gift of being able to do it. When you can live by your gift it is a very big life and I am so, so lucky.