Born in London to a Spanish father and Italian mother, Molina, 63, decided to become an actor after watching Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus aged nine. He later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was a member of the National Youth Theatre. After a number of theatre roles he made his film debut in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) as the ill-fated guide Satipo; since then he has starred in more than 70 films including Chocolat, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Frida. Now an LA resident and US citizen, Molina starred in Ira Sachs’s 2014 film Love Is Strange, and he will appear in Sachs’s latest drama, Little Men, out in cinemas on 23 September.
1 | Nonfiction book
Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts by Robert Dowling (2014)
This is the most recent biography of [US playwright] Eugene O’Neill. Dowling had access to previously unpublished material: letters and manuscripts as well as things like wonderful photographs of O’Neill’s time at the Provincetown playhouse. They were doing some of his plays in a fisherman’s shack on the beach, and water was coming up under the floorboards. It’s a comprehensive biography. The previously unpublished stuff is fascinating, including on O’Neill’s drinking and the circuitous route he took to become a playwright. It makes you realise his plays are very autobiographical, particularly the later ones, which was a real eye-opener. It’s what made his plays so dense and so rich, I think.
2 | Museum
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
This is in a small town called North Adams, which used to be a mill town. When the industry went away all these mills and warehouses were empty, and there’s a gentrification process going on. One of the first things to move in was the Museum of Contemporary Art. They bought this huge factory building and have turned it into a fantastic art collection, filled with Rothkos and Pollocks. They’ve managed to preserve the integrity of the original building; very much like Tate Modern in London, it still looks like what it was originally, but inside there’s this feast of contemporary art. I’ve been twice, there’s so much to take in – you need time, and good museums are always worth revisiting anyway.
3 | Novel
A Hero in France by Alan Furst (2016)
I encountered Furst when I saw The Polish Officer on someone’s desk and got curious. A Hero in France is a novel about the resistance in Paris at the beginning of the second world war. Furst creates these fantastic pictures: the detail about the smells and sounds and feel of walking along cobbled streets in the dark, and the noise it makes, clattering and echoing. He has fantastically rich and varied characters. He catches speech patterns very accurately, so you’re completely in there. I’ve got a soft spot for spy novels. I grew up reading John le Carré and Eric Ambler, so it’s right in my wheelhouse, as they say.
4 | Music
Man About Town by Mayer Hawthorne
I love music – it’s always on in the car or when I’m working around the house. I’ve been listening to this guy a lot recently. He’s not a brand-new artist – his first album came out in 2009 – but he’s new to me and he’s really fantastic. Like a magpie, he’s taken all these flavours and influences from different genres and mashed them all up with a wonderful new, modern sensibility in terms of the lyrical content and the way he sings. You listen to one album and think, “That sounds a bit like Hall & Oates,” or “That sounds a bit like Otis Redding.” It’s really interesting. His album Man About Town is really fantastic.
5 | Play
An American Daughter at Williamstown theatre festival
This is the last play I saw. It was a revival of a play by Wendy Wasserstein, which is about 20 years old, about a woman who has been appointed surgeon general, and how the media and people in her family sabotage her professional chances. The play asks “Can a woman really have it all? Can she have a career and a family?” It’s interesting, 20 years ago this was a very hot topic, and I think it still is. It’s very prescient and timely, especially when we’ve got Hillary Clinton hopefully about to become the first female president of the United States.
6 | Film
All About Eve (directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1950)
I’d never seen this before, and it’s one of those movies you always hear about. It’s about the corrosive quality of ambition and how it can kill you; it’s a wonderful morality tale about its dangers. An older actress who is still at the prime of her career befriends a younger actress who seems to want to learn everything she can, but turns out to be incredibly ambitious and prepared to do almost anything to take her place. It’s a great movie in terms of the pressures that female actors particularly are under when it comes to getting older. It’s a pressure men don’t feel in the same way.
7 | Restaurant
This is my favourite restaurant in LA, right on Sunset Boulevard. It’s a funky, unpretentious place with a great little menu. It’s kind of European with an American twist; they do great pastas and pizza but they’ve also got things like omelettes and breakfasts. I discovered it in 2007 when I was getting ready to leave for a big job in Europe, and I was packing and treated myself to a really nice lunch there. I couldn’t wait to get back and I’ve been a regular customer since. I donated a painting to them a few years ago. It feels a little bit like someone’s back room; it’s got that kind of feel.
