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Dana Delany: ‘I Value Every Single Day. I Never Take It for Granted’

‘Tulsa King’ actor looks back on ‘China Beach,’ looks forward to living in Paris


spinner image Dana Delany against light blue background
AARP ( Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Actor Dana Delany, 68, is laser focused on her work, not her fame. “I’m at the place in my career — or maybe I’ve always been like this, it’s just who I am — I’m not really into publicity. I just love the work, and we live in a culture now where it’s so much about how many followers you have, and that just doesn’t interest me. That’s not why I act.” Her TV work includes roles on the popular shows China Beach and Desperate Housewives, and she stars opposite Sylvester Stallone on Paramount+’s crime drama Tulsa King, which is back for Season 2 on Sept. 15. Delany shares with AARP how a China Beach costar helped her in her current role, what it’s like working with Stallone and why she thinks she’s a little bit psychic.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Your Tulsa King character owns a horse farm and is a skilled equestrian. Did you have experience around horses when you took the role?

I appreciate horses, but I’m not a great rider. The first season, I really wanted to get over that and become comfortable with the horses. So I went and did a little horse therapy with my old friend, Chloe Webb, who was on China Beach with me. She has now become a horse therapist — meaning she uses horses for emotional therapy, with vets with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] or people who have a fear of horses. She’s a great therapist ... and it was kind of mind-blowing what you can fix in one hour. And it was very emotional, and I actually feel very comfortable with horses now. This season, they didn’t have me riding much. My character is more involved with Sly [Stallone].

How is working with Sylvester Stallone?

I have to say, it’s been an unexpected joy working with Sly. He’s quite phenomenal. He works so hard. He’s so prepared. He’s wearing many hats — he’s producing [the show], he does a lot of rewriting, he’s in almost every scene — and he really cares. And he’s editing, and he’s watching the dailies. He’s doing it all. It’s who he is, his nature. On top of all that, he’s incredibly spontaneous. He’s not an autocrat about stuff. That’s how I like to work. Like, yes, we have the scene and we have the writing and it’s great, but can we play with it a little bit? He’s up for playing. And people will see in the stuff that we did this season, we had so much fun. There’s a lot of laughter, and it’s this great game between us to try to keep up with each other. He’s constantly inventing and coming up with something new and throwing it at me, and then I’ll throw it back. It was a lot of fun.

spinner image Dana Delany as Margaret Devereaux wearing cowboy hat outside in a still from Tulsa King
Delany plays horse-ranch owner Margaret Devereaux in the Paramount+ series "Tulsa King."
Brian Douglas/Paramount+

Season 1 of Tulsa King was shot in Oklahoma, and this last season was shot in Atlanta. How did you like shooting outside of the usual L.A. soundstage?

I actually really enjoyed Oklahoma. I’d never been to Oklahoma before, and I found it surprisingly modern and hip and kind of unusual. [Oklahoma City] has great art deco, so I was fascinated by that. And surprisingly, I had never shot in Atlanta before, so that was new for me. It’s really a hard town to figure out because it’s so spread out, kind of like L.A., and you kind of have to figure out what neighborhood you like to be in. I’d say the biggest thing that I loved was the foliage. They have incredible trees there. And they have a great park system, including Piedmont Park. I lived in midtown, and I walked for hours — as much as I could — in the park. It was quite amazing.

Is walking your favorite way of keeping fit?

I love to walk. That kind of took over in the pandemic, and I was lucky to be in Santa Monica [California] so I could walk a lot. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a big lone walker. I walk and muse. I don’t listen to anything. I don’t listen to books. I don’t listen to music. I don’t talk on the phone. I like to be present and watch and be with my thoughts.

What do you like to watch?

I’m a big foreign film fan. It really grew during the pandemic. I’ll get obsessions, and I’ll see everything that an actor did. I’ll see everything that a director did. It’s interesting, I’m a little psychic, I’ve always been. I’m a Pisces, and you can buy into that or not, but I’ve always been a bit psychic. During the pandemic, I went on a huge [actor-writer-producer] Alain Delon deep dive, and I saw every movie I could get my hands on. I’ve probably seen 95 percent of what he’s done. I speak a little French, so that helps. I’ve read books about him in French. I’ve read everything I could find. He was kind of my pandemic boyfriend. Two nights ago, I had deep dreams about him — just deeply romantic, thoughtful dreams about him where we had these long conversations. I woke up the next morning [Aug. 18], and I got a text from my best friend saying, “My condolences.” I said, “What?” And I looked, and Alain Delon had died. I thought, We really are connected. There is something karmic there.

You mentioned reconnecting with your China Beach costar Chloe Webb for horse therapy. Do you have any special memories when you look back on your time on the show?

I think about it a lot. John Young, who created it, died [June 2021], and I’m at the place in my life where I’ve just lost so many friends recently. I’m sure a lot of people my age have, and it’s just been a lot. So yeah, you definitely look back on your life, and that was my youth — that was the beginning of it all. I still get emotional thinking about it. I’m so glad that I am still friendly with every single person from that cast, and we still see each other and talk to each other.

How do you feel about aging?

Like Cary Grant said, it’s a privilege. I value every single day. I never take it for granted.

Will you do something big to celebrate your 70th?

My fantasy dream is to live in Paris, and I have to stop making it a fantasy and do it. I’m hoping that by the time I turn 70, I will be at least spending some time in Paris. I have had a connection to Paris since I first visited it with my family when I was 12. The minute I got to Paris, I felt like it was familiar. It felt like home to me, and I’ve always felt that way.

What would you tell your younger self?

I wish I had been easier on myself. I had a teacher who said that he has found that there are two types of people in the world: There are people who overtake responsibility and people who undertake responsibility. The best place is to be somewhere in between. That would be the healthiest place. I always tended to overtake responsibility. This phrase he taught me was “perfectionism is rejectionism.” I wish that I had worried less about being perfect and been easier on myself. It’s a phenomenon that a lot of women deal with. My mother dealt with that to a great degree. And she passed it on to me and was very hard on me. In that sense, I had to be perfect. That’s something women really have to be easier on themselves about.

Any other projects coming up for you?

Yes, my passion project. I cocreated this play called Highway Patrol with three people I’ve worked with before: Mike Donahue, who directed it; Jen Silverman, who wrote it with us; and Dane Laffrey, our set designer. It’s based on an incident in my life, and I play myself in it. We premiered it at [Chicago’s] Goodman Theatre this past winter. We had a great time, and we got great reviews. So my next thing that I’d like is to get it to New York or London.

Do you have any regrets?

Oh, of course I do [laughs]. It would be pretty dumb not to have regrets. I have many regrets, but I have learned to accept that I did the best I could at the time. That’s what I’ve learned, is not to beat myself up over it. Because I think if people were really honest, we all have regrets, but it’s how we frame them. And you just have to know that you did your best at the time with the information that you had and the place you were in your life.

 

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