It goes without saying thatAnnette O’Toolehas had an astounding career to date.
Hope quickly became both the heart of the show and one of its funniest characters.
What’s it been like playing her this season?
It’s been fun, actually.
I’ve enjoyed it very much.
It is kind of a medical show, but it’s not really.
There are medical issues and they have to be right.
But a TBI [traumatic brain injury]’s an interesting thing to play.
I don’t have very much personal experience with it, thank God.
She’s still Hope.
She’s still very impulsive and controlling, but now she’s dealing with all these issues.
Why can’t I … That’s incredibly difficult for her and more so for Doc to have to deal with it.
It’s very stressful for him.
[It] makes a lot of drama.
Was anything particularly difficult to film?
No, I love making movies and television.
He was, I could see, watching me from the sidelines.
It was the greatest advice because at the end of the day, I was a wreck.
I was so exhausted from having been in this state all day.
It’s a little bit technical, but mostly not, and it changes each time.
It has become more so the more I’ve done it.
I find it endlessly fascinating.
What’s it been like creating that on screen?
It’s been really fun.
Hope in the books is hardly there.
She’s a very peripheral character.
It was all marked, and I was being true to what I thought was his vision.
I said, “Yeah, she is kind of a cowgirl.”
Somehow that came out of me, and I ran with that.
[Creator and producer] Sue Tenney was wonderful about making this person together.
I love that [Hope] is the age she is and she hasn’t learned a lot.
She knows a lot about some things, but in human interaction, she’s stunted.
I love that because so many people are.
You’ve just lived a long time.
You’ve gotten used to and you understand how things work, but I like that about her.
I like that she’s young in that way.
How I think about her when I’m playing her a lot is Margaret O’Brien, the child actress.
[Hope is] that person grown up.
I’m the youngest child."
[It’s] that kind of thing.
It’s not like I look for it; it’s in the writing.
They get who she is and they write for that, and it’s fun to do.
It’s not very interesting.
Women after a certain age don’t seem to get offered interesting parts.
They don’t get the stories that we want to see.
But “Virgin River” highlights them all.
It’s really intergenerational, isn’t it?
It’s wonderful in that way …
They don’t shirk on any of it, and they’re bringing more variety in the coming seasons.
What would you like to see happen to her going forward?
Is there anything that you are hoping for your character?
It may be the only way they could have stayed together.
I don’t know, but it’s interesting to think about.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
We see her walking around, showing up, and she can go anywhere.
That’s what she likes best about being mayor.
“Well, I can go here and I get free coffee because I’m your mayor.
I’m your mayor, okay?”
I would like to see what she does.
What is that like?
That’s where she is.
We have a good opportunity to go into that with Hope.
That’s my main hope.
That’s interesting to me.
I really have embraced him as my grandson.
I love that because I didn’t have to go through all the raising of anybody.
I like him a lot as an actor and as a person.
He’s a lovely guy.
Wow, sure all the people I love … Out of the blue, Eddie Izzard came to mind.
I love Eddie Izzard.
In fact, last year it was the first concert or performance I’d been to after the pandemic.
I was here by myself and bought a ticket.
just let them finish on time so I get to see Eddie Izzard because I can’t wait."
I had never seen them in person and I wanted to experience it live.
I unfortunately never got to see it, but yes, Eddie’s a very wonderful actor.
Watching Tom Welling become a director
I’m a huge “Smallville” fan.
What are some of your favorite memories from filming the show?
There are so many.
He was absorbing because he hadn’t done a lot of work before.
I was amazed to watch his progress.
He absorbed everything that was around him.
He was interested in every department and what they were doing, and I was so taken with that.
That was very fun.
Are you working on anything at the moment?
We’re always working on different things.
It’s based on an old traditional song, so it’s public domain and I love that.
It’s actually a jig.
I’ve tried to play mandolin I’m not great, but I worked at it.
They loved it and they’re doing an arrangement of it, and they’ve actually performed it.
It’s called “Halfway Home.”
Then I realized suddenly, just in the last few days, it needs something else.
But it’s got to have another verse.
But Michael and I work on stuff all the time.
We were just in London.
It was fantastic, and we saw it every day.
We had certain ones we loved that would come along [that] we’d look for.
We saw one named Eggy and we never saw it again.
When I came back I said, “Have you seen Eggy today?”
He said, “No, I haven’t seen Eggy.”
Working on a musical adaptation
We’re always working on stuff.
We always play together and sing together.
It’s so hard, especially a musical, oh my God.
Chris Guest didn’t think it was the right song because he thought it was too good a song.
He wanted it to be more of a comedic song.
I’ve always thought, “That’s a good pop song.
Somebody could use that and sing that.”
But we have a lot of songs.
You’ve really covered the waterfront.
No, there’s nothing else right now.
“Virgin River” is what I do.
That was sweet of you to touch on my music stuff because it’s very important to me.
We have performed together, Michael and I, but we haven’t done that for a while.
I’d love to do that again.
We have been working on another musical, which we are not writing.
It’s about six or seven years old.
Daniel Raim is the documentarian.
We are doing a musical of that.
That’s next on the agenda, we hope.
Tim Curry is ‘the nicest man on earth’
You’re both so busy.
It’s amazing that [at] this time in our lives …
I’m the only child.
She’s back home.
She lives on her own.
But I miss her and she misses having me around.
I’m the one she depends on most.
It must be tough traveling and being away.
It is hard, but it’s part of our job.
It’s what we’ve always done.
We’ve been together 25 years.
It was like, “Oh, we like each other.
We’d rather be together than not.”
It is a good sign.
I love you in “It.”
It must’ve been so exciting.
It was so much fun.
Well, we did it in Vancouver it was the first time I worked in Vancouver.
My kids were really little, and they’re in the movie too.
My girls, Nell and Anna, are in there in the back.
I think Anna was in it … Anna was awfully young.
I don’t know if Anna was in it, but Nell was definitely there.
It was a dream.
It was a lovely, lovely time.
We had an awfully fun time.
Playing our nemesis doesn’t mean he can’t have fun with us.
“It” was a great time.
He’s so scary in that movie, oh my goodness.
Oh my God, isn’t he?
He’s the nicest man on earth, so it’s a feat of acting and some clown makeup.
“Virgin River” Season 4is streaming globally on Netflix from July 20, 2022.
This interview was edited for clarity.
