It\u2019s the culmination of a series of premonitions she\u2019s had warning her that Jim\u2019s mission isn\u2019t going to go smoothly. And, sure enough, a few days into Apollo 13\u2019s moon-bound trajectory Lovell radios Houston to alert them to a very serious problem aboard the unluckily numbered spacecraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll that was real,\u201d Quinlan confirms to Gold Derby ahead of Apollo 13\u2019s 30th anniversary on June 30. (NASA marked the 55th anniversary<\/a> of the actual mission in April.) \u201cShe dropped the ring down the drain and realized it was not a good omen. She felt that something ominous was coming \u2014 and it did.\u201d (For the record, Jim Lovell later revealed<\/a> that the movie did take one creative liberty: in real life, Marilyn recovered her wedding band from the shower drain trap.)<\/p>\n Quinlan \u2014 who earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance \u2014 learned about the veracity of the ring incident direct from the source. Prior to production, she spent some time with the Lovells at their lakeside home in Texas. The trip included peeks through photo albums, plenty of stories and a private Cessna flight to the NASA museum in Houston piloted by Jim himself.<\/p>\n \u201cMarilyn didn\u2019t like flying,\u201d Quinlan recalls. \u201cShe sat in the back of the plane with a thermos and served us coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Meeting Marilyn \u2014 who died in 2023 \u2014 alleviated one of the chief concerns that Quinlan had when she accepted the role. \u201cI was worried a little bit about playing \u2018the wife,\u2019\u201d the actress admits candidly, acknowledging the limited roles for women in so many Hollywood studio productions in the \u201890s. \u201cYou were either the wife or the girlfriend and that\u2019s pretty much what you did. I felt the danger of being \u2018the wife.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Her time with the Lovells, though, provided her with a fresh perspective on the part. \u201cOnce I met Marilyn, I understood the gravity of what astronauts\u2019 wives did,\u201d she says. \u201cThey had to stay home and take care of the kids by themselves all while acting like everything is fine. I remember thinking, \u2018There\u2019s something to this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n With that thought top of mind, Quinlan returned to Los Angeles and typed up a series of notes intended to correct some of the inaccuracies she now saw in Marilyn\u2019s portrayal in the script based on her trip to Texas. She then faxed those notes directly to Howard.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat balls!\u201d Quinlan says with a hearty laugh while thinking back on her younger self’s chutzpah. \u201cBut Ron was very gracious about it and even took some of my notes.\u201d<\/p>\n While those typed notes have long since been lost to history, Quinlan does remember that one of her chief recommendations was centering Marilyn as a crucial part of the extended NASA team. \u201cNASA always told the wives that they would be the ones sending their husbands off to space,\u201d she explains. \u201cWhat they said was very important \u2014 they needed to keep the astronauts\u2019 psychology strong. They were the crew\u2019s ground mission control so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Howard recognized the dramatic value of Quinlan\u2019s approach. \u201cHe said that my work grounded the other actors\u2019 work,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was very flattering.\u201d<\/p>\n Released in the midst of a crowded summer movie season, Apollo 13 enjoyed a five-week run at the top of the box-office charts and raked in cash well into the fall. It finished the year as the second highest-grossing film of 2025, right behind Batman Forever<\/a> \u2014 proof that scientists could go toe-to-toe with superheroes at the multiplex.<\/p>\n Apollo 13 was a hit on the awards circuit as well, earning nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Besides Quinlan, Ed Harris<\/a> <\/strong>also scored a Best Supporting Actor nod for his breakout performance as flight director Gene Kranz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cI got to be in a great film that\u2019s become a classic,\u201d Quinlan says of her part in the movie\u2019s three-decade legacy. \u201cThat\u2019s a great thing to have in my kit.\u201d<\/p>\n To celebrate 30 years of Apollo 13, Quinlan dug into her kit to share memories from the movie\u2019s production, from a pre-filming dinner date with Hanks to why we don’t see Jim and Marilyn reunite at the final scene.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Dinner with Tom<\/strong><\/p>\n Quinlan was already a Hollywood veteran by the time Apollo 13 came her way, having gotten her start in the early \u201870s with roles in movies like American Graffiti and Airport \u201977 as well as regular guest spots on such vintage shows as Police Woman and Ironside. In all that time, though, she had never crossed paths with Hanks in a casting session until she showed up to read for Marilyn \u2014 a meeting she squeezed in before undergoing surgery on her left shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cI did my reading with Tom and Ron, and then went to surgery,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cWhen I woke up, my then-husband Bruce Abbott<\/strong> told me, \u2018You got it!\u2019 And I said, \u2018Got what?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Once the post-surgery haze passed, Quinlan threw herself into preparing for the shoot. Having enjoyed a small window into Jim and Marilyn’s relationship, she wanted to ensure that she and Hanks had the same level of intimacy and familiarity as the real-life Lovells \u2014 especially as the actors would only be occupying the same frame for a limited amount of screentime. <\/p>\n \u201cTom was very friendly, but he was also Tom Hanks and that was intimidating in and of itself,\u201d she says of her costar, who was coming off back-to-back Best Actor wins for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. Determined to conquer any sense of intimidation before showing up on set, Quinlan had her agent call Hanks\u2019 office to arrange a private dinner date \u2014 a request that she\u2019s only made of two actors during her career.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth of them were surprised, too, which I found a little strange,\u201d she says. (The other actor? Chris Cooper<\/strong>, who played her husband in the 2007 spy thriller Breach.) \u00a0<\/p>\n Joined by Abbott, Quinlan met Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson<\/strong>, at a secluded restaurant in the SoCal mountains that she doesn\u2019t name but confirms is still open. (\u201cYou\u2019d have to know about it,\u201d she teases.) The out-of-the-way location afforded the duo the atmosphere and the time to really get to know each other. \u201cI felt like I could relax around him,\u201d Quinlan says about their actorly connection coming away from the table.<\/p>\n Hanks didn\u2019t forget the dinner either\u2026 but for slightly different reasons. Quinlan remembers getting a call from his office days later with a follow-up request. \u201cThey said, \u2018Tom would like to know the name of that place you took him so he can take his son there!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Staying grounded<\/strong><\/p>\n Apollo 13 went into production during that in-between period when old-school movie magic like wire work seemed dated, but the new wave of computer-generated tricks were still booting up. So in order to realistically depict weightlessness in space, Howard famously put Hanks and his costars \u2014 the late Bill Paxton<\/a><\/strong> and Kevin Bacon<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 aboard the so-called \u201cVomit Comet,\u201d<\/a> a training aircraft that NASA employed to get its own astronauts accustomed to being human flotation devices.<\/p>\n The name wasn\u2019t an exaggeration: nausea was a regular co-pilot for anyone who rode in the Boeing-made vessel. That\u2019s one of the reasons why Quinlan says she never asked Howard for her own chance to experience weightlessness.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to at first, but then I heard that James Cameron <\/strong>and another big director had called to ask if he could ride in the Vomit Comet, and got turned down,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought, \u2018If Ron is turning them down, I\u2019m not even asking.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides her sightings of Hanks, Paxton, and Bacon after they exited the aircraft told her all she needed to know. \u201cI watched all those boys come out, and they were just green,\u201d she remembers with a big grin. \u201cI just said, \u2018Nah, I\u2019ll pass.\u2019\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Playing pretend<\/strong><\/p>\n When it came to the film\u2019s recreation of Apollo 13\u2019s launch, Howard obviously didn\u2019t have the budget to send a real rocket into the final frontier. Instead, the skillfully-edited sequence \u2014 Mike Hill <\/strong>and Daniel Hanley<\/strong> shared a Best Film Editing nomination \u2014 relies largely on models and limited CGI.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not Quinlan saw when she\u2019s seen reacting to the rocket taking flight. Instead, she was staring at something much more\u2026 low-fi. \u201cThey rigged a basketball to the end of a C-stand,\u201d she says when asked where Howard directed her gaze for her part of the launch sequence.<\/p>\n After Jim leaves Earth\u2019s atmosphere, Marilyn\u2019s only connection to him is through news footage and private NASA radio. Quinlan says that much of that material was played live on set so she had something to react to in the moment. \u201cHaving those playbacks really helped,\u201d she emphasizes, recalling an earlier instance in her career when those kinds of assists wasn\u2019t made available.<\/p>\n![\"Jean](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Jean-Smart-Tony-Awards.jpg\")
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(L to R) Emily Ann Lloyd, Quinlan, Miko Hughes and Mary Kate Schellhardt in Apollo 13Universal\/courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Kathleen-Rocket.jpg\")
Quinlan and Tracy Reiner are looking at a basketball, not a rocket, in the Apollo 13 launch sceneUniversal\/courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n