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Mary Steenburgen moved to California to work with Jack Nicholson.<\/p>\n
It was 1977, and Steenburgen \u2014 an Arkansas native \u2014 had been waiting tables in New York at night while studying acting with Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse during the day. She\u2019d been pounding the pavement for about seven years, she says, when her \u201covernight moment came\u201d and she was called in to read for a film Nicholson was both directing and starring in called \u201cGoin\u2019 South.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.<\/p>\n Getting the role, Steenburgen says, changed her life in every way. \u201cI flew out [to film] and had an amazing introduction to the town,\u201d she explains. \u201cI lived at the Chateau Marmont and went to Paramount Studios every day, where [Nicholson] would screen movies for me and then come in at the end to give me a little film-slash-acting lecture about each one. It really helped me get ready to dive into the big leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n Though she spent some years in an old Ojai farmhouse in the 1980s raising her kids with former husband Malcolm McDowell, she\u2019s always had a base of operations here in L.A. She shares her L.A. abode now with husband Ted Danson, whom she married in 1995 and with whom she\u2019s starred in numerous projects, including the Netflix series \u201cA Man on the Inside.\u201d L.A. is also where she filmed her latest movie, \u201cThe Dink,\u201d an Apple TV comedy centered on one of her favorite pastimes: pickleball.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how Steenburgen would spend her perfect, pickleball-filled Sunday in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n 5:30 a.m.: Early morning meditation and mental exercise<\/b><\/p>\n We always wake up early. After so many years of going to work at 5 in the morning, we always wake up between 5 and 6 now.<\/p>\n We\u2019re morning meditators, or we try to be since our dog [Blue] just sits on our laps<\/a> and stares at us until he\u2019s been fed. Then we have to do all the New York Times games, and then I\u2019ll try and find a pickleball game. We love Spelling Bee. We have to get to Genius, at least. Occasionally we\u2019ll get to Queen Bee, but if we don\u2019t get to at least Genius, then my day is ruined.<\/p>\n If my husband and I are working that week, whoever\u2019s not working will have to run lines with the one who is. So we\u2019ll generally spend a few hours doing that in the morning, too.<\/p>\n 8:30 a.m.: Light gardening<\/b><\/p>\n I love my garden. A lot of it was hand-planted by me. Not the big trees \u2014 someone else planted those \u2014 but everything else, like the ground cover and smaller plants, I did. So I\u2019ll spend a little time out there, too.<\/p>\n I like to go to Armstrong Garden Centers<\/b><\/a>.<\/b> They hire very knowledgeable people there. When I first started planting my garden \u2014 I live on a hill and it was all dirt back there and not everything grows well that way so I was looking for ground cover that would grow quickly but also didn\u2019t mind a hillside. The people at Armstrong knew the answer, and they were great.<\/p>\n 10 a.m.: Pickleball-palooza<\/b><\/p>\n I try to play pickleball for at least two hours a day, if I can. I try to find a game with friends, or I\u2019ll go and play in different parks.<\/p>\n This morning, I played at a friend\u2019s house. She has a beautiful tennis court and they put tape down on it so we can use it for pickleball, too. I played with her daughter and her friend.<\/p>\n I also have a pickleball coach and sometimes we\u2019ll go play at this place called Pickle Pop<\/b><\/a> that\u2019s on the Third Street Promenade. Other times, I\u2019ll play at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n My son just brought eight members over from [one of] London\u2019s biggest pickleball club[s], Lemon Pickleball<\/a>, and they all stayed with me. We played all over the place and we had so much fun. They loved Southern California, and seeing it through their eyes made me love it even more.<\/p>\n On their last night here, I called a wonderful family I know that cooks fantastic Mexican food, because I knew [the Brits] hadn\u2019t ever really experienced great Mexican food. I met them because they\u2019re set up every weekend in the parking lot at Rustic Coffee<\/a> [in Santa Monica]. They\u2019re lovely folks. So they came over and cooked, and we had a wonderful night for the Brits, putting up all kinds of lights and decorations too.<\/p>\n 12:30 p.m.: Magical brunch with the grandkids<\/b><\/p>\n We go to Kreation<\/b><\/a> a lot for lunch, just because it\u2019s nice and it\u2019s very healthy. I was just there yesterday with my granddaughters, after we all played Pickleball.<\/p>\n Actually, this weekend we all went to the Magic Castle<\/b><\/a> together, too. I hadn\u2019t been for decades and two of my five grandkids were here, and they\u2019d never been either. Mostly it\u2019s no kids at the Magic Castle but on weekends they do a brunch where kids can come so we went to that. The last magician in the show even called my granddaughter up on stage to be a sort of assistant, and it was very cute.<\/p>\n 3 p.m.: Hiking with the dog<\/b><\/p>\n Because we work a lot and our days often belong to someone else from early in the morning until pretty late at night, weekends are more laid back.<\/p>\n We like to go on hikes and walks around Santa Monica. We have this big Australian Shepherd and we take him for long, slow walks. They\u2019re slow because he has to say hello to every dog and person along the way \u2014 especially babies, who are his absolute favorite.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something magical about my dog, I think. People will say, \u201cOh, my dog hates all dogs\u201d and then my dog pulls me over and the dog that hates all dogs just melts. It\u2019s like he calms other dogs. He even calms people that think they don\u2019t like dogs. I know I\u2019m very prejudiced, but I\u2019m also very proud.<\/p>\n 6 p.m.: Breakfast (or Goop) for dinner<\/b><\/p>\n We\u2019re big on breakfast for dinner, so maybe we\u2019d have some poached eggs on toast or poached eggs on creamed spinach.<\/p>\n If we order in, we might get food from Goop Kitchen<\/b><\/a>.<\/b> They have so many healthy, fantastic choices. Even their pizzas are pretty healthy.<\/p>\n 8:30 p.m.: TV in bed<\/b><\/p>\n Sometimes I read a book at night, but we also have a show we absolutely love to go to sleep to, even if you\u2019re not supposed to do that. It\u2019s this British game show called \u201cWould I Lie to You?<\/a>\u201d and unfailingly it makes me laugh. I\u2019ve seen every single episode \u2014 some of them twice \u2014 and I like to go to sleep laughing.<\/p>\n I also just said to Ted that I think we\u2019re going to have to start \u201cCheers\u201d again soon. We just lost our friend Jimmy Burrows, who was a magnificent human and so important to Ted\u2019s whole career, and one of the great things about watching \u201cCheers\u201d is, if you know Jimmy\u2019s laugh, you can actually pick it out multiple times during each episode.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve watched \u201cCheers,\u201d and it honestly never gets old. I first watched it in Ojai when I was married and had young children. We would watch it with our best friends on Thursday nights, like everybody would go down to their house in their pajamas and we\u2019d watch \u201cCheers\u201d and then I\u2019d come home to put the kids to bed. Then, when I was going through my divorce I would watch it at 10 o\u2019clock at night because I was very lonely and it was the thing that cheered me up at the end of the day during a hard time in my life. Little did I know that one day I\u2019d be sleeping with Sam Malone.<\/p>\n ![\"Sunday](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769181854_96_.png\")
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