Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts are together at last in 'Lady Bird'
LOS ANGELES - Actress Laurie Metcalf and actor and playwright Tracy Letts have known each other for nearly 30 years. They grew up in small towns in the Midwest - Metcalf in Illinois, Letts in Oklahoma - and launched their careers at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where they remain members to this day.
Yet surprisingly, the two have never actually worked together - until now.
"Nobody believes it, but it's true," Letts said on a recent afternoon in Beverly Hills over lunch with Metcalf. "I did my first show at Steppenwolf in 1988, and that's when I met Laurie. We were all terrified of her." He laughed. "We're still terrified of her!"
In writer-director Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age dramedy "Lady Bird," Metcalf and Letts play the long-suffering parents of a defiant, headstrong Sacramento teenager who calls herself Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan). Metcalf's judgmental but loving Marion has a stormy relationship with her fiercely independent daughter, while Letts' unemployed,
