Hollywood actor, Tacoma native Pamela Reed comes home to star in Seattle Repertory’s “Luna Gale”

Pamela Reed is one of those familiar faces on TV and film. The 66-year-old character actor had her first big success in “The Long Riders” (1980), followed by four decades of shows and movies from “Kindergarten Cop” to “Parks and Recreation” and “Criminal Minds.”

But for Tacomans, she might be the face you see next to you at a poetry reading or a methanol plant protest — because Reed grew up in Tacoma, and divides her time between Los Angeles and University Place.

This month, she gets to work in Puget Sound as the lead in Seattle Repertory’s “Luna Gale.”

It’s a role close to her heart. As Caroline, Reed plays a social worker trying to do the right thing for the down-and-out parents and suffering children she has power over. The question is, in a morally complex world, what is the right thing — and does the end justify the means? Reed, who has two adopted children and was adopted herself, has an unfiltered yet compassionate view of the situation and the system that controls it.

She has a long career of character acting to draw on, from crime shows and “Grey’s Anatomy” (Mrs. Banks) to voiceovers on “The Simpsons” (Ruth Powers). The Obie Award-winner’s long list of theater credits include Broadway and off-Broadway roles, and recent appearances at ACT and Seattle Rep (Martha in last year’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”)

The News Tribune spoke to Reed about coming home to Tacoma, the crisis in the foster-care system, and how a former News Tribune arts writer helped her succeed in acting.

Q: Is it nice to be back working in Puget Sound?

A: Oh yeah! When (Seattle Rep artistic director) Braden Abraham sent me the script months ago and asked if I’d like to do it, I said absolutely. We had such a special time on “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” last season, a very challenging and exciting time. He’s such great fun intellectually to work with, just as much as the other demands this profession requires. So of course I said yes.

Q: And now you’re living back in the Northwest. Is it good to work back home?

A: This is my 41st year of making a living as an American actor. That’s amazing. This girl from Tacoma had a dream, and now I’m really thrilled to be doing work that means everything to me. Being someone’s mom in a sitcom doesn’t boost my brain. But doing Edward Albee, or Rebecca Gilman — these are fabulous plays and world-class actors. Seattle is one of the great theater towns in the U.S., so I just have to bow and say thank you so much. It’s marvelous to be back.

And to take a stand in Tacoma, showing up to fight the methanol plant. (We) can do better than offer work like this. It’s 2016, and we can have better and safer things in Commencement Bay. We don’t have to make money this way. Tacoma has been through too much.

I’m also part of a poetry group here, the Catherine Place Poets. We were just in the Tacoma Poetry Festival, it was so much fun.

A: What do you think of “Luna Gale,” and your character Caroline?

A: It’s quite a role. There are six characters, but she gets 50 percent of the dialogue. It’s not just about her, though, she’s a conduit for a lot of other lives. So it’s great because you stand outside the emotional thrust of another character, and yet you’re involved.

Q: What does “Luna Gale” say about the real foster/adoption system, to you?

A: When you’re a social worker, you have to play by the rules. But sometimes, if the rules aren’t broken, they can break a person. Knowing when that “sometimes” is, that’s the challenge. And one thing we sometimes forget is that the system is created by us — those of us who operate in it are sometimes desperate to change it.

And (in the play) there’s legislation, drug addiction, evangelical Christianity … a lot of interesting material!

Q: How did you approach Caroline as a character?

A: Well, I’m not going to go deep inside and talk about acting in a way that’s really boring for you, but fascinating for me. But I do have a couple of close friends who are social workers; one is in the Eldercare system. So I checked in with her a lot, a lot. She told me how she approached clients: for instance you don’t dress up, to make the people you’re visiting feel more comfortable. When you walk in, as a social worker, you’re often considered to be the judge, the critic, to be minimizing people’s roles. It can be so different from your original intentions in going into this profession. And there’s so much burnout. The people who keep getting up every day and doing it — they are some serious champions in our world.

Q: You adopted your own children. Does this make the setting and themes of “Luna Gale” really personal for you?

A: We adopted our children through open adoption, and I helped to deliver my daughter. I’m adopted, too, raised by my uncle but very close to my birth mother.

(With adoption) there’s so much shame that we deal with. Foster kids get shuttled around and around, and a lot of it is because of parents who are sick, with addiction or mental illness, and who aren’t being treated. So the kids fall through the cracks. Some foster parents are wonderful people, but there are many out there who are scamming the system, and kids suffer for it.

And in all this, shame is a game changer. It makes you want to get numb, to fade away. We have to stand up and fight this. Shame is covered up with what sounds like belligerence, like aggression, because people don’t want to say, ‘I’m ashamed.’

Q: Is there a solution?

A: What my social worker friends say is that lawmakers are out of touch. There’s no real communication between the people on the ground experiencing crisis and the people making laws in Olympia. There needs to be more real communication, because too many people are dying.

Q: One more question: I heard that the late Eve Reynolds, who was the arts writer at The News Tribune during the 1970s, was key to you pursuing an acting career.

A: She’s the reason I’m an actor. She was my champion. When I left the University of Maryland and came back here, I did several plays at Lakewood Playhouse. Eve was like a mother to me. She was a big part of that village we all talk about that’s fundamental to raising a child. She asked me what I was doing with my life. At the time I was around 19 or 20, and thought I would teach English — but I was always acting at the same time. She didn’t push me, but she asked me the right question. So I went back to Tacoma Community College to see if I could keep a 4.0. Then I auditioned at the University of Washington, then went to New York. Speaking with Eve, I saw myself in a different way. She helped me expand my future to include what I loved.

This story was originally published March 10, 2016 at 2:43 AM with the headline "Hollywood actor, Tacoma native Pamela Reed comes home to star in Seattle Repertory’s “Luna Gale”."