Despite having only been in the film and television industry for a relatively short time, Marie Wetherell has managed to rack up an impressive body of work, including roles in Paramount+ 1923, and CBS’s The Bold and the Beautiful. However, Wetherell had another career path before she caught the acting bug. Her original career trajectory had her following in her family’s footsteps. “My dad’s a lawyer,” said Wetherell. “My uncle’s a judge. My other uncle’s an attorney. My grandparents were State senators. I just grew up in that world.”
It wasn’t until she was a few years into law school that she realized what her true calling was. “I really had this epiphany moment in law school,” she said. “I was doing an oral argument, and it just sort of washed over me that I was acting right then and there. I’m playing to the judge and jury. And then I started to really think about it, and I had been choosing career paths based on movie characters. I hadn’t really made that connection yet until that moment. And I realized as an actor, I can do every sort of career path out there. That’s kind of how I realized acting was really what I wanted to pursue. I enrolled in acting classes immediately after graduating.”
Wetherell had no regrets about her decision to pursue acting thanks primarily to the support she received from her family. “My family was 100% supportive,” said Wetherell. “I knew that I could use my law degree in acting and really any sort of career path I chose if I necessarily didn’t want to practice law. Receiving my law degree was really the best thing I ever did.”
Despite law being so prevalent in her family, Wetherell wasn’t a stranger to the world of acting growing up, as her parents were heavily involved in the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. “I grew up around theater, but I was just too shy to ever get up on stage,” said Wetherell. “It was the acting classes that helped me dive in and learn the basics and get a foundation. Then I started meeting people in the industry in Idaho, and started networking, getting to know people, and working on independent projects and school projects. I’d had an agent for modeling, so I told them I was interested in acting.”
Wetherell credits her early success in the industry to a mentorship with actress and acting coach, Lar Park Lincoln [Editor’s note: Interview was conducted before the recent passing of Lar Park Lincoln]. “When I met her, my career just skyrocketed,” said Wetherell. “I owe her a lot for helping me advance professionally as a performer. I really decided I wanted to pursue acting full-time in 2019, and my closest market was Salt Lake City. So, I moved to Salt Lake City for about six months before COVID happened. I was in Idaho when I auditioned for the role of Julia in Ghost Party which brought me to Texas. And it was there that I met Lar and decided that I wanted to start training with her. So, really my career started when I moved to Texas at the beginning of 2021.”
As it turns out, moving to Texas has been very beneficial to Wetherell’s career. “I always get antsy around the fall, like I need to go somewhere bigger to a bigger market, but I haven’t had a reason to leave Texas yet,” she said. I’m booking well in Texas. Being smack dab in the middle of the country sort of helps with airfare. Texas film is kind of popping a little bit. We’ve had some great supporters and some great success in getting more tax incentives and really growing the industry in Texas. I’ve definitely seen more work coming here.”
One of Wetherell’s earliest roles was that of a wealthy socialite in the HBO series, Mosiac, in which she had the opportunity to not only share the screen with Sharon Stone but also work with acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh. “That was an incredible experience,” said Wetherell. “That was actually my first time being on a major set, so, I was really just like a sponge, watching and absorbing and just taking it all in. It was amazing to watch Steven Soderbergh work and talk to Sharon and talk to Michael Cerveris and a few of the other actors on set. It was incredible to watch them all work. I actually made friends with Michael Cerveris and we still speak today.”
Wetherell’s most recent role was that of a tarred and feathered woman on the Yellowstone prequel series, 1923. “That was incredibly intense,” she said. “Just being in the tar and feathers and going to set and having a hundred plus extras there and all the crew. It was, it was an amazing day. It’s a day I’ll never forget. Everyone was very concerned about my wellbeing. Ben Richardson, the director, was fantastic to work with. He had [creator] Taylor [Sheridan’s] vision, and everybody was on the same page, so there were no questions about what should be done. We kind of all knew what we wanted to do and how to portray all of those emotions.”
Despite being relatively new to the industry, Wetherell didn’t feel pressure to deliver in such a big scene. “We all put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do everything right and be perfect all the time,” she said. “At least I do. But, when I got to set, I just knew what I needed to do, and I knew what the scene required. So, I was pretty calm. I tried to stay very present in the moment what was going on around me and what my character was feeling. And then just taking the direction from Ben, whether he needed me to look in a certain direction towards camera or be more expressive with my emotions and my body. We all generally knew what needed to be delivered.”
While Wetherell is only a few years into her acting career, she has already found herself drawn to specific types of roles. “I love the dramatic dark roles,” said Wetherell. I always lean into those more, but I really want to do a Western because I love horseback riding. And I would love to do just a warm and fuzzy Christmas movie. I always get the mean girl roles or the witch or the vampire. The horror genre. But it would be nice to show a little bit of the softer side of myself that I can be kind of the girl next door.”
In addition to the acting skills that she has developed, Wetherell has also learned to be her own advocate in the business. “I would say I’m more of an entrepreneur than I realized,” she said. “I mean, I am my own business. So, I’ve learned a lot about that, as well as networking and promoting myself. I used to have a really hard time talking about myself. It just feels like I’m gloating. But if you look at it from a business standpoint, you’re really not. You’re just talking about your work and your job and what you want to do and where you want to go. I’m also better at traveling. I’m not afraid to just pick up and go places. You book a job, and you’ve got to be ready to go. You can’t make excuses in this business. I think a lot of actors put blocks and stops on themselves of why they can’t do something, and you’re never going to get anywhere if you do that.”
You can watch our full interview with Marie Wetherell below.
You can follow Marie on Facebook or on Instagram, or at her website, mariewetherell.com.