'Ya-Ya' sister has dealt with 'wreckage' of past

NEW YORK -- Fionnula Flanagan plays someone who has dealt with the "wreckage" of her past and is helping a friend do the same in "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." Having sobered up two decades ago, Flanagan is glad to be part of a film that shows people doing that.

"Unless you deal with and bring into the light the wreckage of your past and really own it honestly ... you're going to pass on that wreckage to your children," she says. "You're going to live it out in one way or another. ... We know that medically, we know that psychologically."

Maggie Smith, Shirley Knight and Flanagan constitute the part of the "Sisterhood" that tries to help the fourth Ya-Ya (Ellen Burstyn) reconcile with her daughter (Sandra Bullock).

The 60-year-old Flanagan, who got raves as the housekeeper in last year's "The Others," feels many people avoid facing what's wrong with themselves.

And Hollywood avoids it, too.

"The evil or the bad deed is always placed in someone else. It always has to be an evil entity, an evil person, an evil monster, an evil alien from outer space, an evil country," says Flanagan, whose 5-foot-1 frame is topped by ringlets of thick white hair. "Whereas this particular movie, just like 'The Others' did, encourages us not to look outside, elsewhere, but to look inside ourselves, as parents, as partners, whatever, and look at what we have to grapple with."

'All your self-deceptions'

Flanagan has struggled with her own flaws and foibles, yet still likes to think: "Ooh, I'm wonderful. Aren't I wonderful?"

She concedes she hasn't always been.

"I got sober 19 years ago. And when you choose to get sober for reasons of health and well-being, then you look at a lot of things within yourself, all your self-deceptions."

In "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," Flanagan plays Teensy, a recovering alcoholic. (One of the other characters says: "She joined the Triple-A.")

"Fionnula gives the character not only a joyous sense of humor but a formidable fierceness when it's necessary," says "Ya-Ya" director-screenwriter Callie Khouri, who won an Oscar for her "Thelma & Louise" script.

Flanagan feels fortunate to have dealt with her own addiction before she lost everything: "Lost my life, lost my health, lost my sanity, lost my family."

Married for 30 years to Los Angeles-area psychiatrist Garrett O'Connor, she has appeared in recent years in "Some Mother's Son" and "Waking Ned Devine."

But for a long time, good movie roles were hard to come by.

Born in Dublin and trained at Ireland's Abbey Theater, she had forged a formidable career on stage.

"It was very difficult for me to break into film when I went to live in California," she says. "That was 1972 and Hollywood wasn't exactly falling over itself to hire non-American actresses."

It wasn't until the '90s, when foreign-language and British films generated strong interest at American art-house cinemas, that things opened up for her.

She managed to land guest spots on prime-time dramas such as "Marcus Welby, M.D.," "Medical Center," "Kojak," "The Streets of San Francisco" and "The Bionic Woman."