Marisa Tomei is Just Not Herself in 'Cyrus'

Marisa Tomei is torn between two men. On film, that is.

In "Cyrus," out Friday, she has fallen for John (John C. Reilly), the schlubby editor she meets. Standing in the way of love is Cyrus, her twentysomething son, a clingy, possessive and downright weird homebody played by Jonah Hill. And in the middle is Tomei's Molly, an openhearted, loving woman.

The movie is "about a moment where everyone needs to grow," says Tomei, 45. "Each one has so much love (that) it needed to expand. We really enjoy each other, and it's reached a point where it needs to be shared."

She wanted to play Molly because of how little she had in common with the single mom with puffy hair. "She's just seeing the good and not seeing some of the reality," Tomei says. "She's different than I am. She's a lot more patient than I am."

And that's exactly why Mark and Jay Duplass, who co-directed the film, cast the Oscar winner. They needed an actress who could hold her own, and someone who oozed warmth and acceptance without being a pushover.

"Marisa and Molly couldn't be more different in terms of life situations. (Marisa) doesn't have a bizarre son, and she's not a single mom. The one thing that was surprising was how natural her mothering instincts were in this role," says Mark Duplass. "I did not know how capable she was of showing that uber-sensitivity and uber-patience as the mother of a really complex child."

Despite the challenging role, Tomei did get a kick out of her versatile tresses in the film.

"How about the hairdo?" she asks. "That's my hair. My hair is more wavy, so it curls really easily. So we let it be really curly."

Hairy scenes aside, Tomei had no qualms about having an adult son on screen, Mark Duplass says. "There's not a lot of women who are her age who are interested in playing the mother of a 20-year-old son. She's fearless about that stuff. She wants to play a real role."

In real life, Tomei and her boyfriend, actor Logan Marshall-Green, 33, of the TNT drama Dark Blue, live in Los Angeles, where she has an apartment. She also has a place in Manhattan.

"He's so sweet. I feel that I've been lucky in love, but it's also the combination of things he has," Tomei says.

After winning an Oscar for playing Mona Lisa Vito in 1992's My Cousin Vinny, Tomei is returning to comedy. She has wrapped one with Steve Carell and another with Greg Kinnear. Next, she shoots the drama The Lincoln Lawyer opposite Matthew McConaughey. And in January, the New York native hopes to return to Manhattan to do theater. Does she miss the city?