Take it as a green flag if your partner has a crush on Rosemarie DeWitt. Although the veteran actress ran the gamut playing characters in films like "Rachel Getting Married" and "La La Land," and shows ranging from "Mad Men" to "Black Mirror" to "The Boys," she says that "When people tell me that their husbands like my work, I think, 'Oh, you must really love your wife.'" Because, as she explained to me, "I think I'm trying to play you. I want to be the character, but I want to be somebody that you go, 'Yeah, I do that.'"

In her latest film, Disney's "Out of My Mind," DeWitt channels that "Yeah, I do that" energy as Diane, the overextended "nag parent" of a daughter with cerebral palsy, played by British actress Phoebe-Rae Taylor, as the family navigates the challenges of living with a disability and surviving middle school. DeWitt said during our recent "Salon Talks" conversation how she channeled her own parenting experiences for the role, including what she's learned from her daughters about handling when "people say really hurtful things."

DeWitt also opened up about getting "kind of gross" for "Smile 2," returning to "And Just Like That…" as Aidan's straight-shooting ex-wife, and why she says she's not "the poster child for real women."

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

This movie is so beautiful and graceful and funny. For those who haven't read the book or don't know the story, tell me a little bit about your character in this world.

I play the mom of a whip smart, beautiful young teenager with cerebral palsy. In the movie, the character of Melody is in a wheelchair and she can't speak. She has nonverbal CP, and we eventually are able to purchase a medi-talker device, and she kind of finds her voice.

I thought I was going in playing a mom who advocates for her daughter and is like a mama bear. I was, but I came away from the movie going, "Oh, for the mother journey, it's about learning to trust your kids, learning to listen to them, knowing that they're fully formed people even though their frontal lobe isn't fully formed." They're going to spend most of their time on this earth as adults, and we're just there for a little bit to do this.

The parents are imperfect. You see Melody's frustration with that, and you also just see the humanity of being a parent. What's it like approaching a character like that?

No, not by a long shot, and neither are any of us, especially on our worst day. I always get happy when my kids do get to see movies and they're like, "You're not that bad, Mom." I'm like, "Yay."

They're deeply flawed, which are my favorite characters to play, otherwise there's no meat on the bone. Melody is the real heroine of the story. She's the heartbeat, she knows what she wants, she knows that you can't bubble wrap the world. She's going to get knocked around, she's going to get pushed aside. A lot of our movie is about the terrible reality of being a person with a disability.

"I think it requires a lot more fierceness than I come into the world with."

Phoebe-Rae Taylor, who plays the role, talks about it a lot. She educated us a lot on the film, like, "I go to the movie theater and the only place for me to sit is in the way, way back corner where the wheelchair can fit." Walking through New York City, I'm like, "She can't eat at any of these restaurants. There's no ramps." Or if you speak with a device or you have a speech impediment from cerebral palsy, people just don't wait. Someone asks a question and then it takes a couple of breaths and then they just move on, because we can't slow down to hear them.

Then we're the ones who........

© Salon