How Carol Kane’s 'Courageous' Mother, Who 'Started Life Over' at 55, Inspired Her New Movie (Exclusive)

‘Between the Temples’ stars Jason Schwartzman as a Jewish cantor and Carol Kane as an older woman completing the bat mitzvah she never had

Carol Kane’s new movie doubles as an homage to her inspiring mother.

Writer-director Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples (in theaters now) stars Jason Schwartzman as a grieving cantor who takes on an unusual student at his synagogue: an older woman, played by Kane, who wants to complete the bat mitzvah she never had.

“My own mother is a very, very courageous woman who started her life completely over again at the age of 55,” Kane, 72, tells PEOPLE. At that age her mother, Joy, “moved to Paris and lived in a little hotel room that didn't even have a toilet or a bath — they were down the hall. You made a reservation to take a bath.”

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Much like music teacher Carla O'Connor in Between the Temples, Kane’s mom “started her life over,” she recalls. “She became admired and known as a master teacher of something called Dalcroze eurhythmics and jazz improv. She even was hired by the French government to teach in one of their schools.”

Adds the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star, “She showed me this path of courage that I can't even imagine. I can't imagine being that brave, to just throw yourself out into the world on a whole new path at that age. And then she did it again when she was 75, and she came back to America after 20 years.”

Along with its unconventional love story between Schwartzman and Kane’s characters, Between the Temples is a reminder that it’s never too late to start a new life chapter. “I had [my mother’s] example to follow, that you have to do it if you have to do it,” says Kane. “The old life has been too painful, difficult, not you, so you have to build a new life.”

The movie also challenged Kane, whose Jewish parents didn’t raise her “in any religious way. But I have been privileged to play some roles where I've gotten to learn about my faith more,” Kane says, including her breakout in 1975 drama Hester Street, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination. 

To play Carla in Between the Temples, she continues, “I actually got taught my Torah portion in Hebrew, which I found very difficult, much more difficult than Yiddish.”

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As is tradition in bat mitzvahs, Carla’s Torah portion is also sung — which Kane does beautifully in the film. “My relationship with my voice has not changed,” she admits, since telling PEOPLE in 2020 she thought of it as “odd.” 

“I still don't understand it and I don't like to hear it, but that's the way it is. It's sort of too late.” Kane reflects for a moment before adding an addendum: “Well, no, this movie says that nothing is too late, ever.”

Between the Temples, which costars Dolly de Leon, Caroline Aaron, Robert Smigel and Madeline Weinstein, is in theaters now.

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