During her more than two decades on the stage, heavily honored Broadway actress and occasional screen player Cherry Jones earned Tony Awards for “The Heiress” and John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt.” Jones’ affinity for independent, heroic females carried over into her screen appearances, which increased in the new millennium to include supporting roles as a fellow opponent of environmental poisoning in “Erin Brockovich” (2000) and the matriarch Grandma Buggy in “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” (2002). When she was approached to take on the role of the courageous and idealistic first female
