By Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - For all her awards and accomplishments, esteemed actress Estelle Parsons still feels like she isn't doing enough.

The 81-year-old, who won an Oscar for her supporting role in 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde" and is blowing away critics with her leading performance in the smash play "August: Osage County" (it opens in Toronto on Thursday), says she's "constantly being gnawed at" by her social conscience.

"I just think: 'Oh Lord, I should be doing something worthwhile, I should be in Afghanistan helping out,"' Parsons, who also played the zany mom in TV's "Roseanne," said in a recent interview.

"I have this social conscience that feels like I should be doing something else. The fact is, I wouldn't be good at anything else. I wouldn't be good in Afghanistan. I'd probably be freaking out at everything I had to do.

"I'm just not good at other things, and I'm good at acting. But it doesn't really seem like something that a grown-up should be doing."

The stage has always been Parsons's calling, even though it wasn't what she immediately pursued.

Growing up in Marblehead, Mass., she belonged to a children's theatre troupe but decided to follow in her father's footsteps and go to law school at Boston University (she never graduated) while singing for fun in night clubs.

"I was going to be a politician because I didn't think you should grow up and be an actor," she said.

"That's because I grew up in New England. If I'd grown up in an artistic family, I'd think: 'Wonderful - the Fondas, the Barrymores, the Redgraves,' but I grew up in an intellectual, literary family so it just didn't seem the thing to do."

In 1952, Parsons even became an original member of NBC's "Today Show" before giving in to her longing to act.

Since then, she's received several Tony nominations and was up for another Oscar for 1968's "Rachel, Rachel."

In Tracy Letts' Pulitzer-and Tony-winning "August: Osage County," Parsons plays Violet Weston, the pill-popping matriarch to a dysfunctional Oklahoma family that reunites when the patriarch disappears.

"I can't imagine that I will have another gift like this in my life," Parsons said of the role.

"It's a wonderful, wonderful part - endlessly truthful and exciting and theatrical, which is what I really love."

The New York-based Parsons took over the role in the summer of 2008 from Deanna Dunagan, who left the Broadway production due to exhaustion.

Parsons said she combats the physical and emotional strain of the show's tour by exercising regularly and just "letting it fly" on stage.

"If you sort of relax and agree that you can't do the same thing every day, then wonderful riches come out of you," she said.

"Some director said to me: 'Oh, Estelle, I've finally figured you out - it's always different but it's always right,' and it's kind of a technique that I've worked on because I've been doing eight performances a week all my life."

"August: Osage County" runs through Nov. 15 at the Canon Theatre.

Parson said once the tour for the show ends, she may perform at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in southwestern Ontario next summer.

She said there have already been discussions with Stratford artistic director Des McAnuff about which plays she'd be interested in doing.

"I always wanted to work there," she said. "I had written down two, three or four things that I wanted to talk to (McAnuff) about but I haven't yet. I better do that now."