Kathy Bates, Parker Posey and the Drama Actress Roundtable

Niecy Nash-Betts was almost exclusively known for punchlines before she called a meeting at her agency, a reintroduction, as she puts it, to set her career on a different course. “All I was ever doing was comedy,” says the Grotesquerie actress. “So I told them, ‘Here is how I see myself. And if you don’t see me how I see myself, then we are not aligned.’ “

All of the women who joined Nash-Betts for THR‘s Drama Actress Roundtable could relate to her time spent playing a similar role over and over, be it for lofty gigs like 1923 and MobLand star Helen Mirren — she’s played three queens and an empress — or less glamorous types like The Penguin scene-stealer Cristin Milioti (“Sorority girls or a dead body in a trunk”). “Our whole business is about imagination, and yet there’s such a lack of it in terms of how they see us,” says Kathy Bates, who adds that she was on the verge of retiring before her Matlock reboot came along. “What is that?”

Six actresses at the absolute top of their game — Parker Posey (The White Lotus) and Keri Russell (The Diplomat) among them — aimed to diagnose the issue over the course of an hour during a raucous conversation that dug into everything from their most formative audition experiences to the humor and humiliation of filming a sex scene … only for it to land on the cutting-room floor.

If you were to see “a Niecy Nash-Betts type” or “a Keri Russell type” or any one of your names on a casting breakdown, do you have an idea of what that part would be?

KERI RUSSELL I went through a phase where it was just a nice pregnant mom. That was a Keri Russell type.

PARKER POSEY How many times were you a pregnant mom?

RUSSELL A lot of times. A lot.

HELEN MIRREN I was a queen for quite a long time. You have to wriggle to get out.

NIECY NASH-BETTS I’ve lived a lot of lives as an actor — doing something as loud as Reno 911!, and then you slide all the way over and that pendulum hits Jeffrey Dahmer. I don’t know what it would say [today] because it depends on which version of me they’re looking for.

What version of you are they looking for right now?

KATHY BATES Sexy.

NASH-BETTS You know I was going there! (Laughter.) I don’t know, but I love that I can make people laugh and cry. I do not take it lightly.

POSEY I actually saw a movie that described a Parker Posey type. I was not offered [the part].

Parker, in your memoir, you write that “talented” is what people in Hollywood call actors when they want to say crazy.

POSEY Oh, that’s a good line.

Who else has been on the receiving end of a euphemism or a backhanded compliment in a performance or an audition?

NASH-BETTS I don’t know about backhanded. I had it right to my face. I auditioned for something early in my career, and the two producers looked at each other and said, “She’s got a cute face. You think she can lose weight?” And I was like, “Guys, she can hear you. She is here. And, no, she can’t. Now are y’all going to give me the job?”

MIRREN And did they?

NASH-BETTS Yeah, for sure. (Laughs.) I don’t even know if I was the best one, but they probably felt so embarrassed.

MIRREN And you didn’t lose the weight, did you?

NASH-BETTS No, I went home and ate a cookie.

CRISTIN MILIOTI In the culture, there is such a celebration of men who really go for it. They’ll do a crazy thing, and everyone’s like, “Wow, he must take this so seriously.” I’ve witnessed some of that, mostly just heard about it, and have thought that if I ever did that, it would not end well. And that still happens. That’s not a backhanded compliment, that’s more …

RUSSELL The reality.

POSEY Yeah, misogyny. When you asked that question, I felt myself kind of deflate because I think the misogyny is so rampant. To be a dynamic character or a dynamic woman or even a dynamic person, it’s kind of outrageous right now. There’s something very provincial that’s happened. I feel the need to be really entertaining and make people laugh.

BATES Years ago I went up for … I think it was Paradise Alley. There was a whole list of all the characters. I kid you not, before every one of ’em, it was “beautiful.”

MIRREN “Beautiful, but she doesn’t know it.”

MILIOTI That’s the worst!

BATES I made the mistake of asking the casting guy, “Why does everybody have to be beautiful?” And he said, “If you want to go and make your own female version of Marty, be my guest.” So I left. I was asking an honest question. It still makes me pissed.

Kathy, during the initial Matlock promotions, you spoke about retirement and called this show your “last dance.” You’ve since pulled a 180. What changed?

BATES This is something I can really believe in. It means something. Up until that point, things were starting to wind down for me. I was getting roles that I really cared about in films that no one would see. [There was] disappointment in the way things were edited. It started to hurt too much. I just thought that maybe I ought to think about putting my house on the market and moving to France or something. I just wanted some real stimulation.

You mention the edit. You got a bit of attention recently for lamenting something left out of Misery. Has anyone else had a scene removed from a project that they wish had made the final cut?

BATES So I just did this thing with Rob Reiner for TCM. What I was saying was about what I thought was a funny scene. She runs over the sheriff with the lawn mower. I was making a joke about it, and suddenly I see in the press, “She wants more violence!” So let me disabuse you of that.

NASH-BETTS Well, I was never the ingénue. Then, when I turned 45, it was like, “And now we want you to be naked.” (Laughter.) You waited until now? I was fine to play the part, but the days that you have to film intimate scenes, it’s stressful. And I think it’s men who do these call sheets because they put them at night. They think it’s sexy. No.

RUSSELL Get it done!

NASH-BETTS Let’s do it first thing in the morning, when this man just got out the tub and he’s not smelling like a field mouse. You go through all the heart palpitations, the closed set. “Was my side meat a little too jiggly? Are my kibbles and bits covered?” And then they don’t use it! I put myself out there to be that vulnerable, literally exposed, and you don’t use it? Now I got an attitude. Stuff it back in there somewhere!

MILIOTI I can get a little myopic about it. I get defensive of the character, and I’m like, “Why did they cut that thing that she says that explains this, this and this?” I forget to zoom out and think about the story as a larger piece. Much later, I can get why something was cut, but in the moment …

Keri, your partner, Matthew Rhys, has said this of your career: “It’s rare that she’s enthusiastic about acting. It’s not so much a dislike, it’s a discomfort.” Is that accurate? And if so, what gets you to set?

RUSSELL It is true. I didn’t grow up desperate to be an actress. I’m still not sure I want to be. But I really love my job right now. There are a lot of things that are still embarrassing to me. I’m not a performer at ease. [With] Matthew, for instance, I’ll say, “What are you doing this week?” And he’ll go, “Oh, I’m just going to do this play reading. I haven’t done a German or Russian accent in a while and I just want to try it out.” That’s my nightmare! I would fucking die. I don’t want to fucking do that in front of strangers! For me, there’s a real push-pull. I still have to overcome the obstacle of being nervous, but this version of TV that we’re in works for me.

You’re also someone who has never really embraced the celebrity part of the job. You left L.A. for New York when Felicity wrapped and never came back. How do you think that’s helped and hurt your career?

RUSSELL I like my regular life. It’s always such a funny thing when you see any big, super famous movie star. We’ve all worked with those people. I think [about how] they can’t even go outside. They don’t know what it’s like to be a real person. They don’t get their own coffee. They don’t do their own laundry. How do they play a real person? I don’t want to talk shit too much about acting. I am completely married to the adventure of it, and that’s what I’m in it for. I love to [shoot] in some strange city — it could be Paris or some little Southern town — and learn the city, meet new people and find my little thing.

This is a little left field, Helen, but in so many interviews over the years, you’ve brought up Kurt Cobain and how you’re bummed he died before GPS.

MIRREN Yes, indeed. I am.

What’s behind the fixation?

MIRREN It’s not Kurt Cobain. It’s dying young. I’m old. I didn’t die young, and the reason that I want to live as long as I possibly can — and continue working as long as I possibly can — is exactly what Keri said. It’s the adventure of it. I’m only using Cobain and GPS as a metaphor. And I personally find GPS absolutely fucking brilliant. (Laughter.)

MILIOTI Like, directions?

MIRREN Yeah, the little blue dot. The adventure in life and work is the unknown and what is coming.

BATES And sticking around until you get there.

Niecy, a few years ago, you were advised to not marry Jessica Betts, who is now your spouse. People around you said that it would derail your career opportunities. The opposite has happened, but how did you receive something like that at the time?

NASH-BETTS Everybody has an opinion! There were people who were like, “Your fan base has known you to be a certain way, and you need to stay right there. Otherwise, you’ll never eat lunch in this town again.” Some of that comes from older generations, family members, and that’s how they think. But I’ve always been a person who does one thing: what I want to do. And I’m going to do it all the way. I give very little thought, if any, to what somebody else thinks about it. I cannot even imagine my life without Jessica. This is the greatest love of my entire life. I would not even be able to enjoy my work as much as I do without that kind of support. So I did what I wanted to do. I don’t regret it. I would do it again. As a matter of fact, we are about to celebrate five years.

ALL Congratulations!

NASH-BETTS Thank you. We’re about to do another vow renewal, a big party, just so I can say “In your face” to whoever told me not to get married.

Who else among you has gotten bad or problematic guidance in your careers?

BATES I had ovarian cancer in 2003, and my agent said, “Don’t tell anybody. You don’t want to be the poster child for ovarian cancer.” I think if I had come out at that point, maybe it would have helped some people. Because when I had breast cancer in 2012, [speaking up] helped people. I regret not doing that [the first time]. Because I went underground. I was on the board at the Academy, and I called them and said, “I can’t come to any of the meetings.” I just hid for a whole year. So it was bad advice, career and personal. Oh, I just brought everybody down. (To Nash) Tell another story! (Laughter.)

MIRREN I was told to have a nose job in my 20s.

RUSSELL You’re kidding me.

MIRREN Someone said, “You’ll never get work if you don’t have a nose job.” I said no. I didn’t want to be a pretty actress anyway. I elected to be not so pretty.

NASH-BETTS First of all, too late. Because you are. But I understand what you mean, in theory. I love being shiny in my real life. On camera, don’t care. I want to look like a dog. It doesn’t bother me to disappear in some of those roles. I feel sorry for people who have been beautiful their whole life. Because when that’s what you’re known for, you got to keep it up for your whole life? I don’t know what I’d do.

BATES I don’t know if y’all have the same experience, but when you see an amazing performance, it doesn’t matter what that person looks like — they’re beautiful.

MILIOTI They’re hot!

MIRREN Looking at our faces around this table, none of us are beautiful.

BATES Oh, get out of town! I feel more beautiful than I have in my entire life.

MIRREN We’re not. None of us are beauties. We all have really different faces, very interesting faces.

RUSSELL I know what you mean. Like model beautiful?

MIRREN We all know what “beautiful” is like.

RUSSELL Kathy’s like, “Speak for yourself.” (Laughter.)

Who among you can describe the current chapter of your career in terms of the opportunities coming your way, and how they differ from five or 10 years ago?

MILIOTI If I look back 10 years, I was often playing a version of “a girl of someone’s dreams.” That didn’t feel like my life experience, which is fine, but the older I get, the more I feel like I’m taking off a pair of tight pants. I feel so much freer. It’s not a dig at any of those projects. It’s how you’re perceived at 25. I was auditioning to play sorority girls or a dead body in a trunk or someone who was in love with a 40-year-old and being like, “Have you ever tried dancing in the rain?” (Laughter.) To leave that behind felt really good.

MIRREN I was talking to a young actress the other day, and she said, “I have to cry in everything that I [make]. Why do I have to cry all the time?” I said, “Don’t worry, you’ll come to an age where you don’t have to cry.” But I think the writing for women has improved. I’m terrified that it’s going to be all shoved back in the back-down again. There’s a real danger of that abroad at the moment.

POSEY I feel like it’s a ball on the roulette wheel. It just kind of lands. You don’t know how the script gets to you or what director has been thinking about you. I’m not comfortable with the business side of it. I don’t really understand it. It makes me very nervous. It felt rare for me, from 35 to 55, to fit in.

NASH-BETTS I literally just called my team and said, “I think people forgot I’m funny.” Every role I get, I’m crying. I’m falling out. I’m perturbed. I’m a funny girl too, so I’m out here in the streets trying to remind people.

The White Lotus is known to be this massive launchpad or relaunchpad. Parker, you booked a Gap campaign before the show even came out. What have the offers looked like since this past season hit so big?

POSEY I haven’t read anything. You’d think, “This is incredible! They’re sending me all this.” But I’ve yet to read the next thing. But the memes, the excitement of my friends and family, it’s been so lovely. They’re so excited. (To Bates) I’m sure you feel that too.

BATES Yep!

POSEY There are friends going, “We were so worried,” or “We’ve been stressed for you.” They’re glad to see you happy and appreciated and getting work that’s fulfilling and funny. And my mom can feel fabulous with her friends.

BATES Years ago, my mother, God rest her [soul], she went on a cruise with my sister. And she was at the captain’s table — you know how they do for people every now and then — and he said, “Well, what does your [other] daughter do?” And started going through all these parts, and they were these horrible characters.

RUSSELL Of course they were!

BATES She got really quiet and then said to my sister, “Why does she play all these afflicted people?” (Laughter.) So, it’s too bad that my mother isn’t here now. She’d love this.

This story first appeared in a May stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.