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Parade
  • 6/20/2025
Transcript
00:00I'm very silly backstage. I'm silly until the moment we go on because I get super nervous.
00:05The antidote for that, for me, is silliness.
00:12Congratulations on your third Tony nomination.
00:17Where were you when you found out that you'd been nominated?
00:19I was at home. I love not knowing when they will come out.
00:24I love just forgetting all about that because, of course, it creates so much anxiety either way.
00:32But a couple of people had said, oh, my God, they're coming out tomorrow.
00:36So I walked the dog. I had my bagel.
00:39And then I was like, OK, people are saying who's nominated.
00:43Let me try to go online. And I just couldn't get it together.
00:47And so about 9.20, I started to get texts.
00:50And I thought, well, thank you. Thank you, my friends.
00:54So I was at my kitchen table finishing a bagel.
00:57Did it feel different getting nominated this time versus the other time?
01:01The first time was that experience of doing an Arthur Miller play and being with Lee Evans Scarlett was so precious
01:08because Arthur is and was my truly favorite writer.
01:13And there's something about elevating your sense of self because you're doing that kind of work that you think it shouldn't matter.
01:20This is so this is such a rarefied experience.
01:24And to be honest, when I was doing Summer 1976, Laura was my goddess.
01:30So I wish we had experienced that together.
01:32And it just goes to show that it it's random because she it was she was just made the whole thing work.
01:40And then this one was really delicious.
01:43What was sort of the most difficult part of the show?
01:46To not make it a satire.
01:48I was very anxious about that when we were developing it.
01:51I think the kind of use for satire when you're dealing with stuff that could at times be considered woke subjects or, you know, the way in which we're navigating the way in which many left leaning people are navigating life has been the subject of a lot of comedy.
02:05And I was desperate for it not to fall into that.
02:08So to kind of create something that made people think they knew the characters was essential for me.
02:14Do you have any pre-show rituals or anything you do to sort of like get ready?
02:18I do. I sing show tunes.
02:20I'm not a great singer, but I can sort of carry a tune.
02:23And I have a little library of show tunes that I don't realize I have.
02:28But when I go backstage or even in the dressing room, mostly when I'm backstage, I just kind of let him let him out.
02:33If you just said something to me and I saw that there was an opening to use one word he threw at me as the start of a show tune, I just do it.
02:45And most of my casts really indulge that.
02:49I'm very silly backstage.
02:51I'm silly until the moment we go on because I get super nervous.
02:55And the only way to, the antidote for that, for me, is silliness.
02:59You're in the movie Eleanor the Great, which is coming out and just had its can release.
03:05I love June Squibb.
03:07She's such an icon.
03:08What was it like getting to work with her?
03:10She was so awesome.
03:12First of all, she was a huge theater star.
03:15People don't realize that.
03:16She was a hoover.
03:17You know, she was a great dancer and singer.
03:19She was iconic in these, you know, she was in these wonderful character parts of musicals.
03:24She's so clear.
03:26She knows herself.
03:28And she has such a way of focusing everything.
03:33And she's also just a beautiful energy.
03:36She's just so present.
03:37So it was incredible to work with her.
03:40And then Scarlett Johansson is the director.
03:42And this is her first movie that she's directed.
03:45And you've worked with, obviously, lots of directors in your career.
03:47How was it having her direct?
03:49Absolutely wonderful.
03:50First of all, she's very girl-friendly.
03:52She'll be like, you know, the first few minutes is anyway talking about your outfit and your food intake.
03:59And then she's very specific about what it should be.
04:04She understands filmmaking so precisely.
04:07And so the way in which she directs is utterly doable and also really helps to make the scene as perfect a storytelling vehicle as possible.
04:19You know, the biggest thing for actors is that you feel like you're playing the same thing over and over again.
04:24That's what you're always worried about.
04:25And she drops you into such a human and specific place.
04:30She's wonderful.
04:30And then you were also in Friends, obviously.
04:34Yeah.
04:34And you were in, like, the early seasons, like the first couple episodes.
04:38What was it like filming that so early, like, before it really became a big success?
04:44Like, what was the vibe like on the set then?
04:46Yeah, such a good question because a lot of people associate me with that show but don't acknowledge that.
04:53I've had this tremendous luck with several shows that I've done.
04:56It's been so fortunate that I, because I, the same thing with Breaking Bad.
05:00If you're at the very beginning, you don't know what it's going to be.
05:03So you're just there trying to help them figure out what the show is.
05:08And you don't feel the weight of its history because it has no history and you don't know what it'll be.
05:15So for me on Friends, A, it's not that it was casual, but the show was not iconic by any stretch.
05:21So I had more creativity and I had more of a sense of just trusting my gut about what I wanted to do with this character.
05:28And Jane Sibbett, who played my beautiful wife, we were so locked into each other.
05:33So it was mostly about our energy together.
05:35And then I read online that you also had originally auditioned for the role of Monica.
05:40Can you believe that?
05:41Do you ever think about, like, the sliding doors of, like, what would have happened if you would have been cast?
05:45I think it was a total backup because I knew the casting director from high school.
05:50This woman, Ellie Kanner, I was out in Los Angeles and my agent said,
05:55Oh, I sent your picture in to this casting director for Friends.
05:59There's one part they're not sure will, the actor will take it.
06:03They want to cast, still look at some other actors.
06:06And I think she knows you from high school.
06:07So I went in, mostly excited to see Ellie Kanner.
06:12And then they started to read me for Monica.
06:15But I think looking at me, and back then, I mean, I'm tall and I just had a bigger size than the rest.
06:21I think the idea of how, now I look at it, and I think how perfect Courtney was.
06:26I would have been more of a Lisa, just physically and energetically.
06:30But they just couldn't figure out how to make Susan work because they, well, it's terrible,
06:34but they just wanted a lesbian that didn't look exactly like lesbians had previously.
06:39Let's be honest.
06:42I'm like, really?
06:44Here's your imagination.
06:45I mean, yeah, anyway.
06:49They're wonderful, but, you know, they come in all sizes.
06:54Yes, and we do know that now that we're out of the 90s.
06:57You're also in Dan in Real Life, which is one of my favorite movies.
07:00I've seen it so many times.
07:01Oh, my God, that's so lovely.
07:02What was it?
07:03I watched that, and it just looks like so much fun.
07:05You guys are all staying in this big house and doing these crossword puzzle competitions and things.
07:09Like, what was it like filming that?
07:11Awesome.
07:12Oh, my God, Peter Hedges is a great director, and he had us doing all this family stuff to get into the character of the family.
07:18But, come on, the family was Amy Ryan, one of the greatest actors ever.
07:22She was my great friend as well.
07:24But Amy Ryan Norbert, I mean, it was an amazing family.
07:27John Mahoney was the dad.
07:28Diane Wiest was the mom.
07:30And we sat around.
07:31The first couple days, we sang Bob Dylan songs as a family and ate pancakes.
07:36And then Juliette came, and she's actually very girl-friendly and wonderful, and I couldn't believe I was with Juliette Binoche.
07:44Yeah, yeah, it was fantastic.
07:45It was, as advertised, great.
07:48And then you were also in Succession.
07:50Yeah.
07:50And so many Broadway people were in various episodes.
07:54Yeah, yeah, wonderful episodes.
07:54Was that sort of like a thing that was going around in the community of like, oh, like, have you done Succession yet?
08:00Oh, yeah, I've done it.
08:01Oh, have you done it?
08:02It was early on, maybe the second season, and I don't watch a lot of TV.
08:05And they were like, it's a small part, but people seem to like this show.
08:10And I always get what you do there.
08:12And also, you just don't get paid a lot in the theater, so this is a nice way to make a little cash.
08:17So I also had no idea what the thing was, and I just had the most wonderful day there, a couple days, yeah.
08:24You've been in so many different things.
08:27What is it that you get recognized most often for?
08:30Oh, that's a really good question.
08:32Breaking Bad, and then Friends, and then a show that I loved doing, which was The Sinner.
08:37And for a while, that was running a lot during COVID.
08:40I think it has to do with what's popular.
08:43I saw you've been in four different Law & Order episodes.
08:47I think, and then some others sort of like franchises.
08:49All evil, yeah.
08:51Never a good character.
08:52How is it playing in those where you just pop in and are playing a corpse or a killer or a lawyer?
08:59Yeah, yeah.
09:00Crying for dollars.
09:01Someone calls that crying for dollars because Amy Ryan actually coined that phrase, which is so funny.
09:06All those shows require a little crying.
09:08They're fun.
09:09You know, they're a real testament to the actual, I guess we would call it the trade of acting, which, you know, you have a job to do, which is to play this person who's suffering in some way or anguished in some way.
09:25What is sort of like the oddest or weirdest part that you've ever taken in one of these?
09:30I think I did one where I played a slave owner.
09:35It's so bad that I just have to say it.
09:37I think I had taken a couple of kids from Haiti and I enslaved them.
09:43I run an organization for protection of refugees, so it's so messed up that I can't even imagine.
09:50What show was that?
09:51That was a Law & Order spin-off.
09:53I played some really wonky ones, yeah.
09:57I played a nun in a few things.
10:00I played a few nuns.
10:01I played a nun for Sally Field in her first movie that she directed called A Christmas Tree.
10:06I'd love to have played multiple nuns.
10:08They're like, we've got a nun role.
10:10We know who to call.
10:11Look at me.
10:12Who else would you call it?
10:13Come on.