These six actresses at the absolute top of their game may have recently found themselves in the zeitgeist for their dramatic work, but there was no shortage of levity when they sat down for THR’s Drama Actress Roundtable.
Kathy Bates (Matlock), Cristin Milioti (The Penguin and Black Mirror), Helen Mirren (1922 and Mobland), Niecy Nash-Betts (Grotesquerie), Parker Posey (The White Lotus) and Keri Russell (The Diplomat) swapped ware stories for an hour — talking about the worst advice they’ve gotten over the course of their careers, seeing too many “beautiful but she doesn’t know it” parts in scripts and, for Bates and Posey, relishing in their recent returns to the center of attention. “The memes, the excitement of my friends and family, it’s been so lovely,” Posey said of her recent work on The White Lotus and the many, many viral moments it inspired. “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 says she was in a similar boat, frustrated by a recent string of films that either weren’t seen or lost something in the edit. “Things were starting to wind down for me,” Bates said of her career before Matlock. “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.”
A recurring theme over the hour was bad advice — some of which the women regret taking and much more of it they’re glad they ignored. Nash-Betts was told to not marry a woman. “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,’” said Nash-Betts, who married her spouse Jessica Betts in 2020. “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.”
Mirren was also given an ultimatum. “I was told to have a nose job in my 20s.” she recalled. “Someone said, ‘You’ll never get work if you don’t have a nose job.’” (She declined.)
Speaking of careers, Russell, an entertainment industry fixture since Felicity propelled her to fame at just 22, confessed she’s still not 100 percent sold on being an actor. “There are a lot of things that are still embarrassing to me,” she said. “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.”
Miliot, fresh off of her turn on The Penguin, said her own career prospects have changed dramatically over the last decade. “If I look back 10 years, I was often playing a version of ‘a girl of someone’s dreams,’” she said. “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?’ To leave that behind felt really good.”
It should also be mentioned that Mirren also finally revealed the real reason why she so frequently mentions Kurt Cobain during interviews. Her real fixation? “It’s not Kurt Cobain. It’s dying young.”
Watch the full Emmy roundtables on IFC on Fridays at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET or stream it on AMC+. THR Emmy Roundtables will be rolling out in print and online for the next four weeks. In addition to catching broadcast episodes of Off Script With The Hollywood Reporter on Fridays, look for complete videos of each Roundtable on THR.com and YouTube on Sundays through June 22.
