It’s almost impossible to believe that actor Carrie Coon’s film career is only about 10 years old, when she made her much-celebrated, big-screen debut in David Fincher’s Gone Girl. Also in 2014, Coon began her run on HBO’s groundbreaking series The Leftovers, which was followed almost immediately by a staggeringly good second season of Fargo. Of course, Coon was known more as a stage actor at the time, having scored a Tony nomination in 2013 for her Broadway debut in Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, co-starring her husband, actor and playwright Tracy Letts.
Since then, her profile has only grown, working with the likes of Steven Spielberg in The Post, Steve McQueen in Widows, and Sean Durkin in The Nest, not to mention her voice work in the Avengers films Infinity War and Endgame. She’s also co-starred in the last two Ghostbusters (Afterlife and Frozen Empire) movies and is one of the leads in yet another HBO drama, The Gilded Age. To keep her HBO streak alive, she’ll also co-star in the upcoming third season of White Lotus, set for release in 2025.
Currently, Coon has roles in two feature films, including the critically acclaimed Netflix family drama His Three Daughters, co-starring (as her siblings) Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne, from writer/director Azazel Jacobs; and the Chicago-based postpartum depression comedy Another Happy Day, which she executive produced, from writer/director/actor Nora Fiffer and starring Lauren Lapkus. In the film, Coon has what is essentially a cameo as Lapkus’ boss, but the production was special to Coon because it maintained eight-hour work days and included daycare for parents working on the movie.
I had the chance to chat with Coon recently about both films, as well as a few other projects she’s worked on recently, and even her years-long, at-home Movie Club that she and Letts began during the pandemic and sharing with the world on social media. Please enjoy our very fun and enlightening conversation.
How did you get involved in Another Happy Day? I know the filmmaker is from here and works in Chicago. Did you know her prior to this movie?
I did know Nora. I don’t recall the first time I encountered her, but it might have been an understudy situation. She might have been understudying a show. She’s quite a talented actor, and she sent me the script and asked if there was someway I wanted to be involved with this story she wanted to tell. So I read it and thought “I’m a mom, I have two kids now, and I hadn’t seen this moment depicted in quite this way in film, so I appreciated that. I was too old to play the lead ; we needed someone in their 30s, so I couldn’t sign on in that way. Also, we needed a really talented comedic actress, and Lauren Lapkus has the ability to capture both the pathos and harried quality of that moment, but also the sense of humor and comic timing. She was such a great get for the piece. So I said I’ll come on and lend my support producing-wise; I didn’t do anything or help in any way—I can’t claim that. But I did appreciate coming in and doing that cameo as the boss, which was fun and very real—that happens to women after they have babies.
I loved the marriage, in particular. It felt very real and specific to me. I appreciated what Nora was doing. And then when Nora said they were going to commit to this eight-hour work day, with child care, and that everyone was going to be home for dinner and bedtime, which is basically how I choose the work I do anymore, that was really important to support that work. We can do it, it’s possible.
When you’re working with a filmmaker on their first movie, what do you need to see in a new filmmaker’s vision in order for you to agree to be a part of it? Maybe it’s something as simple as geography, but what did you like about Nora’s vision?
I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Nora…
I have not.
She’s shockingly intelligent, so she’s very good at articulating why she wrote the film and what she hoped to achieve with it. And also, she had tremendous self-awareness that she was directing a film for the first time. That’s the only way to go in, with curiosity and openness and and a willingness to learn from the people around you who might have more experience than you have. She had the right attitude about approaching the material. She has directed in the theater very successfully; she’s been running a theater program on the east coast for quite a while, so directing it wasn’t far from her abilities, it was just this particular medium. And the only way not to be a first-time director is to make a movie. You have to start somewhere.
I think the thing I took away from this film that I hadn’t considered before is that people go through this, and they don’t talk about it. They go through it silently and alone, and that probably accentuates the loneliness. Was that something you liked about Nora’s approach to this subject.
Absolutely. Very difficult to encapsulate what that liminal space feels like, of sleeplessness and loneliness and this creature that is completely, utterly dependent on you, who you cannot really know because they’re just a little baby machine for the first several months. It is unsatisfying on many levels, and I haven’t seen a film speak to that particular experience at all. It’s a problem that's even more acute in the West because of the way we raise our children; we raise them alone in apartments, far away from our families because we go where our work is. We don’t raise them in a village or commune. It used to be that there were lots of adults around with lots of experience helping, and there were other children around to help entertain kids and teach them chores. We don’t live like that anymore, and it’s incredibly lonely.
And there’s this pressure to maintain your life before you became a mother as well and be successful at that. There are so many hats, and women are really hyper-compartmentalized once they have children, and the work of integrating those selves is very challenging psychologically, in a country where there is very little support for motherhood, families, for your psychological well-being and mental healthcare. There are so many things we lack here to deal with that, to help women survive that particular period of motherhood, which can be incredibly isolating.
You mentioned how much you like the marriage, but that scene where they are politely insulting each other, back and forth, I don’t ever want to have that conversation with someone ever.
But it is shocking what you discover about your partner when you become parents. There’s something really gratifying about hearing two people say those things to each other out loud. You’re right, most people swallow those feelings, but there’s actually something lovely and fully expressed about the couple in that moment that I actually think is healthy.
I do think it brings them closer in the end.
Yeah!
Does Nora being an actor make a difference in her directing style? I can see how she would be able to pull a hyper-dramatic performance out of Lauren, but did you see a difference?
Yes, I could see it in the way it was written, in that everything is quite character-driven and there is action to play. It’s not a state of being; you’re playing action in her film. Also, she doesn’t over-direct her actors; she’s aware of not getting in the actors’ way and just dropping things in. I was very impressed by her style on-set. She’s also compassionate and aware of everyone’s well-being. Like many actors, she’s only as happy as the unhappiest person in any room, so the set had a lovely energy because she wanted everyone to feel like they could contribute or offer an expertise they had to make the moment more successful.
Since it’s still relatively new, can I talk to you about His Three Daughters for a minute?
Yes, sure!
I’ve been so moved watching the three of your do interviews and appearances together for this film. It seems like you all got so incredibly close, even more so than any other type of film. Is it true that your husband told you to just take the part before even reading the screenplay because he had such trust in the filmmaker?
Yes. Not only did he work with Aza on The Lovers, with Debra Winger, and then French Exit, in which he has a very small part, but he became friends with Aza and his partner Diaz , who did the costumes for our movie and is a producer on the film. They’ve become dear friends of ours. The older you get, the more important it is the prioritize the experience of making something, as opposed to the result or the way it gets received in the world, and Tracy knowing that and me as a mother of two, the most important thing is the experience of living my life, because it will take me away from my family, and he knew that I would have a very lovely and satisfying experience with Aza.
Were you able to film that more or less chronologically? I can’t imagine doing it any other way.
More or less, yes, with some constraints because of daylight, because we were shooting in a rent-controlled, New York apartment. So there were a few things out of order just for the sake of the light and the windows and which direction we could shoot a scene. But mostly, we shot in order, and by the time we got to the end, Jay O. Sanders came in for two or three days to shoot his monologue, and then we said our goodbyes and we were out. That was 17 days, plus three days of rehearsal.
The one recurring storyline of the film that resonated with me was you trying to write your father’s obituary. I went to journalism school at Northwestern, and for one quarter they sent us off to work for a daily newspaper, and the place where I went, the first job they gave me as a general-assignment reporter was writing obituaries. And they don’t teach you to do it; you just learn from doing it. So when my father died a few years after that, my mother asked me to write his obituary. To see you go through that process in the film shook me up. Why do you think that was so tough for her, all of them really?
It’s the question they’re wrestling with: How do you summarize a life in a few paragraphs? It’s not possible to capture the essence of someone in language, and Christina very astutely points out that what their father has said is “The only way to know death is absence.” That explains why, when Aza was writing the film, he was surprised when the father came out of the room.
A lot of writers talk about process that way, as though the characters are speaking to them and the characters are doing things that violate the conventions the writer has set up. I love that he talks about it that way. The other thing about the journey of the obituary writing is when they finally work together on it, it’s the first time you see the women together in one frame. It’s another example of how beautifully constructed the framework of the story is. The experience of the audience mirrors the experience of the sisters.
When you meet the sisters, you’re meeting them at their most stereotypical. You’re meeting them as they occur to each other, in this blunt way. As the image that the sisters have of each other gets complicated, so too does the image have of those sisters. You don’t see form following function that way very often. Most people wouldn't notice it, but that is the first time they’re in the same frame.
The only way they can write the obituary well is to do it together, and it’s great that that’s the first time we see them share a shot together. Makes complete sense to me.
Doesn’t it?
During the pandemic, I become completely obsessed with your Movie Night posts on Twitter. You still do them, right?
We do! We’ve been apart a lot this year, so we haven’t watched as many this year as we normally do because I was away in Thailand doing White Lotus.
Do you only watch movies you haven’t seen before?
We repeat films. In fact, right now one of our nannies who’s living with us right now is an actress, and there are certain movies she hasn’t seen, so Tracy loves to pull out films she hasn’t seen. Like she hadn’t seen Deliverance or Dog Day Afternoon, and my husband is delighted to rewatch anything. And I’m gifted with a terrible memory, so things that he and I watched together in our early courtship days, I don’t remember. So we get to watch Parallax View again because I fell asleep. Often now, because life is short and our movie nights are seldom because of kids and careers, we tend to watch new things. Last night, we watched Carpet Cowboys.
I saw the post. How do you decide what to watch? You must have a stack of titles that could go to the moon of options.
We have over 10,000 blu-rays, but what really makes our marriage work is that I never decide. I make so many decisions during the day about the household and our children—not that Tracy isn’t involved in that, he is—so at the end of the day, I’m so grateful just to go downstairs and be surprised. And Tracy is very conscious that there is variety, a selection of female directors, international films, he’s very aware of when we’ve watched too many Westerns. He takes his responsibility incredibly seriously.
I have the same role in my house.
Oh great! You’re the curator.
It’s a burden and a pleasure.
It truly is. It tortures him sometimes, because there are also moments where he’ll say, “I don’t want to watch this until my son is 10 and watch it with him,” so he puts it off for a few more years.
You mentioned you just shot the third season of White Lotus. You have a long, wonderful relationship with HBO. They're giving you roles in these incredible and popular shows.
I know, I wish people would stop hiring me.
I’ve met Mike White before; he’s a unique individual. Tell me what’s different about being guided by him in a production.
Oh wow. The experience you have with Mike is that you believe that every single character he’s written is him, is personal to him in some way. And that he could absolutely play all of you, which is very humbling. There was a moment, like in any good comic drama, there’s some dancing—there’s no big plot point around that—then you say to Mike “How does this character dance?” and he does it. “Okay, so how does Patrick Schwarzenegger’s character dance?” And he does it, and it’s absolutely spot on. The psychological understanding of each person and why they’re doing what they’re doing is so replete that there’s nothing arbitrary about what he’s asking you to do. He’s also very funny and has a great eye for performance, so everybody comes out looking so great in that show because he’s so selecting for tone, and it makes everyone look better than they have any right to look…hopefully!
Yeah, this is the season where you all tank it.
Of course it is, Steve. Season 3, they’re going to try and sink it for sure. I’m ready.
When I think of you and your many characters, I also think of you as a woman of today. So when I watch you on The Gilded Age, it still takes me a white to adjust to you in a costume drama. But because your character is meant to be a member of the Nouveau riche in a world full of old movie, I see the modern touches in her. How do you play her differently to make her feel contemporary, to a degree?
So much of that is done through our amazing production design and costumes, which are very deliberately pushing the contemporary eye forward in time in ways that you might necessarily notice. But because you’ve gotten accustomed to seeing this period, it requires some innovation to make the modern characters feel modern. So our hairstyles are a little forward in time, our clothes is forward in time, so so much of that work is done for me. The only thing I would say that I do is that, it was very prized to glide across the floor—a la Christine Baranski—and Bertha has a pretty big sashay. I love swinging those costumes around, and that is not something that would be period appropriate, but she’s a bull in a china shop. She’s going to come in swinging.
Thank you so much, Carrie.
Thank you so much for writing about the movie. We’ll talk again soon.
Did you enjoy this post? Please consider supporting Third Coast Review’s arts and culture coverage by making a donation. Choose the amount that works best for you, and know how much we appreciate your support!