Limited Series Roundtable: Emily Blunt, Riley Keough, Niecy Nash-Betts, Murray Bartlett & More

I grew up loving watching um Poirot because it was like Sunday night watching with my family and so yeah I grew up watching David suchet investigate and Crack the Case on a Sunday afternoon [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] hello I'm Lorraine Ali from the Los Angeles Times and thank you all so much for being here hello [Laughter] and your name is Sam Elliott foreign you know I think our job is done here right all right so you are all here because of claimed projects that you're in um but there was a day when um you probably were just starting out and this seemed like the farthest point ever um but I'm wondering in your career can we start with you Catherine like what was a turning point when you thought like okay this is it like I've really made it but you kind of weren't close it's definitely been a long journey that I still feel like is happening like there was never that moment of like ah finally like it's always felt like I've been kind of scrappily just kind of behind something if that makes sense there's been a couple of moments though that I you know there was a very exciting summer where I was in the movie Step Brothers and a movie called Revolutionary Road in the same summer and that felt like and I was um had I was a new mom and so that that summer felt very juicy and felt like maybe something was like oh you know like it was but then it was you know it's a ferris wheel right so it's like you never know if the if that if that little cart you're on is like up and then it's gonna get you know so it was definitely like an exciting moment then I I hooked up after having Leonard my child with the filmmaker Joey Solway and we did this teeny tiny movie called afternoon delight and that definitely was I think for the first time I felt like I was able to finally bring my whole or off my whole like authentic self to the table in a way that I had kind of been like pretending to be an actor if that makes sense before like I had been like I didn't I in on stage I felt like I had this anarchic feeling because it was like mine like the space was mine but on camera I felt like I was like okay okay I'll stand here and I didn't know I could do that on camera and I think that that was like I don't know professionally but like personally I felt like that was a creative turning point and um Nissi like for you was there a particular script or something that happened you're like wow like this could be a moment you know I'm gonna say no because I I you never know yeah you know what I mean you can't tell from the scripted page to you know seeing something in the final edit that you know oh this is gonna be the thing because the minute you think that it's like yeah no no it's not you know so you don't I don't know for me I don't I don't I don't enter into anything thinking oh this one is going to be the thing but I do try to show up fully present to work that makes me feel something just by reading the word right right that's a good answer yeah yeah can any of you follow that up doing a Chris talking comment on what Catherine said just because I you know it's a professional thing but it's a personal thing in the professional realm which is feeling like you can own your space a little more because I don't think until this thing I did with Taryn Edgerton the show I didn't I always feel like a guest it always feels like an accident it's always like bring your kid to work day for me in my head and I'm just like visiting and then that was one of those times where Taryn like pulled me aside we had like a bro moment at a bar and he was like this is this is our show this is if there's something you don't like if there's something you're uncomfortable with if there's something if you have an instinct like I want you to feel like you can take the reins you know and I was like man that was really I don't think he meant for it to be that emboldening or effective at the time but like I've carried that with me ever since leaving that show and and I I don't think it's an ego thing or a control thing but I do think it's a comfortability thing and then you end up doing better work because you're more comfortable and you feel confident but you know what I would say I always say trust your gift trust it you know and and for me I've always done that and and I don't care how small it was I I did I was woman in the diner when I was woman in the that was my credit and I was in a a movie called Boys on the Side with Whoopi Goldberg yeah Sarah Louise marker a very young Matthew McConaughey was there yes and my part was so quick you know what I mean and my mother and I'm sitting in the theater I'm like you're about to see me walk out this is my part this is my part my mother goes was that it yeah loud but you know what it didn't matter to me because I stood at that theater Door like it was my Premiere it was just a regular matinee hello thank you guys for coming thank you ma'am thank you everyone because I just was like I don't care I'm going to stand in this thunder and I'm gonna you know what I mean I'm gonna take in the whole moment it took me a while to get to that I think I I think I I was a quite a scared young actor I think and it took me before you were both saying it for me it feels like this it took me a while to kind of take ownership for what I was doing or feel like I could take ownership and there's Freedom that comes with that and I didn't take that ownership or feel that freedom until quite late and I I remember it wasn't you know a hugely successful job necessarily although I I loved the show like this show called looking years ago and it was the first time where working was just pure joy for me and I felt like in my body and I loved the people I was working with and I was like oh this is what it feels like to to to sort of take ownership and to feel like I'm doing what I should be doing and it took me a long time to get to that I just and I I wish I had that feeling earlier on of trusting my gift I just it took me a long time to get to that and still sometimes I yeah I don't feel that I mean I will remind you I love it I love it it's inspiring you hearing you say that really yeah yeah but really like we we need to remember that and I think it's it's something that I think a lot of people kind of straddle with trusting yourself or trusting your gift or whatever so it's uh thank you for the reminder I definitely still feel that way you know it depends on the project and the group I'm surrounded by but there's definitely moments where I still feel like I'm not able to take up space um entirely and I don't know if that like if that's me or if that's just being an actor for a long time or if that's being a woman or I don't know but it's interesting to hear you know that you guys have all you know felt that yeah but yeah it's totally for me dependent on the you know who I'm collaborating with and you know not feeling like you said like you're like a guest you know yeah it's a weird sort of feeling because yeah it's it's um it's very inspiring that you are able to say this because you take up so much yes beautiful space in your show yeah and your you the what you imp what what you what you Wrangle and just um lasso in your show is like a it's you're a just a weather system it's really amazing here some of my favorite performances this year I will say that succession is just reigning Supreme in my house right now and I love everybody in it everybody um Matthew mcfurgeon is just a genius and could watch him do anything but I think what Brian Cox did with that role which could have been so archetypal on the page and made it so layered and terrifying he's terrifying but also so limited and has downfalls and fears and I just some sort of Intoxicated by watching what he does Emily I was gonna I kind of want to talk to you all about this but um the English is it's the time period that it's set in really informs obviously what you know the series is about and so I'm wondering um how much research or what did you have to do to get into that role were you you know because it's a revisionist western you know you're this aristocatic British woman there and so did you like have to watch a lot of Clint Eastwood you know what did you do to get into that I mean um you know I'd always wanted to do a western because it's such a kind of Mythic story space and it's really a potent world you know it's like that world that's built on brutality and um revenge and like the pursuit of justice and either all these great themes running through it I just when I read it I found it so surprising and so unpredictable and found her so unpredictable that you know when she first shows up like Alice in the wild wild west like a fish out of water um you think she's one thing you think she's a she appears to be this sort of feminine ideal and and you just think oh my gosh she's toast like she's never gonna make it it's over and then she just turns out to be this kind of gradual unfurling of like a bit of a force to be reckoned with and what do you want what I just asked you except this time you're going to give me everything because that is how much my friend is worth [Music] he wrote Hugo Blick who wrote it with such kind of modernity and it was so it had such Panache to it that it just pierced through me directly like when I read it there was no sort of Flowery a thing that held you at a distance from from the piece you know it didn't really conform to period dramas you know it had this thing that was so modern and she was so unusual um and I never knew where it was going so I I learned in more into the script really like I grew up watching a lot of westerns and like of course going into I watched like The Unforgiven again and I watched The Good Bad and the Ugly and I watched all of the Spaghetti Westerns but I felt this was a really groundbreaking version of a western yeah something new you know so Nissi the killings by Jeffrey Dahmer happened decades ago but that story has a lot of resonance right now just for the themes of racism and different things we're dealing with the United States right now listen the themes um of the Jeffrey Dahmer story are things that are still happening today women still aren't being believed people are still being black and brown people are still being marginalized um there is they're still being um you know over policed but also underserved like there's you know so many things the privilege um that Jeff Dahmer was able to um run around with it is still per you know what I mean so some of these themes are still very present so you don't have to reach that far back for the themes that you know you have to do is cut the TV on you know what I mean or just walk outside you know what I mean so the there wasn't a far reach back for that but I think any time you're playing a real person there's so much weight to get it right yeah you know what I mean there's a there's a responsibility it's not casual you know to to take on a person's likeness and image and and place in life and play with it you you you know what I mean you have to be completely intentional about the getting it right I know it was up to something Jeff Dahmer and I called y'all and I told you over and over a million times that something was going on and you know what you did y'all did nothing nothing I have to tell you the scene when they sort of pull him out of down the hallway was like you're so phenomenal in that scene thank you yeah thank you that was a the thing about well first of all thank you but second of all I'll say um it was a gift for me because like my good friend right here Paul I had only been known to be the funny girl so for a long time it was difficult for people to see me as anything other than that you know I would try to get you know submitted for things and I'd be like oh no no we know her she's hilarious but thanks you know and I and I stayed on the ride because I was intentional also about people seeing me how I saw myself you know what I mean I can do it if you just give me a chance when you get that opportunity you know it's like it's not that I don't try on all these other things but you're gonna let me do this okay I'm gonna show you your Dharma roll you know it's yeah or playing a serial killer I mean you I am Blackbird you are and you are terrifying and I'm a little scared I thought you were very convincing I was very curious like how you were your personality what your personality is yeah I'm not listen I'm a Jesus loving Backstreet Boys singing pro wrestling watching uh nerd [Music] I'm not lying crimes [Music] you're not a killer man I've looked into the eyes of a few and you don't have those eyes [Music] what eyes do I have [Music] a wannabes getting that role uh or getting the eye audition for that over Zoom with like Dennis lahaine and Alexa Fogle and people were like are you sure you want to take that on I was like I feel like this is a really cool role and if you're gonna do the serial killer thing like don't you want to do it with a writer like Dennis lahaine an actor like Taryn Edgerton Apple uh is one of those places that pays people which is nice it was like a good situation to walk into and uh and I just like you like okay I know I'm the silly you know guy but uh but but please let me let me try to my favorite performance on television this year so far uh hands down was is Tucker Carlson magnificent performance I wanted to ask you in tiny beautiful things um Claire the characters is based on Cheryl straight who wrote the book but she was also quite involved in the series right so and some of you here too are playing actual real people so did that affect how you played that role did it kind of make you more self-conscious about it that she's there kind of in the room or she was Cheryl was in the in the writer's room yeah and um you know I had never read tiny beautiful things before um getting the part um one of the very few and then I read it you know I tore through it and I I think it's like essential human reading it's so good I don't know if you guys have read it but it's beautiful it's a series of it's like an advice con that she had read that she had written under the name sugar for this literary online literary magazine called the rumpus and um it's just radical just these radical radically honest um advice columns um drawing from her own life and they're very incredibly generous and um incredibly incredibly personal and very moving and dear sugar I'm a messed up woman I've been married twice I'm dishonest impulsive unhappy jealous I'm lonely so I was you know she was very like this is not mine like this is not me this is not so I had like a lot of I felt a lot of Freedom there yeah I just that series is so moving and I cried so many times beautiful beautiful yeah one of my favorite performances this year was Matt Smith and House of the Dragon um because I really love watching villainous performances I wanted to talk about The Last of Us oh God episode three I watched half of that episode and I was like I can't watch this oh I have to see it I have to see it everybody I had to take like a two-week break heart-wrenching it's very emotional did it feel like that when you were doing it or did it could you feel that that um depth in it yeah it was it was a very unique experience it again this sort of the the wonderful thing of having a wonderful script like it was a beautiful heartbreaking script that everyone cried at when they read you know I'm not going to give you this every day was a wonderful gift from God's speech I've had a lot of bad days I've had bad days with you until but I've had more good days with you than with anyone else Nick and I really connected we knew it was a beautiful story but it was extraordinary I mean it's like it's why I want to do this you know it was an amazing thing to um the episode got people felt from it you know and and it was because a lot of people watched it you felt this wave of love that was sort of generated from this episode I never felt anything quite like it and it you really do it was um just it'll destroy you I can't wait to be the strongest it was a beautiful love story based on a video game yeah so you get a zombie video game but it's like it's like emotionally like well I think that that's it was really cleverly written in that way because it's these characters exist in the video game but this whole story is created for the TV show so they did you know great things in terms of adapting it in like staying very true to the game in some ways and then in this case for a whole episode that kind of branches off and tells us story about these very peripheral kind of characters it's funny though because I remember young men and women whoever played the game their young people were talking about how the story in the video game was intense and it wasn't just like the zombie stuff it was like a so it's cool to see that that like carried over into the well that's like kind of the engine of the show it seems exactly I think that's what a lot of people connected to is that the human stories in this sort of post-apocalyptic you know um show um and yeah so it uh I think one of the sort of clever things about this episode is it really gets to the heart of the show in that way it's a very human sort of love story but because it comes it's the third episode and you're in this like post-apocalyptic world with all these kind of mushroom creatures around it's very it's harrowing and like it's a really intense space to be in and so you're you come into the episode three completely disarmed you're not expecting it and suddenly it's like like sort of it well it doesn't stab you in the hub but it like hits you in the what was the thing the manubrium that's a serial killer reference Riley and ask you so in case Johnson the six you're singing you are actually singing You're performing is that something that I know in runaways film also like but is this something that you do or just something that you do on screen I've never I had never really sang um before this show um I've done like I know amazing I've done like little things here and there like I had a friend who we made a birthday song for you know I like sang a little song in a movie once a long time but like very sort of you know not any professional experience um I booked the role somehow I did a lot of like singing uh auditions um and I think they sort of saw that my voice was workable and I you know had you so scared when you were dead I was so scared yeah I was so scared so like I got away with tapes for a minute yeah so you'd send in a tape I send in some tapes and then they said oh my God I'm gonna get cast off tapes and then they're like come in and sing live and I was like oh my God and was it like singing standing at a piano with a sheet of music well it was supposed to be acapella and then I had a friend who was auditioning after me and I'd learned to sing like a week before during my like audition process I've been to like three singing lessons at this point and they um you know they wanted me to come in and sing you know audition in person and then do a song in person acapella and then I had a friend who was auditioning for another role who's coming in after me and he brought his guitar so I texted him and I was like can you guys wait five what did you say minutes and I sang A Leonard Skynyrd song cool really cool a simple man oh yeah and um yeah and I it was the first time in my life I'd ever taken a shot of whiskey yeah before an audition um [Applause] whiskey bottle in his guitar case and he was like take I was like I cannot do this before acting like I all like I'm so sensitive I don't really drink and he was like I promise like it's different with singing and I was like okay and I took a shot of whiskey and like went back in and then sang the song and I don't think it was amazing but I think that they saw how much I wanted to do it we can make a good thing [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's like when you put that thing on your first resume you like I do dialect oh yes please try to prove your parachuting and knife fighting yeah oh my gosh I felt that when I did when I did the English that because I put on the you know they they're like I hear you can horse ride I was like totally oh my God I don't have to be like wildly allergic to horses full hives like all over my face if I go near a horse so I'm on like tranquilizing antihistamine every day of this Western but you think you can ride and then you get on the horse and the horse is like this we had this incredible Spanish horse Master because he was so amazing like The Horse Whisperer and I get on the back of this horse and he immediately starts going and I'm like on top of the horse show Almost I was like how you know but you you think you can do it but then you do have the time to learn this new skill and by the end of it yeah I felt like we were soul mates I was like I cried saying goodbye to it yeah yeah it was amazing I you know I knew that that uh it must be a pretty wild kind of feeling being in a Chippendales Club um and so I you know I had that that kind of idea or that sort of impression going into making welcome to Chippendales but I was not prepared for the days when we were in studio with like 100 150 background actors who just lost their minds when our strippers did their thing it was extraordinary and even when they were miming two you know the strippers doing their thing when they you know you have to be silent we'd finished that they'd be like and then we'd finish the take and they'd be like ah just like lose their minds so it was it was a revelation to us when we were shooting um how what happens when you put a big group of people in a room and have strippers in front of them they just something there's some sort of like thing that happens that is Indescribable until you're actually there witnessing it I wanted to jump over to welcome to Chip and Dales because that story is insane that story is and it is a true story crazy it's crazy yeah I mean did you know anything about that story before you jumped into it no no I just thought it was a pack of fabios dancing you know to Great 80s music you know um you're really getting the roles right I know I've been very very lucky but yeah no I had no idea that there was this really sort of dark underworld a sort of understory I guess to the to the Chippendales thing I don't get Steve you know I get killing me I mean I don't get it but I get it you were jealous I was taking your Spotlight your money standard stuff but those dancers in London come on um which was what made it so sort of captivating for me I guess because it's the Chippendale so and it's the 70s and 80s it's fun and it's like wild and um and it has this really dark underbelly um unbelievable unbelievable really incredible has you done any like dance or anything like that no really I see myself more as a mover yeah yeah that's what's on your wrists movement I worked for a moving company right yeah exactly exactly I did a musical a long time ago and I was up the back so I could you know like yeah look like oh okay yeah oh that you are remember but this is right yeah but my feet were like planted like you didn't yeah no movement all in the hips but I had to you know I had to look like I was a choreographer um and which was I mean it's one of the wonderful things I think it can be terrifying and challenging sometimes but to learn a new skill or to lean into something that you've always wanted to lean into yeah like what's the weirdest skill you've ever learned yeah um [Music] I had to paint cockroaches in a film whoa what with nail polish live ones live colors no with no like animal safe nail polish nope and I had to practice oh I think that's a skill no that is a real skill that is hard see there's a way to hold them yeah I had a Wrangler and you have to hold them like yeah in a specific way that's like gentle and then you have to you know I forget now but I was yours is way better than mine well I had to go to medical training to do getting on so I can take your blood pressure I know how to yeah I know how to do things things like that and then um when I did a series called claws on TNT I did learn how to do nails and I can thread eyebrows yeah with the thread wow yeah really so we had we had to learn we had to learn how to do that but fun fact when I was in getting on originally my character smoked I've never smoked a day in my life I was so terrible at it that they cut it completely out of the thing because I look like somebody mm-hmm like I wasn't even I don't even know how to do it and so now the grips everybody is crowded around trying to teach me how to smoke oh it was it was just bad and they were you know that's not a skill you need it I think Taryn and I would would decompress and kind of and kind of cut the acidity of the show by just making each other laugh just cracking each other up being really sarcastic I would try to tickle them or fight them sometimes um and uh and singing We sang A Lot Taryn and I would sing like the the songs from The Muppet Christmas Carol true story how much did that sort of mess you up playing such a messed up person I don't know how else to put that in I think when I was doing it I didn't think it was that I don't know when you're really close to and you're doing it I don't know that for me I don't know that I was feeling it um uh I I did have a moment where I I watched the whole show I like binged it in Dennis Lane's basement he has like a little movie theater um because I just wanted to know what we made obviously and you have to speak intelligently about it when you're doing press so I watched it and I really like the show but at the end there's a moment in episode six between me and Sarah and and uh I just I didn't recognize it's hard to say this because it sounds like some actor BS but I didn't recognize myself fully and so seeing me doing something that scares me a little bit and knowing that I'm the person who manufactured that moment so it has to be a piece of me yeah it's not like I'm a magician it's still me up there what if someone could send the the the locations of the girls these authorities like anonymously boy they just did then the families would know they would have that [Music] but why should they have the that was upsetting and I I cried and called my therapist and my sponsor and my like I had to kind of just talk through it and I think it was just that what we what we concluded was like you don't like you get emotional because you don't like the idea that you could be capable of anything he did and you know you're watching yourself on screen wow um the same thing with black Clans when I played a racist piece in the Spike Lee movie and there are moments where you're like oh like yeah I don't like doing that but um it helps when you have a good uh a good environment of people that that support you even when you're doing those those things yeah and doing Dahmer yeah Evan stayed in his process the entire time so there was no disconnect like after the scene to be like let's go get it go to dinner you know yeah how your mama and them doing you know there was none of that so for me um I I couldn't stay in it and so um I'm recently married and my better half would know like the days that I have to go to work and do a thing would always make sure I was properly received when I got home that's number one number two um my baby girl played my real life my real life daughter played my daughter in the Dahmer series wow so when when kids are young like that they don't really have the the bandwidth for the emotional weight that we're bringing and I'm over in the corner with tears in my eyes and she's like hey Mom want to do a tick tock and so she was just joking yes and then the other gift that I had was that at the same time while I was filming Dahmer I was also filming Arena 9-1-1 movie so I could take it off and put it back on and take it off and put it back on it was the only way to to to to to make it and like and I've also been in places where I've had jobs that will offer you a crisis counselor really you know when I did when they see us for Ava Duvernay the story about the central part five um that work was you you felt gutted at the end of the day and you know you know Tequila can only do so much I said hey I I need to talk to somebody because you know every day it was hard we didn't have light days in in the work you know what I mean same with Evan doing uh Jeff Dahmer no light days on that set so you have to for me I had to find it somewhere yes yes wow um so keeping kind of on that note we're going to run out of time here so I just wanted to ask one sort of lightning round question love um lightning round okay what is the last thing you watched that made you cry oh last thing I watched that made me cry was uh the whale got it um tiny beautiful things yes particularly the last episode the last moments because it's I don't want to give anything away but it's it's so fragile and like messy and hopeful that's what it left me with and that's what made me cry really it was just so beautiful yeah were you at home because I watched the well on a plane and I had five people turned around and go ma'am are you okay I'll be all right there's something about watching stuff on planes oh yeah I wept watching Coda on a plane and like someone brought me the snack basket like do you wanna you look like an emotional leader last things I cried out I I um I cried new dad new dad I cried well that wow real life yeah I'm uh I cry a lot but I cried watching women talking and uh and the other pendulum swing would be uh I did this show bup kiss for peacock with Pete Davidson and I cried at the end of episode two of his show it's like poignant and sweet and it's a really surprising Terrific show I cried it after son yes like neck Tears like my friend describes it is like when you're crying so hard that they like fall down your neck and you can't stop it you're just like this uh that yeah yeah that just just killed me yeah I just watched I mean no one's seen it but it's so it's kind of silly to talk about my husband John he's directed a new movie and I just watched the first cut yesterday and was a complete disaster during it just couldn't nectares yeah so many neck tears wow so beautiful yeah it's about imaginary friends and it's sort of just killed the adults in the room because that idea that we lose our imaginary friends as we get older but do we all still really need them desperately you know it's so moving yeah it's beautiful it's beautiful and you were saying that mine was your episode I really did I had to take I took a break and I had to go back to it because it like totally like okay I'm glad you didn't say it was a surround table because thank you so much [Music] yeah like honestly like when they sent the little email thing and you look at the names I was like I'm in a cool one I got excited thank you such a fan I know yeah I am completely obsessed with the entire cast of Ozark and fleshman is in trouble if I had to pull out a singular performance I was really wowed by Dominique Fishback in swarm one of my favorite records from that era would be Joni Mitchell's blue record that album was one of the first albums that I really sat and listened to you know start to finish there were a couple and I for whatever reason it yeah really impacted me at at 20. [Music] all right

Channel: Los Angeles Times

Views: 56,623

Keywords: Los Angeles Times, LA Times, L. A. Times, emily blunt, riley keough, niecy nash, niecy nash-betts, murray bartlett, kathryn hahn, paul walter hauser, taron edgerton, dahmer, dahmer monster, jeffrey dahmer, netflix, the english, amazon prime, black bird, apple tv+, tiny beautiful things, cheryl strayed, welcome to chippendales, hulu, the last of us, nick offerman, wandavision

Id: urxY4j8q5uk

Length: 41min 13sec (2473 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023

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[u/dasheeshblahzen]

Murray Bartlett was very good in Welcome to Chippendales.