Though Kate Winslet and Evan Peters had already reached a certain level of stardom when they won Emmys for HBO’s crime drama Mare of Easttown, the story was different for Julianne Nicholson. One of our finest screen actors for decades, the Western Massachusetts native had led underappreciated indies like Who We Are Now, popped as a guest star in series ranging from Boardwalk Empire to Masters of Sex, and superbly played one of Meryl Streep’s daughters in August: Osage County. But as Nicholson’s tortured mother Lori Ross moved to the center of Mare’s mystery, the actor finally got to show her stuff in a major, awards-bound hit—and made the moment count.
And then? She didn’t work for a year.
On the one hand, the development surprised Nicholson, even as she’s learned not to put too many expectations on any juicy role or sense of momentum. But as she says on this week’s Little Gold Men (read or listen below), Nicholson had also been keeping her priorities straight. Around that time, she was set to go into production on Janet Planet, a film set in the area where she grew up and written and directed by the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Annie Baker in her screen debut. Nicholson turned down other offers to make sure she could do the project.
The film bowed at last year’s Telluride Film Festival and was recently released in theaters by A24, on the strength of sterling reviews. As the complex single mother to an 11-year-old (played by Zoe Ziegler) who’s at once close to and increasingly alienated from her, Nicholson is in her element. The film is quiet, specific, and personal—another hallmark of the actor’s career. And if a few more people are paying attention now? Lucky them.
Vanity Fair: When Annie Baker approached you about this part, you realized you both had this Western Massachusetts upbringing. What were some of the sounds and the images that you talked about? This is a film very much about bringing the landscape to life.
Julianne Nicholson: We would share lots of pictures of books that our moms read, or that they forced us to read. We both bought our first bras at the JC Penney at the mall, and roller skating at Interskate 91. That’s still there. Then I remembered bird song. There was a whippoorwill that has this crazy sound, and it was a nightmare. They would come usually at sunset, which when you’re a seven, eight-year-old kid is when you go to bed. I sent her the whippoorwill call. It was basically an invitation to go back to being a kid and really live in that experience.
What struck you while watching the movie that you couldn’t have been aware of until you saw it?
Just to see little details around the house. We used to get this cream called Skin Trip. It was very late ’70s hippie, but they still make it. I still see it in Whole Foods or Erewhon, but I would get it every year in my stocking, and I wore it all the time. I told Annie that, and so it’s on Janet’s desk or it’s in the bathroom or something. And we both remembered that our moms—and this might be TMI—would leave their diaphragms out next to the sink to dry. We both had that. Her incredible production designer had to work so hard to try to find a diaphragm. You have to get a prescription for it, blah, blah. We never pan across it, but it’s there. There’s tons of little details like that, that you’re picking up on a subconscious level.
You’re playing a character through the eyes of a child. What were the parameters there as you saw them?
I struggled personally with wanting to find the warmth, while Annie was much more inclined—and I think she was right—to find the space between them. That’s actually more interesting than an easygoing, warm, physical, cuddly relationship. Sometimes that was hard for me.
Annie Baker is a revered playwright, but this is her first film. You have some experience working with more experimental directors. Are there ever any nerves ever about stepping into it with someone who’s never done it before?