In less than a week, Laurie Metcalfe accepted two awards live on stage in New York: one, a Gotham TV Award for her hilarious turn in Dan Levy’s film. Big mistakesAnd his television follow-up Schitt’s Creek; The other, a Tony for her devastating portrayal of Linda Loman in the new Broadway revival Death of a salesman. She still performs at the Winter Garden Theater eight times a week, to all the attention and accolades.
“I forgot what it’s like to do a show during Tony season,” she says over Zoom with a broad smile that indicates she’s certainly not complaining.
It’s an exciting time for the 70-year-old Illinois native, who has emerged over the past decade as one of the most accomplished stage actors of her generation — she’s won three Tony Awards in nine years — while continuing to break new ground on screen. Having emerged with her Emmy Award-winning work RoseanneShe has since won another award from the Television Academy Hacksthe character-driven HBO Max comedy that just brought back Metcalf for a surprise appearance in its final season. She also recently took on one of the darkest roles of her career in the divisive new season A monstercenters on Ed Gein (Charlie Hunnam), as the suspected serial killer’s religious and abusive mother.
On a quiet afternoon just before Tony’s concert, and a few hours before vendor At the time of the show, he met Metcalf Hollywood Reporter To talk about all that and more.
When your work on two projects is honored at the same time,… Big mistakes and Death of a salesman-How do you get your head around that? Especially when the latter keeps going.
It was a year in which I got everything I ever wanted. I didn’t realize at the time how much that was. But when it all came together, it all came together. Over the past year, I’ve gone from Big mistakes To two shows on Broadway, and now we’re going back to it Big mistakes Again, a few weeks later Death of a salesman I finish. It’s one of those seasons that the two actors can only hope for, and the fact that they’re being celebrated is so rare. I try to appreciate every aspect of it because something like this doesn’t happen very often.
You have been recognized for renaissance in Death of a salesmanBut you had another show on Broadway last fall, right before that, Little Bear Ridge RoadWhich was nominated for the Best Play award. Are original works on stage important to you in terms of what you approve? I’ve done a number of them recently.
I would love to work on a new play. I love being in the room with the playwright, I love coming up with the first incarnation of a character, and you’re right, I’ve been able to do that recently with Lucas Hnath and Sam Hunter and Bruce Norris. I get to be in the room with these people and create their parts and lyrics. I find that particularly exciting. I’ve never had a negative experience, let’s put it that way, with the playwright in the room. And I didn’t know how spoiled I was because all of these plays were 90 minutes long. (He laughs.) I don’t know when was the last time I did a play that had an intermission. Maybe it was Virginia Woolfwhich was shut down during the coronavirus – we were the first show to shut down. So Salima’s deathIt was a good wake up call for me. This is not a light show done eight times a week.
Am I right about that? Little Bear Ridge Road Lockdown ended early?
Yes, I did.
So how was that? I’m curious to know how you’ve found bringing these shows to life, because it’s been harder for new acts to find an audience since coronavirus.
I feel like this isn’t even up my alley. I don’t have any experience with that. I’m amazed, with all the moving parts, that anything is produced, things can change every day. I’m always surprised that we ended up in a rehearsal room somewhere and we’ve come this far. As for the longevity of things, that’s out of my hands. I love being counted on to give 150 percent of my workouts and runs and trying to give the crowd the best ride I can in the training room.
The times I’ve seen you on stage, I’ve always been amazed at your approach to character, whether it’s Hillary Clinton or Linda Loman.
I love translating parts, especially parts I might not normally be involved in. He says Virginia Woolf: I don’t fault Elizabeth Taylor, but the challenge for me in a part like this is figuring out, “Okay, what’s the different way? How can I get the same things that this character wants? How can I do it my way?” I love roles that make you think outside the box. We used to do that back in the day at Steppenwolf too, because we couldn’t find plays with eight 20-year-olds in them, so we’d pick a play based on two really good young parts, and then everyone had to play too young or too old. It shakes things up, and makes you really creative.
The exercises are part scavenger hunt, part treasure hunt, and part anthropological prospecting as you search for one clue after another using what-ifs: “Oh, you do that,” or “Well, maybe I’ll do that.” Then it’s just discovery after discovery and a lot of dead ends, a lot of wrong turns. Sometimes, the parts of the script that I have the most trouble with in the rehearsal room, because they don’t come easily, are the areas that I end up enjoying doing the most during the play. This is funny. That’s why it’s like a job that never ends. It will never get old.
How do you find that, to revolve around your role in it Big mistakes? It’s a TV show for one thing, but it’s also a completely different tone. Is it still the same process of trying to find an unexpected way?
Yes. I look completely different than I thought I would look. When I first read it, I had an immediate image of this character, and then after speaking with Dan Levy, I imagined her in a completely different way. So, in the first step, I’m going to look completely different than I thought I would. So we get rid of the idea of that comfort zone. I didn’t get to see this, but the way he was filming the show wasn’t what I expected. Sometimes on TV, I get used to the lack of intrusiveness, the spontaneity and maybe even the annoying ads. That was wide open for us, and that was a big learning curve for me, just because I’m not used to it. I usually stick to my lines and discover a unique spin on the line.
Now that we know season 2 is coming, I hope I’ll be less afraid to work this way. I hope I can join in, especially with Dan and Taylor Ortega, in the kind of banter that they can do, because when you can do that, it makes the whole thing come alive and seem very spontaneous. I’m going to challenge myself and challenge myself in season 2 to come out of my shell a little bit. If these guys go off script, I’ll see if I can stick with them a little better.
I’ve done a lot of TV comedy. Was this a new way of working for you?
Yes, the only other experience I had was with get.
Great show.
It’s one of my favorites. It wasn’t necessarily that we were doing all this overlapping or anything like that, but it was shot in a similar way where we had a couple of floating cameras moving around and you weren’t sure where they were. Even though you have a monologue, maybe it’s not even yours. They receive feedback from different people. This is the only other time I’ve been able to experience this.
You came to this show with two other famous comedians, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash-Betts, yet you were all doing something different than what you were known for at the time.
The casting was great, I don’t know if these guys knew what they were doing, but the three of us together – we were all a little different from those original characters [in the original British version]tiles Sell in our own way, but all three of us got off camera right away. The writing was very funny. Sometimes on this show, you just had to play against the humor, in order to get through the scenes, because they were so funny and character-driven. I was talking to Alex just the other day and lament the lack of replay getBecause I’ll be there in a second. “Well, I’ll approach the men and see what they’re thinking,” she said. I’ve secretly crossed my fingers about this happening.
I also returned to Hacks Nearing the end of his career this season. You get to really do it there, but you’ll also come on as a guest star, which is a different thing to the process, right?
It’s different. They are in the middle of a very well run machine. When you’re a young actor or whatever it is that comes in for a day, maybe two days, I find myself fumbling with the setting at the beginning and the rhythm and how everything works. You’ve just arrived, and you’re leaving the next day. A lot of it for me is trying to set the tone for the show: How big can it get? How small is the pitch in performance? Jan [Smart] He actually came and did an episode of getso we know each other, but this is her show. Maybe you felt the same Get OBecause I was in the machine and I fell into that machine. Because even for people who are very experienced and have TV shows, it’s a little scary.
The fact that these writers originally came up with a character named Wade still makes me laugh. And the fact that they found a perfect way after three seasons to get Weed back into clutch mode, I also find hysterical. I was very happy, and I’m sure the audience thought, “Well, we’ll never hear from that character again,” because she was fired and thrown off the bus and we never heard from her again. Suddenly, Deborah really needed her. It was very clever the way they brought it back. And they saved the uniform. It’s the exact same outfit and everything. So that was kind of old glove, I’ll tell you.
However, as you come to a shorter period of time, do you feel that permission expands a little bit? Weed is definitely a disruptive force.
Yes. I’ve been lucky on shows like this. If you make a big, bold choice – you’ll be told either “Impossible” or “Continue.” I did one episode of monk I was playing a character who interacted with Tony Shalhoub. She was a quirky character, but I took her to a level beyond weirdness. I changed my appearance. It was outrageous. When she started showing me what she thought she would look and act like, she scared a lot of people on that well-oiled machine. “Ah, just let her do what she wants,” Tony just said. And so they did. I’ll have to go back and look at it and see if it’s as extensive as I think it is, but I’m sure it is.
He was Hacks In the same way?
Yes. I went into the wardrobe and without much supervision, I think, from the writers. Then she showed up on set and started screaming. I started talking very loudly, and they let me.
I don’t think you’ve ever been on a show with that tone A monster Before, which also aired this season. I imagine this was a very difficult skin to live in. How d did you experience it?
I know the scenes seemed intense and maybe harsh, I’m not sure – definitely intense – but I have to tell you that I did most of my scenes with just Charlie. [Hunnam]And between the two of us, we actually had some fun. We knew we didn’t want their relationship to be stereotypical where the mother was just a monster; We were trying to find a balance whenever we could, “Okay, it’s misleading, but is there some love there? Is someone trying to teach her son some life lessons?” That’s what he and I were looking for, but not just for it to be black and white, to find a little bit of gray in the mix. I don’t know if we were successful or not, but it kept us from feeling exhausted at the end of the day because we were looking for subtle, smaller moments where they could have a little fun or have a nice meal or do some dancing. So those things helped us, and they helped me. I was a drop in the bucket on that series, but it helped me not crash and burn at the end of the day.
Why do you say you don’t know if you succeeded?
I don’t know if people can see any heart in any relationship or any love. Did it remain so unbalanced, that he was just a victim of it? I don’t know. I don’t know what the audience took away, but that’s what we were aiming for.
Is audience or critical backlash something you try to avoid?
I try to. I don’t know what a particular audience member will pick up on or relate to. I have no idea. I just try to stay away from the crowd. I’m trying to build in some surprises along the way. I don’t want to be predictable as a character. I think quality equals boring for me. I don’t want to be boring. This is unforgivable.
