Geraldine Viswanathan Has Been a Rising Star for a Long Time (and That’s Fine by Her)
[Editor’s note: The following interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14, 2023.]
Geraldine Viswanathan seems like the kind of gal you can kick off a conversation with — a professional one, to boot — by way of owl-based non sequitur. Indeed, you can, as the perpetually rising (and that’s OK!) it girl and constant “breakout star” (she’s been here!) is about as easy and fun an interview subject as anyone would desire to have.
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Where you know Viswanathan from depends on your taste in entertainment: the Emmy-nominated Aussie has been working since the age of 4 (when she booked her first commercial) and has appeared in a range of roles ever since, from the raunchy (and smart) teen 2018 comedy “Blockers” to the TBS anthology comedy series “Miracle Workers.” She’s done plenty of indies (“Hala,” “Bad Education,” “7 Days”) and had a recurring role on the animated comedy gem “BoJack Horseman.”
And yet, every time Viswanathan pops up in a new project, people seem to be reminded all over again that she’s one to watch. That’s just fine with her.
Her latest film role speaks to that: In Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash’s fact-based “The Beanie Bubble,” Viswanathan plays one of three female characters who prove to be invaluable to alleged Beanie Baby genius Ty Warner (all of the roles are based on actual women from Warner’s life; her character, Maya, is based on entrepreneur Lina Trivedi). It’s Maya who comes up with everything from the cute poems that adorned the toys’ tags to using the internet to market what would become an American juggernaut (and cautionary tale). Being the underdog? Now that resonated with Viswanathan.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
IndieWire: I’m going to start with sort of a strange question that will hopefully get us off on the right foot. Do you know that there is a Great Horned Owl in Central Park that shares your name?
Geraldine Viswanathan: What?
I became a birder over the pandemic. Her name is Geraldine. She is a Great Horned Owl. She arrived about 17 months ago and she has not left and all the birders love her. So whenever I think of you, I think of her, and vice versa.
Oh, my God, that’s incredible. I’m going to make a note of that right now. That’s so funny.
OK, now the real stuff: “The Beanie Bubble” is built on this idea that Ty Warner had a number of incredible women around him who all had great ideas and he didn’t, so he simply stole from them. In the film, you play the young upstart that knows everything and is still surrounded by people who are like, “No, no, I know better.” Did that resonate with you?
Yeah, 100 percent. I think I really related to Maya’s underdog status and also was inspired by her sticking to her guns and just being so savvy and smart and knowing what’s best before the “grownups” did, basically. I think Maya’s journey is very relatable, because she had to fight really hard to be valued, and it shouldn’t be that hard of a fight. Her value is so clear, and unfortunately, I think a lot of women and women of color can relate to that feeling, just feeling like the game is rigged and no matter what you do, you have to work twice as hard, you have to be twice as good. But at the end of the day, there’s something that you can’t change and that’s your avatar in the world.
That’s obviously really frustrating and I just love that about this movie, that it’s not about here’s one guy’s genius and just this capitalist propaganda of, “You can do this, too! You just need to have one genius stroke and break all the rules!” I think it feels like one of those types of movies, but it’s also got more complex layers of this is how people get taken advantage of in the process and is it really worth it?
Every time you’re in a film or a TV show, people are like, “Oh, she’s the big breakout, she’s the next big thing,” but for anyone paying attention, you’ve been a thing for years. Is that something you feel?
I do feel like I will be “rising” until I die. I did hear someone say once about women in the business, “You’re either rising or you’re dead.” It’s like, OK, so I’d rather be rising than dead. But honestly, I’m starting to really like it. I love flying under the radar and getting to do really different work and be part of projects that I love rather than being really known for just one thing and then having to try and break out of that. I love this direction of getting to keep trying stuff. I think I’m really still figuring out who I am as a performer and what I’m capable of. And I love getting to just throw anything out there and try.
You also seem to be ahead of the curve with some of your projects. Something like “Blockers,” we’re still having conversations about the “raunchy sex comedy is back!” or how teenage girls are portrayed on-screen as sexual beings.
“Blockers” was my first movie ever, and that felt like a dream the whole time. It just was so exciting and I was just getting to have so much fun and with the best people. “Blockers” will forever be the thing that changed my life. But I guess we were having so much fun doing it that I was like, I think that’s going to come through. But timing is a big thing and I’m really grateful that I got to be part of that conversation at the time.
In the early stages of the pandemic, you were also in this adorable rom-com, “The Broken Hearts Gallery,” and people are still today talking about how the rom-com is suddenly “back,” but you were in a great one in 2020.
I’m such a rom-com girly. I think that I just love girls. I’m a girls’ girl. I live for the girls. Rom-coms are what I want to turn to all the time, and I think that that’s a big part of what I want to do in this career. I want to make people feel good and be a positive force in the world, and I think rom-coms really do that. They really can cure what ails you sometimes.
I’m in New York right now and just walking around New York, I feel like I’m in a rom-com. It’s just the fantasy. I want rom-coms to come back for sure, and I think they are. We’re navigating a really ever-changing world.
It is funny to hear you say that you like to be in things that make people feel good, because in January at Sundance I saw you in “Cat Person,” which is a film that makes everyone feel so fucking bad.
[Laughs] Fair enough. It’s so funny, the things that make me happy. I love things that are incredibly uncomfortable or cringe or awkward or whatever. I actually thrive in that feeling, especially when it’s, I don’t know, just awkwardness.
I was obsessed with that story, and I felt like it captured the nuances of things that are so hard to explain, it just hit a nerve. I think that’s why the article popped off so much. So when I heard they were doing the movie, I was like, I just want to be a part of that in any way because it was just a conversation that I wanted to be a part of. It was interesting to me and I felt like I had something to say about it. I also love social commentary thrillers. That is a genre that I think is really worthwhile and makes me feel good, but in a different way. It makes me feel alive, not just happy.
The way the film and the story use text messaging is insane, it captures what it’s like at a certain time and a certain age. This is the way people talk to each other.
If we could gather all the text messages in the world and see what people are talking about, I think we’d be very upset.
You’ve got another film coming out this year, Ethan Coen’s “Drive-Away Dolls” with Margaret Qualley. What was that experience like?
Oh my God, absolutely surreal. Getting to work with Ethan Coen was thrilling and intimidating, but also he is just such a wonderful person, and it was such a joy to get to work with him and soak up that experience as much as I possibly could. I would say it was pretty singular and it was a completely different mode as well. He’s such an incredible writer; he and Tricia Cooke wrote it and they’re both just so smart. It was a real treat to get to honor those words, but it’s also very specific tonally. It was a real fun challenge and, at the same time, also one of the easiest jobs. Stress-less. They know what they’re doing and it’s really amazing to be on their set.
Do you have a list of directors in mind that you want to work with in the future?
Jordan Peele, Sofia Coppola, Greta Gerwig, these are all people making movies now that I think are brilliant. And who else? Daniels. I’m available!
What sort of films did you grow up watching?
I was such a little weirdo. I feel like I was really scared of movies for a long time. My dad tried to show me “The Matrix” and I freaked the frick out and that turned me off movies for a while. But I rewatched “The Matrix” recently and was like, oh, this is an incredible movie. I was just 8 years old. My dad was silly for showing me that.
I was such a TV girl growing up. I just watched all the sitcoms, that was my thing. I watched “Friends,” “Third Rock from the Sun,” “Arrested Development,” “The IT Crowd,” “Mighty Boosh.” In my teen years, “(500) Days of Summer” and “Little Miss Sunshine” did something to me where I was like, oh, cool indie movies. That’s when I started to become obsessed.
What is something you haven’t done yet that you’d like to do?
Until you see it or until you have the idea or something, it’s hard to just pull one out of thin air, but I think I would love to do a play. I would love to do Broadway. Something live would be really thrilling. And then it’s like, action, maybe something like a spy movie completely underwater or something.
We could put you into an underwater spy action comedy directed by Jordan Peele.
That sounds actually great. “The Little Mermaid,” but it’s also something else. Love that.
“The Beanie Bubble” will premiere in select theaters on Friday, July 21, and globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, July 28.
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