Patricia Clarkson in Karlovy Vary: “This Festival Is Just Near and Dear to My Heart”
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The love is mutual between Patricia Clarkson and the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.
In 2019, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival honored the actress with its Crystal Globe lifetime achievement award. After a warm reception from the fest and local film fans, Clarkson is back this year as a member of the main competition jury.
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When she introduced a screening of Monica, the drama starring transgender actress Trace Lysette and her, at the Karlovy Vary Municipal Theatre on Sunday, she again was welcomed with a wave of applause and appreciation. “I’m thinking of moving to Karlovy Vary so we can all hang out here together,” Clarkson then told the audience.
The festival underlined the special relationship with Clarkson, saying: “The Karlovy Vary Festival has traditionally fostered a cordial relationship with its stars, yet it is a rare and special occurrence when a celebrity also cherishes the bonds with the festival’s atmosphere and audiences.”
In between watching competition movies, Clarkson took time for an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, sharing how she picks roles, discussing Monica, which she presented in Karlovy Vary, and Lilly, her upcoming film about fair pay activist Lilly Ledbetter.
Robin Wright will get honored by the Karlovy Vary festival in a few days, and you worked with her on House of Cards. You have worked with so many big names, whether actors or behind-the-camera talent. Anyone you would still absolutely love to work with?
So many, I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin. But when I look at the extraordinary people I have worked with, from producers and directors to actors, I’m knocked out. I’ve just been really lucky in cinema, in TV and theatre.
And I have this big theater project coming up in London. I’m doing [Eugene O’Neill’s] Long Day’s Journey Into Night opposite Brian Cox. Do you know [the play’s family matriarch] Mary Tyrone? Bring her on, baby! My two young sons [played by Alex Lawther and Daryl McCormack] are incredible. So I’m overwhelmed. And Jeremy Herrin is the director.
But I have just recently worked with Andrea Pallaoro who is just a remarkable, remarkable director. And he brought it all for Monica. I had such an extraordinary time shooting that film. And I’m so glad it’s out now in the world. It’s a privilege to be a part of that beautiful film.
How do you choose your roles?
What is important for me is the quality of the part, it isn’t about the size. I loved being in She Said in this kind of small role, but playing this formidable, brilliant woman [New York Times investigations editor Rebecca Corbett], someone I revere. And it’s about the quality of the project and the director.
It was not lost on me with Monica that a transgender actress would get to lead the film. She was not the supporting character. I was. She would lead the film. And that was very important to me. That was an easy “yes.”
I have this beautiful film about [anti-employment discrimination activist] Lilly Ledbetter coming up. And that was easy. Who doesn’t want to play her, one of my heroes? I’m one of five daughters with a mother who ran a city. Lilly Ledbetter is a one-in-a-bazillion lady. I get offered these formidable parts, these parts that take me to places I’m not quite sure I can make. Like some of the scenes in Monica. That scene where I’m crying for my mom. When you think about that scene, when you see it on paper, and then the day comes and you’re like: Oh, this is the day that I have to cry for my mother. And you just have to let it all go, you have to go to the places that you’re required as an actress. And it never gets easy and it never should be easy.
Do you manage to get into a role and then leave it behind? Or do roles and material ever stay with you for a long time?
I had to go on to something else after Monica, so that was good. But I missed Monica, I missed the beauty of the set, and Andrea Pallaoro, and Trace. They became family to me, and so I miss the closeness of all of it. And I loved my fellow actress Adriana Barraza, one of the greatest Mexican actresses alive, ever. And here I get to work with her every day. And Joshua Close. He just looks so much like my child. I could have given birth to him. And beautiful Emily [Browning]. I become very close to people. I think you can only fake so much as an actor. You have to really have love and respect and have a real connection to the people. I’m not method-y, but I have my own method and that requires me to not have to reach so far. I need to have the love and affection close.
Tell me a little bit more about Lilly, the Lilly Ledbetter movie. Do we know where and when that comes out?
We’re not sure where we’re heading to, we just finished the film. And now post is done, there’s even a beautiful anthemic song at the end – gorgeous. So we’re waiting to see where we go with it.
My mother was just overwhelmed that I was getting to play the great Lily Leadbetter, you can imagine. She is almost a contemporary of my mother’s. I age from 40 to 73 in it. Now, they de-age me a little in the 40s. But as I progress through the ages, 74 was easier (laughs). It is a film about the heroic acts of one woman, and how she kept being knocked down, repeatedly. And she kept getting up and finally very big people in Washington started to realize: “Wait, this is extraordinary.” And President Obama, one of my personal heroes, put her into the limelight in the most beautiful way possible [signing as his first piece of legislation the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act].
She has such heart and soul and modesty and wit. She really is sassy. And she has a little bit of vanity, which I like too. Yeah, she dyed her hair platinum and became kind of this bombshell later in life. I mean, she was a beautiful woman. And it was a privilege to play that. I have high hopes. I think it’s a film that will play all over the United States. I think that women all across our country, women of all ages, will understand Lilly Ledbetter. Any woman in a workplace or any woman who’s been in a workplace and is now retired will understand this.
How important is it for you to portray characters that can be role models or give people motivation?
It’s nice because I have played some domestic [roles], Sharp Objects and Monica, and now I get to be a powerhouse. And I loved every minute of it. My mother is political. I was raised in a political home. My mother ran the city of New Orleans, she was president of the city council. So I love being able to play a powerhouse, especially coming off Monica, playing this dying, beautiful, fragile kind of character, a woman who really finds grace and love and acceptance in the final moments of her life. And I moved from that to a woman who fought for everything, from the moment she was born. There are some monologues in this movie that will knock people out.
She’s from Possum Trot, Alabama, and I have her accent. I grew up in New Orleans, but I had relatives from Alabama and relatives from Mississippi. That accent was not completely foreign to me. Thank God!
You are also playing a strong female lead in the AGC and Lionsgate series Gray, about a spy coming in from the cold after 20 years in hiding and trying to avoid government agents who suspect her of being a traitor. Any news on that?
We are waiting to see where that goes. That’s the sexiest lady ever written. John McLaughlin [the writer], I owe him everything for making me the object of desire. God bless him! It is directed by the great Canadian director Ruba Nadda that I worked with on Cairo Time (2009).
In Gray, I play this really hardcore spy, this woman who was top of her game, who disappeared from her children and her husband for 20 years. And the great Rupert Everett, the great Rupert Everett. Did I say great already? He is playing an American with a perfect American accent. Perfection! And he takes his character to new places. He plays the head of this kind of offshoot of the CIA. He knows where to find me. And he comes after me because I’m a North Korean expert. He finds me, and I think he knows I want to come back home, I want to come back in. And I come back into the fray. But I’m a badass. It’s a very emotional part, but she’s also really tough. And very sexual. And very funny — she has her own sense of humor. The great Shawn Doyle, the sexiest man, is another great character. There are incredible Canadian actors. The best of Canada is in this! And then there’s the beautiful Lydia West, the young, stunning British actress playing my co-star.
It’s not really a spy show. It is, but it’s a character study. It’s much closer to the great Helen Mirren show made long ago [Prime Suspect]. It’s not cat and mouse. It’s about these spies and the toll that being a spy takes on your life. It’s not about the shootouts.
Speaking of strong women: What’s your take on how much progress Hollywood has made in fighting misogyny, ageism and sexism?
It’s wilting, it’s fading. The misogyny was brought so much to the forefront of course with Harvey [Weinstein] and many other people, many, many. The heavyweights fell. And we watched them fall, one by one. How the mighty fall. As women we stood by and watched: boom, boom, boom, and we all just went “bye bye!” We are done. There are still hints of it here and there. You know you don’t correct centuries-old issues in a decade, but we are truly empowered now as women, we truly have a say.
You’re not just going to make movies starring young girls. Older women, like Jamie Lee Curtis and Helen Mirren, are now the hottest people working in Hollywood. Hooray! Who won every award last year in TV and in film? It was women over 50. Come on!
What else can you say about all these female-driven vehicles and lead parts for women that we have seen?
Women in great parts. Yeah. Women that own the night, that own the day. Women that people are pushing for. And we’re not all heroes. We’re not all saints. But it is female-driven stories. It is stories where we get to still be sexy, alive, potent, fabulous, or murderous, ugly in the Southern sense of the word, which is my favorite. My mother would say: “Patty, don’t be ugly.” It means: Don’t be rude, don’t be surly.
We’ve hit the ground running. And we’re not going back. We are not turning around. I am one of many, many, many women now in Hollywood. I’m doing the leads, I’m doing wonderful supporting characters, in film, television, theatre. I’m ready. We’re still going forward.
I know I have to wrap up and let you go on with other work. Anything else you would like to share or mention?
How much I love this festival. Coming here four years ago and getting the Crystal Globe was one of the most beautiful moments in my whole career. This festival is so expertly run. Being a juror is tough, but I didn’t make an empty promise. I had such a beautiful time here being honored. I said I will come back and be on the jury. And they were probably like, “yeah, yeah.” Here I am!
I can’t tell you what it meant to me to go introduce Monica here. The theater was packed. I mean there was not a single empty seat in that theater at one o’clock in the afternoon. This festival is just near and dear to my heart. I love being in Karlovy Vary. I signed so many autographs, and I’ll sign a million more. And I love every single one of them.
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