On a bright June afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, summer's most unlikely action hero sits at a small dining table in the tidy downstairs apartment he shares with two cats. Offering her guest a plate of cookies, June Squibb explains that she previously lived for two decades in a different apartment on the second floor, but three years ago her son Harry insisted she move into this unit so she wouldn't have to climb stairs. every day. “I was right: Moving here was the best thing I could have done,” she says.
This may not seem like the typical setting for an interview with an action star. But then, Squibb is 94 years old and nothing in his career has been typical. After decades on the New York stage, he made the leap to film and television when he was already 60 years old and quickly found himself working for directors such as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne. When she was 84, Squibb earned a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role in Payne's 2013 film “Nebraska,” and now, at an age when many actors have long since retired or died, she's finally emerging into the spotlight with his first lead performance. role.
In the comedy “Thelma” (in theaters Friday), Squibb plays a strong-willed grandmother who is scammed out of $10,000 by a phone scammer and embarks on a quest to get back what's hers, taking to the streets in a scooter hijacked from an elderly friend, played by “Shaft” star Richard Roundtree. (The actor died of pancreatic cancer shortly after making the film.) Written and directed by Josh Margolin, who based the story on her own grandmother, now 104, the film won praise at this year's Sundance Film Festival for its freshness. Twist on familiar action tropes and its sensitive handling of both the indignities and pleasures of later life.
Taking advantage of that rumor, Magnolia Pictures will release “Thelma” on more than a thousand screens, the widest release in the independent distributor's 23-year history. The film arrives in theaters just a week after Pixar's “Inside Out 2,” in which Squibb delivers a standout turn as new thrill Nostalgia – “a funny little lady with rose-colored glasses,” in her words – making This is a true Summer of Squib. For the Illinois-born actor, after a lifetime of playing supporting roles, it's a new experience to simply be the face on the poster and number one on the call sheet.
“They keep saying that: 'You were number one!'” Squibb says. “It's so funny to hear that because, my God, in all these years I've never had to deal with anything like that.”
Richard Roundtree and June Squibb in the movie “Thelma.”
(magnolia photos)
When she first read Margolin's script, Squibb immediately connected with Thelma's determination to confront those who had wronged her. Her second husband, acting teacher Charles Kakatsakis, who died in 1999 after 40 years of marriage, always told her that she could have been a good police officer. “I think she's right,” says Squibb, who loves police procedural shows and has several shelves full of Scandinavian crime novels. “I have a great sense of justice, of what is right and what is wrong. Since I was a child, that has always been part of my spirit.”
When looking for an actor in his 90s to play a role like Thelma, there aren't a lot of candidates. But for Margolin there was only one option. “June is a perfect mix of strength but vulnerability, funny but low-key,” says Margolin, who connected with Squibb through their mutual friend Beanie Feldstein. “She has that spirit of not giving up, and that is an essential part of that character and my real grandmother. “I was just determined it would be her.”
“Thelma” playfully adds “Mission: Impossible”-style action scenes to the story, appropriately tailored to the abilities of a nonagenarian. Like Tom Cruise, Squibb bravely performed many of his own stunts, including riding a scooter at inadvisable speeds and rolling on a bed with a gun in hand, no small feat when you've undergone two knee replacements. “I loved the scooters,” Squibb says with a smile. “I have to admit that I didn't do the wheelie. But I really did most of my stunts.”
In some ways, the physical aspect of performing was nothing new for Squibb, who honed her talents as a dancer and singer from an early age. Born and raised in Vandalia, Illinois, Squibb, whose father sold insurance and whose mother was a secretary, couldn't have been much further from Hollywood while he was growing up.
“I had an aunt who tap danced and whistled under her breath; that’s the closest I got,” she says. “But she just knew what she was: she was an actress. “It never occurred to me that there would be another way.”
“I loved scooters,” said June Squibb, with passenger Richard Roundtree, in “Thelma.” But she added: “I have to admit that I didn't do the wheelie.”
(David Bolen/Sundance Institute)
While still a teenager, Squibb began acting in theaters in St. Louis and Cleveland before moving to New York, where she made her Broadway debut in “Gypsy” opposite Ethel Merman in 1959. “My first 20 years were all in musical theater,” she said. “I did everything: Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, regional. I just wanted to work.”
Squibb was in her early 60s when she made her film debut in Allen's 1990 romantic comedy, “Alice.” The director had a reputation for firing people he was unhappy with, and at one point Squibb feared she might be one of them. “I yelled at him once; I was trying to get a signal from an actor that was impossible and he was blaming me,” she says. “I went home and said, 'Well, either they fire me or he's going to love me.' When I came back, he had put me in a lot more scenes.”
From that point on, Squibb continued to find steady work in Hollywood, from films like Scorsese's “The Age of Innocence” and Payne's “About Schmidt” to countless television appearances. In 2013, she had a scene-stealing role in Payne's “Nebraska” as the tough, no-nonsense wife of co-star Bruce Dern, which earned her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, along with an Oscar nomination as Supporting Actress.
A decade later, she still vividly remembers sitting in her apartment with her son, Harry Kakatsakis, who is a director and writer, watching the Oscar nominations be announced. “They said my name and he said, 'Mom, you did it, you did it,'” she says. “And we were both sitting there crying. You may look back on it and think, 'Well, what is it?' But even now I am very proud that next to my name it says “Oscar nominee.” “
“I think things are changing,” says June Squibb, above, in a scene from “Thelma” with Fred Hechinger. “We have these wonderful women playing leading roles in [age] 40, 50, even 60. That would never have happened 20 years ago, when I first came here.”
(David Bolen)
In the years since, Squibb has been recognized in public more frequently. “We go to Gelson's and there's almost always someone who walks by and says something to me,” says Ella Squibb, who has an assistant (also at the insistence of her son) but otherwise still lives independently. “Sometimes they think I'm a teacher they had many years ago or something like that. It's fun.”
Squibb initially thought “Thelma” could be his swan song, but the offers keep coming. As a testament to her reach, she recently played a vampiric elf in the final season of “American Horror Story” and will next star in Scarlett Johansson's directorial film. debut, “Eleanor the Great,” as an elderly woman who forms an unlikely bond with a 19-year-old girl after she moves to New York.
Despite Hollywood's obsession with youth, Squibb is encouraged by the variety of roles she is offered, which go far beyond the grandmother stereotype. “Eleanor is very different from Thelma, and God knows they're both different from the elf,” she says. “I think things are changing. We have these wonderful women playing leading roles in their 40s, 50s, and even 60s. “That would never have happened 20 years ago, when I first came here.”
Squibb attributes his own ability to continue working to good genes and an active lifestyle. “My parents died at 91, which was very old in their generation,” he says. “And, you know, I danced for years in New York. I started swimming an hour a day when I moved here and I still do Pilates once a week. So I think that has a lot to do with it. Physically, I never stopped.”
And at this point, as long as she remains healthy and capable, she has no intention of stopping. “I'm completely against the rules,” she says. “It never occurs to me that I'm doing anything different than most people. No rules. Now I think, 'Well, I wonder what I'll do next.' “
So what about “Thelma 2”? After all, every action star needs a franchise.
“Everyone jokes about it and says, 'If June makes it, I'll make it,'” Squibb says. She laughs. “I'm like, 'Oh, shit.'”
