When she was 18, Julianne Nicholson came to New York City to model, but she quickly tired of it: she knew she wanted to act. “She was a waitress and I lived my best life,” she says over Zoom, smiling, from the A24 offices in Manhattan. “She was basically a young person in New York without a care in the world. She was wildly different from 'Janet Planet.'”
He's referring to the wonderful new film set in the summer of 1991 in which he stars, a film that, like Nicholson, doesn't put on airs but is capable of performing small miracles. Since its Telluride premiere, “Janet Planet,” the debut feature from acclaimed playwright Annie Baker, has been the kind of low-key indie revelation that discerning viewers eagerly share with her friends as if it were a gift.
Now that it finally opens in New York on Friday, with its Los Angeles premiere scheduled for June 28, “Janet Planet” is ready for its grand opening and, in a sense, so is the wonderful Nicholson, a winner of the Emmy who has read the same thing. stories about her that you have.
“Usually the first thing people say about me is 'underused,' 'underrated,' 'overlooked,'” Nicholson says, with an all-hearing smile. At 52, he tries to ignore other people's perception of his fame. and how much more massive they think it should be. “Normally I'm fine because I keep working. But every once in a while I think, 'Oh my God.' I'm so tired… am I still trying to get people's attention?'”
Those who have worked with Nicholson need not be reminded of his greatness or the way he renders his art invisible. Just don't expect them to explain why Nicholson isn't a big star. When I ask Baker in a separate interview why she thinks the actor isn't more famous, she is baffled that the industry can't see what she and so many others do. “That seems really perverse to me,” Baker, 43, responds. “I'm outside the Hollywood machine, and in my world, Julianne is a mega-celebrity.”
Julianne Nicholson, left, and Zoe Ziegler in the movie “Janet Planet.”
(A24)
In “Janet Planet,” Nicholson plays the title character, a tired single mother to the defiant 11-year-old Lacy, who lives in the woodsy, hippie west of Massachusetts. Played by newcomer Zoe Ziegler, Lacy is a peculiar, hyper-anxious girl whose insatiable need for her mother will be threatened by three adults: Janet's dating boyfriend, her old friend, and a potential new suitor. For her daughter, Janet is an enigma: an acupuncturist who has gone through several professions, several men, several lives. We don't know her backstory, but we catch her checkered past through Nicholson's exhausted eyes and resigned expression. She describes Janet as a work in progress that radiates some truth about small towns, like the one where Nicholson herself grew up.
Born in a suburb of Boston, Nicholson moved to tiny Wendell, Massachusetts, with her mother and stepfather when she was 7, quickly adapting to living off the land: no electricity, an outhouse, and pumping her own water.
“I moved there in 1978, but it felt very similar to [the film’s time period]” says Nicholson, warm but direct in conversation. “There was a community of 'alternative lifestyles,'” she cites with her finger, suggesting a malaise with negative connotations. “My mother was starting her practice as a herbalist, my stepfather was a carpenter and they built her house. They didn't smoke marijuana; “They were people active in the world, running businesses and raising families.”
Writer-director Baker, for her part, had no idea that Nicholson had grown up 10 miles from her until they started talking about the script.
“Julianne can play five different things at the same time,” says Baker, who insists that Janet is nothing like her own mother. “She knows how to play someone who is very passionate and also dissociates. Someone who is in love with her daughter and estranged from her. Someone who is paying attention and also distracted. All these contradictions were very important for the character; You have to find a person who can interpret the contradictions, and she does it very naturally.”
“Julianne knows how to play five different things at the same time,” says her “Janet Planet” writer and director, Annie Baker. “She knows how to play someone who is very passionate and also dissociates.”
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
Janet struggles to achieve satisfaction. At one point, the character says that she is trying to get rid of the “desire to please.” Nicholson can relate. “It's very funny, because sometimes I feel like I really want to please people,” the actor confesses, “but in my work life, I think people feel that I am quite direct and clear. I don't know if it's because of my Irish Catholic upbringing in Boston, but sometimes I think it can be a little intimidating. “Sometimes if I don't sugarcoat something, it can be harsh, even though that's not my intention.”
She's trying to instill the same openness in her two children: Ignatius, 16, and Phoebe, 15. “You can say no, you can hurt people's feelings,” Nicholson says. “We can't please everyone. “We need to take care of ourselves because ultimately that’s where you get into trouble, if you don’t pay attention.”
Nicholson still remembers the time when his parents divorced and he lived with his mother, Kate, before his stepfather came along. “We were a little trio, my mom, my sister and me,” she remembers. “She was only 20 years old when she had me, but she was also the oldest of 10 siblings and has basically been a mother since she was 10 years old. She is an incredible woman; she leaves everyone breathless when they meet her, even up to this moment. day.”
Kate was a stabilizing force early in his career, albeit indirectly. After moving to New York, Nicholson spent years trying to find her place as a performer. It took the right acting coach, Sheila Gray, to help unlock things. “She worked with sensory memory,” Nicholson says. “The first day [of her class], put an empty chair in front of me: 'Now, put someone in that chair.' I could smell my mother's hair and I could see her. Suddenly, it was like all those things were there. “That seemed significant to me.”
Nicholson still sometimes draws on sensory memory when preparing for a role, and she's certainly had her share of indelible mother (and maternal figure) performances in films like “I, Tonya” and “Blonde.” (Don't forget her fantastic comedic turn as the stereotypical supportive mother in the satirical biopic “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.”) But to play Janet, she went in a different direction.
Julianne Nicholson as Lori in 2021's “Mare of Easttown,” a performance for which she won an Emmy.
(Michele K. Short / HBO)
“I actually think the human experience is quite lonely,” Nicholson says, laughing, almost apologetically. “For me, ultimately, it's a pretty lonely experience, and I'm lucky because I have a full, rich life with a family that I love deeply. But there is a deep sense of loss somewhere in Janet. I don't want to say she feels it, but I understood what that might feel like for her if she really dug deep to experience it.”
Once Nicholson trained with Gray and piqued the interest of a manager, he began landing jobs in film and television, earning an Independent Spirit Award nomination for the 2000 drama “Tully.” He had landed the lead role in a short-lived NBC sci-fi series, “The Others,” and was cast in “Ally McBeal” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” But there was never the breakout role that could make her a household name. And then around 2011, the pieces started drying out. She was in her early 40s and she feared she had been on the wrong path all along. She looked at her work and found it wanting.
“I was completely wrong,” he recalls of that period of uncertainty and how he thought about it. “I gave all this time to something that ultimately isn't going to be what I expected it to be.”
However, over time the momentum began to gain momentum. Nicholson appeared in a Sam Shepard play, the black comedy “Heartless.” She starred in the 2013 film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “August: Osage County,” alongside powerhouses like Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
“Part of me was terrified,” she says of the “Agosto” experience, “but part of me also felt like I could meet these people when the cameras were rolling. Another thing was the confidence it gave me when I was invited to that group.” It is a complex memory for her. “A lot of this work depends on how people perceive you,” Nicholson says. “What a load of nonsense…, but I understand.”
“A lot of this work depends on how people perceive you,” Nicholson says. “What a load of nonsense…, but I understand.”
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
Since “August,” she’s been on a roll, winning her first Emmy as Lori, Kate Winslet’s best friend in “Mare of Easttown.” Craig Zobel, who directed the HBO series, had wanted to collaborate with her for a long time.
“Julianne was one of those people who, if you were in New York in the early 2000s, was in all the good little New York movies,” he says. “It was always a good day on set; I felt a little more relaxed if I knew Julianne was going to be there.”
As for the question of whether Nicholson will finally have his moment, Zobel is certain. “I think of her very much like Sam Rockwell, where now he can do anything but he still feels like a New York actor.”
Technically, Nicholson is no longer a New York actor: Two years ago, she moved to the countryside outside London with her children and her husband of nearly 20 years, English actor Jonathan Cake. It's a kind of closing-the-circle moment: like in his own childhood, he lives outside the ordinary again. (Presumably, this time he has electricity and running water). Nicholson likes solitude and is relieved that his children like their school. She is no longer the same carefree young woman she was in the early 1990s, dreaming about what his career would be like.
“I think I'm done with my life in the city,” Nicholson says. “I'm in New York right now and I'm honestly like, 'Oh my God. There's a lot of noise here. I just find it exhausting being here. “I love it, but living here all the time I feel like it would be difficult.”
In “Janet Planet,” Nicholson plays a woman desperate to rebuild her life after so many failed attempts, but her daughter loves her for who she is. Anyone who has spent these last few decades following Nicholson's career will understand this. Her uniqueness has been on display for years.
He remembers the night he won the Emmy, the love he felt in the room. The pandemic was waning and people were finally able to be around others again. “Just feeling part of that community was really lovely,” she says. “Day to day, I don't have any sense of that. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. I can continue working and that is the joy for me.”
Julianne Nicholson continues to live her best life, whether you've noticed it or not.
