00:00:00 Music Transition Gentle, trilling music with a steady drumbeat plays under the dialogue. 00:00:01 Promo Promo Speaker: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR. [Music fades out.] 00:00:12 Music Transition “Huddle Formation” from the album Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team. 00:00:19 Jesse Host It’s Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. Carrie Coon, the actor, is said to Thorn exude a Midwestern pragmatism. At least, that’s how one New Yorker article described her. I guess you can say it’s in the way she carries herself. As a performer, she’s confident—never timid. Usually warm, not always. You can see it in some of her most iconic roles. As Nora, in The Leftovers, she’s angry and kind of tightly wound, traumatized by the loss of her family. On season three of Fargo, where she played Police Chief Gloria Burgle: brave in the face of danger but also baffled at humanity’s capacity to be so violent and cruel. She’s starring in the new film The Nest. The Nest was directed by Sean Durkin, who previously made the acclaimed film Martha Marcy May Marlene. In The Nest, Carrie plays Allison. Allison is married to Rory, played by Jude Law. Together, they and their two kids move from upstate New York to an estate outside London, where Rory grew up. Indirectly, the move causes their marriage to crumble. I say “indirectly” because—as you see in the film—the new home doesn’t create any new issues for the couple. It just brings up their existing problems. Before we get into the interview—which is conducted by the wonderful Linda Holmes from NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour—let’s listen to a little bit from the film. In this clip, Allison has just learned that her husband has received the job offer that will take the family to the UK. 00:01:46 Sound Transition Music swells and fades. Effect 00:01:47 Clip Clip Allison (The Nest): This would be our fourth move in ten years. Rory: [Softly.] Don’t look backwards. Look forwards. This is a fresh start. Allison: This was our fresh start. This was our permanent move, remember? Rory: Yeah, well. Things don’t always work out as planned. Allison: [Interrupting.] Yeah, things never work out the way we plan. [Sounds of shuffling.] Rory: I moved back here for you, to be near your family. [Beat.] It’s not working for me. I… I don’t know what else to tell you. [Beat.] Allison: Oh, for [censored] sake, Rory. 00:02:18 Sound Transition Music swells and fades. Effect 00:02:19 Linda Host Carrie Coon! Welcome to Bullseye. Holmes 00:02:21 Carrie Guest Thank you so much for having me. Coon 00:02:23 Linda Host This is a— 00:02:24 Carrie Guest I’m such an NPR nerd. 00:02:25 Linda Host Oh! Good! Well, perfect. That’s a—that is the perfect place to start. You know, listening to that clip, it’s a very tense marriage. 00:02:32 Carrie Guest Mm. Aren’t they all, right now? [They laugh.] 00:02:36 Linda Host Yeah, that’s right, these people are sort of cooped up together. They’re relocating to London, but they’re not even—they’re, yeah, that’s true. They’re not even stuck in the pandemic yet. They’re just very, very tense. What did you like about that role and that kind of marriage as a thing to play with? 00:02:52 Carrie Guest Oddly, the marriage felt—to me—egalitarian in a way that marriage movies don’t always feel. And it was also motivated by factors that didn’t include catastrophic events like a divorce or the death of a child or infidelity. It was really about marriage and it was about the unwritten rules of a marriage, the tacit agreements we make in a marriage, about renegotiating a marriage when things aren’t working, or walking away from it—you know, that’s often what those stories are about. And so, I really loved that it was about those dynamics and I just had never seen anything done quite that way. And it also felt like a true lead in a film. I wasn’t the wife who was supporting the husband’s story. It was a story about these two people. And frankly, I’d—I just don’t get invited to those parties very often, either. So, it was flattering to be asked and I—it was really specific, and it felt very real to me. And it reminded me a little bit of the marriages I had grown up around. Not the tension! [Laughs.] The egalitarian part. 00:03:51 Linda Host Yeah. It’s interesting that you mention that, ‘cause I think if I were trying to describe to someone kind of what this movie is about, I think that’s the only thing I would really—you sort of wanna say, “Well, it’s about this marriage. It’s about this family where they move and then they have to just kind of figure out what comes next.” And as you say, it doesn’t really have that big plot incident. And it is, in that way, I think an unusual structure. [Carrie agrees.] Why do you think there aren’t more scripts that get made that are like that? 00:04:21 Carrie Guest Well, I think often smart scripts don’t get made. And we had the benefit of, you know—Sean had such a wonderful debut with Martha Marcy May Marlene and so people were hungry for his second feature. And so, we were able to get the funding we needed to make it. But often, scripts that are smart and specific don’t make it into production or they don’t get distributed. So, it’s not that I don’t occasionally read them. It’s just they never get made. [Linda agrees.] Which is too bad. 00:04:50 Linda Host It’s surprising to me to hear you say—I mean, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, but it surprises me to hear you say that you don’t necessarily get a lot of opportunities to play leads, ‘cause I feel like—as somebody who follows and writes about television—I would say, “Oh, you know, she’s one of the sort of most interesting and lauded actresses working in television.” I’m surprised that those opportunities aren’t plentiful. 00:05:14 Carrie Guest Well, you know what’s not plentiful is the scripts. So, there are probably five or six great movies with female leads that get made every year. And now think of the first 12 actresses you can—you know, that you imagine seeing featured in a film. They’re not me. [They laugh.] So, unless we start making more scripts like that, I don’t get the opportunity to play those parts, ‘cause I’m sort of at the end of the list [laughing] of actors that might—you know, you might ask. Because that’s just the reality of the business. They need to get money to make those films and someone’s international popularity matters so much. Doesn’t matter if you’re good casting! [Laughs.] It matters if you can get the movie made. So, unfortunately I just don’t get that chance very often. 00:05:58 Linda Host Yeah. You know, I was—in preparation for this, I was reading a profile of you, in the New Yorker, and it has a subhead that says that you have a certain Midwestern pragmatism. [Carrie chuckles.] I lived in Minnesota for ten years and I’m wondering what you think it means when a New Yorker profile says you have a Midwestern pragmatism. 00:06:22 Carrie Guest [Laughs.] That’s a great question. I think it means—there is something of a… a willingness to be straightforward. My agents always joke that I’m never excited about anything. They—they’ll call me with good news, and I’ll say, “Yeah, no, I’ll get excited when I sign a contract.” I’m just very, very practical! And because I understand how this business works and, you know, that way disappointment lies, I think there’s a kind of [laughing] protective impulse, maybe? Because of course, my people tend to be pretty emotionally reserved. They’re very stoic. Our family motto that’s a joke is, “We’ll handle it.” Just sort of whatever is happening we just say, “Ah, we’ll handle it.” You know, nobody wants to talk about how [laughing] or how we got there. So, I don’t know. I’m nice. [Linda laughs.] I’m easygoing. [They laugh.] 00:07:12 Linda Host ‘Cause, I mean, I think in your case it does mean something. As opposed to when—something like “Midwestern” often just means, like, white and polite. Do you know what I mean? 00:07:21 Carrie Guest Right, yes. Some sort of cliché. Well, I appreciate that. I’m glad you think there might be some meaning in there for me somewhere. 00:07:26 Linda Host [Laughs.] But I mean, I think it means something—not just that in your work it does, but that when they say it, it does. Did you grow up in the Midwest? Are you Midwestern? 00:07:33 Carrie Guest I did.