June Squibb talks Thelma, Nebraska, and finally being number one on the call sheet

The actor: June Squibb is the very model of the journeywoman actor. She’ll turn 95 this November and has been working as a professional thespian for 73 years. She caught the performance bug from her mother, JoyBelle, who played piano accompaniment for silent films screening at their local movie house. She remembers tap dancing on tables as a kid, loving the applause. So at 22, she moved to Cleveland where she established a work ethic singing, dancing, and acting in countless shows.

Squibb’s husband Charles Kakatsakis was an acting teacher who told her she needed to pursue more acting, so they moved to New York in the ‘50s, where she became a fixture on the off-Broadway and Broadway stages for decades. When she turned 60, Squibb was cast in her first film, Woody Allen’s Alice, and the next phase of her career took off. From sitcoms to arthouse films, daily soaps to B-movies, she’s done it all.

With Thelma, she’s also, finally, been cast in her first lead role in a feature film, which also happens to hilariously satire action movie tropes. Tailor made for Squibb’s brand of sass and Midwestern stubbornness, Thelma Post is a widow who gets scammed out of $10,000 when a caller poses as her injured grandson (Fred Hechinger). Aghast at the unfairness, she decides to get the money back and enlists the scooter, and eventual help, of her long-time friend Ben (Richard Roundtree).

Recently, The A.V. Club had a chance to speak with Squibb about both her latest film and some of her other work. The conversation is excerpted below, edited lightly for both length and clarity.

Thelma (2024)—“Thelma Post”

The A.V. Club: I watched Thelma the other night and it’s so charming and resonant regarding aging, all while using action tropes. How did writer-director Josh Margolin get the script to you?

June Squibb: What happened was Beanie Feldstein, I had done The Humans with her and we became very close friends. She was born and brought up here in LA and she’s family friends with Josh and his family. He was there visiting and they were talking about Josh’s new script. He told her about it and she said, “Well, who do you have in mind?” He said, “Well, I would love to have June Squibb read it but I don’t know how to get it to her.” She said, “I’ll get it to her.” She texted me and said, “I’m sending you a script.” I texted back, “Okay,” and that was it. I have a friend who reads everything of mine and she called me up and said, “Oh, you’ve got to do this one.” The script…I was so impressed with it.

AVC: In your long career, you haven’t really done an action film. Did all of the tropes and visuals register as you were reading it?

JS: A lot of it did. But when the fire came up behind Richard and I, that didn’t until we shot it. And then all of us thought, “Oh my God! Now it all makes such sense.” (Laughs) But a lot of it when just reading it, didn’t hit me as well as it did until we were shooting it.

AVC: You got to be Richard Roundtree’s last co-star. Did you talk much about his incredible action career?

JS: I don’t think we even talked about our careers. We just talked about everything that was going on in his family, and my family, and the shoot. I don’t think he ever mentioned Shaft and I never mentioned it to him either. Of course, I kept thinking, “Oh my God, Shaft is sitting behind me on this scooter!” (Laughs) So I was always aware of it but we did not talk about it.

AVC: The character of Thelma was directly inspired by Margolin’s grandmother. As an actor, did you want to see her to build your performance, or did you want to do your own thing?

JS: He sent me little documentary films that he had made of her, basically her later life. I think she was already in her 80s when he started this. So, I had these little snippets of the real Thelma and I did look at all that. But we didn’t talk about it that much. I think his script was so good and so there. What he wanted to see on screen was in that script. And when that happens, then it’s gold in terms of doing it.

AVC: After Thelma, which was your first lead role in a feature film, you moved onto your second lead role as Eleanor Morgenstein in Eleanor The Great which is Scarlett Johansson’s upcoming feature directorial debut. Now that you know, are there any surprises or perks in being Number One on the call sheet?

JS: Yes, there are. (Laughs) Everybody wants to take care of you! A lot of that was my age, but I think a lot of it was because I was Number One.

Inside Out 2 (2024) – “Nostalgia”

AVC: You also voice the new character of Nostalgia in Inside Out 2. Do you find yourself swept up by nostalgia very often?

JS: Yeah, I think so. I went to the premiere last night and one of the press asked me what I remembered from my teen years. The first thing that came to my mind was boys. Just the idea of where are they? At 13, oh, my God…(laughs)

AVC: You’ve voiced a lot of animated series and films now. Was that an avenue of acting you pursued or one that just came to you over time?

JS: I do like doing them. I find great fun doing them. I did the Little Ellen cartoon series and The Fungies! cartoon series. We did two or three years of those. My agent at the time thought it was time I did voiceover. He didn’t [represent] them but he took me to the Innovative Agency. He knew some people there and they did voiceover [work]. I talked to them, and I liked them. I don’t quite know how Toy Story 4 happened. I don’t know if they approached Disney about it, or Pixar, or the studio approached them. But anyway, they asked me to do it. And that was the first of the bigger features.

AVC: Is performing in a voice booth a fun space to act?

JS: It’s something I understand. I can understand it so I’m not confused by it. And so it’s something that I enjoy doing because I can do it.

Waitress on Broadway (2018) – “Josie”

AVC: Going back to your first days of performing, do you think your early training on the stage in Cleveland is a large part of why you’ve had such career longevity?

JS: I do. It was the Cleveland Play House. I went there first. And I was there for five years. I went in as a student—a sort of half-ass student—and then three years on staff. We had wonderful, wonderful people there. Boy, I was taught that I did not leave the theater in my makeup, no matter how much I wanted dinner or lunch or whatever. (Laughs) And hang your costume up! But all of this I was taught in Cleveland. So when I went to New York, I had this behind me.

AVC: What acting lessons from Cleveland or Broadway have you carried through into your screen acting work?

JS: I think there are many things. A lot of film actors—I don’t know how to explain it because I don’t really understand it—but they keep their voice very low. It works for them, and I’m not [being] negative at all. But I don’t do that. I think a lot of that is because of my theater background. I know I don’t have to project to the back of the theater and I recognize that. And I have changed in terms of work and how I work. But I don’t watch dailies and that stems from the theater, because in the theater you don’t watch yourself. It’s bad news if you do. If you start thinking about or watching what you’re doing, that can be very harmful. There have been wonderful editors who I know very well at this point who will say, “Come on, June! Nobody will be there but you!” No, I don’t want to and I will not do it.

AVC: Will you watch the completed final project?

JS: Oh, yes. I’ll watch a cut, or something that’s put together, because I can’t do anything about it. (Laughs)

AVC: When you returned to the stage in 2018 in the musical Waitress, had you been itching to return to live theater?

JS: I don’t think I really had an itch to do it. But Jessie Nelson had written the script. She had directed me in Love The Coopers and we really dug each other a lot. She wanted me to do this. And I said, “Sure.” It took her two or three years to get our schedules where I could do it and they needed me to come in and do it. But it was great fun. I loved doing it. But I’d had it after eight weeks, because I was so exhausted. It’s a whole different thing having that one day off, and knowing that you go in and you do this whole show. But I loved doing it.

Glee (2014) – “Maggie Banks”

AVC: Before Waitress, you sort of went back to musicals with your appearance on Glee, which was bringing the genre to a younger generation. How did that gig happen?

JS: Well, I was excited about it. I met Chris Colfer who’s one of my best friends. It was interesting because we just bonded, completely, over that. I feel he’s part of my family. It was great fun and I enjoyed it too because I hadn’t been singing. Though it was very technical, because they’re putting it together rather than you just sort of performing. But I enjoyed that part too. A lot of people still talk to me about it.

CBS Schoolbreak Special “The Day The Senior Class Got Married” (1985) – “Sylvia the Landlady”

AVC: Let’s go all the way back to your first on-screen work. A CBS Schoolbreak Special that also starred Paul Dooley earned you your SAG card. What prompted you to suddenly start going for TV roles?

JS: I think it just happened. I submitted for it, or whatever, and I got the audition. I went in and read and got it. And I think that’s how all my early TV came about. I did Law & Order because I was in New York. I think I did two of those. But it was more just a job that I got. And I didn’t do [TV] that much. It was very sporadic early on. The film thing was a whole different thing.

Alice (1990) – “Hilda”

AVC: Your film career started not only at age 60, but also in a Woody Allen film. Did you just feel it was time to give it a try?

JS: It happened because New York was getting a lot of feature films. All at once, I knew people who were doing them, actors that I knew. So I went to my agent and I said, “I know that there’s a lot of feature film work coming in and I think I should be doing some. I know a lot of actors are doing it.” So he said okay. It was so simple. (Laughs) A week later, I had an audition with Woody Allen, and got it.

AVC: It was your first film set. You must have been nervous. Do you remember who you were paying attention to the most to get your bearings? Allen or a fellow actor?

JS: His first assistant director [Thomas A. Reilly] was wonderful. He had worked with Woody a lot. He was there to sort of, I don’t know how to say it, translate Woody Allen-isms for all of us. He did it for Mia Farrow too. She pretty much understood it, but he was there to make everything easier. If he could see I was confused, he’d come over and say, “Why don’t you…” and tell me exactly what to do. I remember for all of us, if we had a question, we would go up to him and ask, “He said to do this, but how am I gonna get over there?” He’d say, “Why don’t you do this?”

Scent Of A Woman (1992) – “Mrs. Linda Hunsaker”

AVC: How did you get on such a quick roll of being cast in so many films after Alice?

JS: Ellen Lewis was the casting director [for Alice], so she sent me out for Scent Of A Woman and I got that. Then she set me up for Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence and I got that. Now, they were small roles. But the role in Scent Of A Woman had some heft to it. So it was like all at once everybody’s going, “You’re a film actress” in the business. And then I started doing films in New York. There was In & Out, and a few others. It just happened.

AVC: Director Martin Brest hired you again for Meet Joe Black. Did you remember gelling well with him on Scent?

JS: I didn’t realize it, but I had friends on that [set] who said to me, “Boy, that director really liked you.” I think for who the character was, he gave me a lot of screen time. I couldn’t tell you why. We got along very well, and I think I understood him, which not everybody does. He likes to shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, and he will keep shooting. But I always found that I could tell when he was going to stop, because I knew he’d gotten it. I knew that there was something about that take, not even always mine, that there was something about the take that said this is it. And he would stop there.

Nebraska (2013) – “Kate Grant”

AVC: Your other repeat director is Alexander Payne. He hired you for About Schmidt and then Nebraska, which earned your first Academy Award nomination. Is there a special rapport between you or more of a set alchemy on his movies?

JS: I think it’s both. I have probably done my best work with Alexander. We talked just the other day. We don’t talk always but we manage every once in a while to get a phone call in from the other one. I think he’s brilliant. He’s the smartest person I know.

If he feels that you understand, if he feels that you know what you’re doing, I don’t want to say he leaves you alone because that’s not what it is. He nudges maybe a little here, a little there. But he knows that you know what he wants, that you know where that person is, or where they’re going. And I think that he does his best work in that respect too.

AVC: Can you say you’ve had a pinnacle role in your incredible career?

JS: I think that probably Nebraska is the closest I have come. But I’m very excited about Thelma. And I’m very excited about Eleanor. I think whatever I do excites me. (Laughs)