The Envelope: Joan Allen taps into maternal fears in ‘Room’ and the upcoming ‘The Family’

Three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen brings warmth and light to the often wrenching drama “Room,” about a mother and son held for years in captivity. Playing opposite Brie Larson and 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay, Allen is the grandmother struggling to reconnect with her long-lost daughter while easing a traumatized boy into the real world.

Allen credits her ease in the role with Larson’s full immersion in her own and the humanity and kindness of director Lenny Abrahamson.

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Of course, Allen has proved to be a sure-thing portraying strong, complex women. She’s been former First Lady Pat Nixon, a scandalized senator in “The Contender,” Georgia O’Keeffe and CIA operative Pam Landy in the “Bourne” franchise.

More recently, Allen has transitioned to TV as the headmistress of a boys’ school in the dark Netflix series “The Killing” and leads the cast of ABC’s forthcoming drama “The Family.” During a recent conversation, Allen was down-to-earth, reveling in the newfound stability of her life on a locally New York-shot TV show.

So for “Room,” what did you do first to prepare?

I wanted to speak with [kidnap victim] Jaycee Dugard’s mother Terry Probyn. I did a little reaching out [and found] they’ve created a foundation for helping families reunite. But I heard they might be making their own story and really didn’t want to get involved in this particular telling. There’s this saying, “A family is only as well as its sickest member.” And something like this is so damaging to an entire family system. I wanted to bring that part of it. It was interesting to hear Terry Probyn say, “It’s hard and it takes a lot of time and a lot of help from people.” It’s a huge chunk of your life lost and the clock maybe stops on some level. I’ve had moments even when my daughter was little, I was in a mall and I turned around and she wasn’t there and I just remember the amount of panic and fear. I kind of extrapolated from that.

With Brie you had some tough scenes to illustrate that complexity of coming back together. How did you work out your dynamic?

We didn’t spend that much time together. Which was wise. The characters hadn’t seen each other for eight years. We decided that their relationship prior to her abduction was fine. It wasn’t going off the rails. It wasn’t like she was rebelling to the degree she was going to be a runaway. It was typical teenage growth and growing pains. Very typical. Brie was so fully immersed into the character and I was so respectful of how she had prepared. When you’re working with somebody that good, you say, “I just believe the circumstance.” Then I just roll with it and try to stay open and spontaneous.

So, this TV show that you’re doing interestingly is also about a missing child.

How random is that? When I got the script for the pilot a few months after shooting “Room,” I said, “I don’t know.” In “The Family,” my character politicizes that experience and that’s very different than in “Room.” It becomes her banner. We shot a scene where I see [the missing son] for the first time and it was like, “I know what this feels like.” That’s the launching pad and then it goes into all kinds of mystery and suspenseful stuff. I’ve never done a TV series. I’m really enjoying it. I never get to work at home. “Room” was shot in Toronto. We shot the [“Family”] pilot in Vancouver [before production relocated to New York]. Before that, I had been in Vancouver doing six episodes of “The Killing.” I’ve been doing this a long time and it’s so nice to be able to come home at the end of the day. I’m really enjoying the regularity of it.

At the same time, in TV, you can portray one character for a long time.

I’m finding things out more and more about the character the more I do it. And it’s kind of fun. It’s like she’s growing. It’s like, “Oh! She’s not quite Hillary. She’s more like Sarah Palin.” I’m just looking forward to building on that. We’re having a good time.

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