Q&A: Carrie Coon of ‘The Leftovers’ on acting: ‘When I’m working, I’m having a cathartic experience’

Carrie Coon’s work on “The Leftovers” has always been exemplary and, as Season 2 unfolds, the actress’ work as Nora Durst continues to shine.

But Coon, who also gained notice in 2014 for a supporting role in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” was already an accomplished stage actress, earning a Tony nomination in 2012’s Broadway revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

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In Season 2 of “The Leftovers,” Coon’s character finds herself in a new town, with a new family and a new baby to take care of, even as she continues to grapple with the loss of her old family.

This week’s episode features Durst going head-to-head with her new neighbor Erika (played by Regina King) in an exchange that may be the show’s best scene yet.

We spoke to Coon shortly before the Season 2 premiere of “The Leftovers” about the Midwest, the allure of television and acting with babies.

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Do you feel like growing up in Ohio influenced who you are, particularly having moved away?

I do. I find that in this business, oftentimes in meetings, the executives or people I’m meeting with seem very compelled by the Midwesterner for some reason because we are disarming. I come from a family of straight shooters and hardworking, blue collar people who have lived in the same place since the 1800s. My parents grew up down the street from each other. My grandparents knew each other. My families, both sets, will sometimes get together on holidays because they all grew up together. It’s crazy, but it gives me a very strong grounding. My family keeps me very humble, I assure you. They don’t let me get away with anything. I think it influences how I decide what kind of work I’m going to do.

When I spoke with [“The Leftovers” showrunner] Damon [Lindelof], I asked him what I should ask you. He said, “Carrie’s obviously done film, theater and TV. What does TV allow her to do that the other two formats don’t? Are you able to do that on ‘The Leftovers?’”

Oh, he’s trying to get at me through you, that’s really funny.

I love the immediacy of television. I love that you don’t have a lot of time to process what you’re making, and so in some ways you have more access to your impulses.

In the theater, you get to try on a bunch of them in rehearsal, but then your performance gets very set, and you try to be very present in it. There is something spontaneous about [television], and you don’t overdo it, you don’t have time to overthink it, and you don’t do it too many times.

I find the adrenaline and your body takes care of you a little bit in that moment, because it knows you’re preparing to do something, emotional or otherwise, and I find that physiological preparation in television interesting. It’s like a muscle, it starts to happen automatically, and I love that.

I think television can take more risks than film because it can afford to go off in an interesting direction because it can always come back a little bit if it overcorrects. It can change.

I find working on “The Leftovers” satisfying in that way because my creator is open to his actors. He’s paying attention to us and he’s pursuing things in us, even if he’s doing it obliquely and we don’t know he’s doing it.

I didn’t expect television to be collaborative and I’m sure it isn’t always, but I find working with Damon quite collaborative. Even though he has a very strong point of view and he’s going to do what he’s going to do and I don’t want to take that away from him because the best kind of artists do have a strong point of view.

Film is also much slower, you have more time to make a film. “Gone Girl” we shot for a hundred days. I came over from David Fincher’s set to TV and I got three or four takes in the scene and I thought, “Wow, I was just warming up.”

“I’m not done, come back.”

Again, that’s kind of a wonderful momentum, too. You only get eight days, you knock it out, and then forget about it, that’s it.

There’s another script waiting for you, so you have to start all over again. It’s a little like a baseball schedule. “That loss hurt, but we’re playing two tomorrow.” You learn how to metabolize it faster.

That’s a great word for it. In the theater, you can be a perfectionist, because you get another crack at it the next day. You can beat yourself over it all night, and then try again tomorrow.

In TV, you can beat yourself over it, but then you go to bed and you wake up the next day, and, yes, you’ve metabolized it, and now have to move on and make more mistakes. Every now and then, there’s an inspired moment in between that is memorable.

Nora is such an emotionally pure character. She’s a raw nerve. What does that do for you, playing this character that is so desperate to break out of this moment that she’s trapped in?

I see her trying to break out of this moment, but I also see her clinging to it, which is a great fundamental tension to play. It’s very active actually, because it’s push-pull.

What she reminds me of, she reminds me to keep in the forefront of my mind, is that human beings are in fact capable of anything. As an actor, I feel like you need to embrace that idea if you want to make sure you’re not being judgmental about the characters you’re playing.

She’s kind of a great extreme example of that, because she is behaving unconventionally at times, and because they’re writing unconventionally for television through innovative structure, I think. It’s a great invitation to be reminded that human beings are capable of anything.

Right. There’s a rationalization for everything.

What do you think the audience will take from Nora’s story this season?

One of the things that I find appealing about her is that in the moment where her family disappears, what also disappears are her obligations, and there is a moment in time where Nora could choose to take off and start over in a way that most of us can’t even conceive of attempting, because that never happens. The strength that would take to actually pick up and walk away from your life without some extreme circumstances are unfathomable to most of us.

I hope that although Nora is choosing, at the end of Season 1, beginning of Season 2, to again try on this role of wife and mother, that the tension is still alive in her, of the possibility she may in fact be walking away from.

There’s a little seed planted. She never told Kevin she was planning to leave and I think that’s still part of her. I think she may have chafed under the conventions of her life sometimes, yet we see her taking on an iteration of that life, which in some ways is disappointing.

But I also think it’s an important driving engine in her, that that tension is alive and I hope people can sense that tension is there, underneath this disguise of “I’m going to embrace this new beginning fully.”

Nora is unmoored by the departure, but she’s also unchained in a way. How are you keeping that at the front of your mind? How are you keeping your equilibrium when you’re constantly dealing with such extreme contrasts?

Honestly, the only way to do that is to put that responsibility on the other people that are the acting opposite and to know that you can’t generate all of that. You have to trust the story, the writers of the story and that the actors are taking care of you. Otherwise, nothing is happening. The story happens between people, so I try to trust that there’s enough there and that the chemistry between us will tell that story and reveal that tension.

How is working with the baby?

The babies are beautiful, I love them all, we have nine of them. Two of them that work primarily, but there are many babies on the set, because they can only work a certain number of hours, and because you never know how they’re going to behave.

I have to say, it’s very challenging working with babies and as the mother of the baby on the show, I have the baby a lot. What’s challenging about it, is taking care of a baby and acting are two very different parts of your brain and they’re both having to operate at the same time, which, of course, means you can’t give all the resources to one or the other, so you never really feel like you’re fully in a scene.

You also can’t care for the baby the way you want to when you’re trying to be in a scene, so you feel like you’re bad at both things.

That’s what’s hard about acting with babies. They’re unpredictable, they don’t know anything. They don’t know what they’re doing and why they’re there, you can’t expect them to know anything.

Terrible at their lines, they show up late.

Awful.

It sounds so much like my understanding of motherhood, as frustrating as it must be, it probably draws a very realistic performance out of it, because you are literally tending a baby.

You’re literally not acting like you’re caring for a baby in the scene, you are caring for a baby, and also trying to do a scene.

It’s a whole thing.

We always make jokes about it, “OK, so is this the episode where we drop the baby off at the adoption agency?” “How are we losing the baby in this episode?” Because it’s really an acting challenge. But they are beautiful and we love them.

How is the location change shaping up? Has it changed your experience?

First of all, “The Leftovers” only works in extreme temperatures.

In New York, we were cold, and in Austin, we’re extremely hot. That makes our crew that much more miraculous, because they never complain, these people. They are so much fun, and they’re so humble, and they work so hard. That’s been great.

... Austin is a really fun city and the people have been incredibly welcoming. I love that it’s a very outdoorsy culture, so I’ve enjoyed the hiking and bike trails, the natural spring pools everywhere, that’s all been feeling very healthy and great to me.

On top of that, I think it was really bold of them to move the show to some place so wildly different. I think it’s such a bold artistic choice, and I’m so glad Damon thought of it, and I’m so glad HBO was behind it, and the landscape is just completely different.

The cast they’ve added is so extraordinary, we’re so lucky to get the actors that we got, and boy, have they jumped into this world that we built feet first and brought so much to it. That’s been a huge part of the Texas experience to us.

When you’re playing with such extreme emotions on the show, does it drain you? Do you need to decompress by going hiking?

I’ve always ascribed to the theory that actors are more healthy than a lot of people, because they’re fully expressed. I find that when I’m working, I’m having a cathartic experience. I love the story. [“The Leftovers” author] Tom Perrotta was on the set one day. He’s a lovely, generous guy. I love having him around.

But he’s on set one day and I had a very emotional scene that day that he was watching, crying and being really lovely about it, and when it was over, I was leaving for the day and I said “OK, Tom, I’ll see you tomorrow, it was great to see you” he said, “Just like that? You can do that and then drop it just like that?” He was utterly mystified. I said, “Tom, it’s like having a good cry. I feel great actually. I’m going to go home and go to bed.”

I’ve always found it to be really healthy, especially coming from the Midwest, they’re often incredibly repressed, so I hope it’s creating a possibility for something that leads to catharsis in my audience, because it certainly does that for me.

I will say this: Whatever I’m working on, though, it does change the filter for how you’re listening to the world, and so sometimes, the more intense things are getting on the show, the more news stories you happen to pick out are pertinent to the apocalypse.

I do think the work as an actor, what you’re doing, can affect the way you’re living, and you can feel more vulnerable. Sometimes I feel more cynical. Or sometimes I think it’s really subtle and I think you don’t always know that’s what’s going on and then you go, “Oh, yes, I’ve been doing ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ for six months, no wonder I feel like this.”

But it’s wonderful, because it also dials up parts of you, and it dials others down, depending on what you’re working on. You get to experience yourself fully, which I think is great.

Do you have other projects lined up?

I’m working on a movie. Possibly more than one movie. We’ll see.

I’m always looking for good roles for women and sometimes they’re hard to come by. I’m always seeking parts that are interesting for women, that have been written by women, that are being directed by women, and unfortunately, often those are the movies that don’t have a lot of money, and so we’re hoping that that changes, and maybe TV is pushing that envelope a little bit.

How are you choosing those projects? How are you deciding “Oh, it’s time to go back to stage?”

Some of it is just about the timing. I always am trying to get back to stage, if I can fit it in, and my husband [Tracy Letts has] written a beautiful play that I hope to participate in, or at least to see.

I’m looking for good writing and then I’m looking for if it asks of me something that hasn’t been asked of me before. Always, I’ll prioritize something if there are women involved in making it, and those things are hard to come by.

I’m pretty snobby, let’s put it that way. We used to joke that I only do adaptations of books, because that seems to be the trend.

Is that something that you key into? Are you tied to literature? Had you read “The Leftovers” or “Gone Girl” before you did either?

Both, before I came along these projects, because I read a lot, and I have a very literary sensibility.

I’m really judgmental, I’m very judgmental about scripts, and my husband has a Pulitzer Prize and he won’t let me do anything that’s written poorly.

I like high standards. There’s nothing wrong with high standards.

Twitter: @midwestspitfire

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