After a long but largely uncelebrated career that consisted mainly of minor roles as moms and authority figures in such films as Lorenzo's Oil and Philadelphia, Ann Dowd broke through at the age of 56, playing the harried, self-doubting fast-food restaurant manager in the 2012 film Compliance. That role paved the way for a steady stream of often complex parts in shows like True Detective, Olive Kitteridge, and Girls. This year she's nominated for two Emmys: for her performances as Aunt Lydia, a tightlipped teacher who whips handmaids-in-training into shape, in The Handmaid's Tale, and Patti Levin, a ferociously focused cult leader, in The Leftovers.
Last week, I talked to Dowd, who was in New Hampshire enjoying an annual week-long vacation with her husband, actor Lawrence Arancio, and their children. Radiating enthusiasm, emotional transparency, and an eagerness to connect that stand in stark contrast to Patti's stoic self-containment and Lydia's awkward stiffness, Dowd often slipped into character while talking, sometimes speaking as her own past self and sometimes as one of the women she's played on screen.
You've said that in your 30s, when you were waiting tables while trying to make it as an actress, a voice in your head told you that you'd make it in your mid-50s. Did you have enough faith in that voice to carry you through all those years? Or was it just something that's helped you frame your journey in retrospect, after you finally broke through?
What I knew at the time was that it was true. I had that feeling of: “You've just been given a gift here. Pay attention. Don't despair. Just let it inform you when you go south.”
The great thing about a long career is you have your ups and downs, and you become used to it. But as long as you're working, that angst is not present nearly so much, because you're focused on the work—as you should be. Maybe there's one or two [jobs] where you think, “Oh my God, why have I done this?” or “This job is really frightening.” There were periods where you don't know where you should put all that stuff—the desire, ambition, whatever it is—and I would say, “Okay, take a breath here. You're working, and that's what matters. Whatever will happen, will happen. And just let it.” The work itself keeps the focus where you want it to be.
There are also periods between roles in an actor's life, when you don't know what's coming next, if anything. It can be hard to maintain your emotional equilibrium during those periods, can't it?
Exactly! I can't tell you how many years I had to go without knowing what the next job would be. Now, having some idea of what's coming next, I can't tell you. It's like: “You're kidding me!” [Laughs] It's recent enough where it's just—it makes me laugh when I hear someone say, “You have an offer.” Oh, those beautiful words! It's great!
You've said that playing Patti, whose journey was so much about learning to let go—even of her life—helped you learn to let go of things too. How much do you think you changed because that role came to you at a time in your life when you were getting ready to make that transition anyway?
When I found out that I was no longer going to be on The Leftovers, that Patti was going to die, it hit me like a truck. I was so upset. You're actually right, as you grow older you think, “What's the larger picture here? Let's step away for just a second and take a look here.” But what kept coming up with Patti—and it's not even subtle, because it's in the language she uses—was: “Let go. Let go of attachment.” That's literally one of her lines to Kevin. So I said to myself, sitting in a sort of a public garden, working through the material, “Are you going to acknowledge this or are you going to let it upset you? Can you let go of the stubbornness and the wanting to keep this role and see what's going on here?” It was a complete revelation to me, and a powerful one.
It's like the second season of Good Behavior, which is something I'm working on in North Carolina with Michelle Dockery and Juan Diego Botto and Terry Kinney—wonderful show. I've only got one episode left, and I feel that thing coming right up again: “I don't want to lose [this character]! I don't want to let her go! I love her!” And I just laughed. I went, “Okay, I get it, Ann, but now we're gonna appreciate the experience and we're gonna see what happens. Let it go!” I felt like that's Patti, as corny as it may sound.
Let’s talk about Lydia. As joyless and constricted as her life was in Gilead, she also has a lot of power, within limits—probably a lot more than she had in our world. Because, let’s face it, middle-aged women, especially those who lack all charisma or charm, which she does, are pretty low on our social food chain. So I saw her as a pretty poignant study in how a victim of a repressive system can participate willingly in her own oppression. Did you think about that when you were developing that character?
I’ve often been curious about people who are so rigid in their thinking, and their road is so narrow. You think, “Wow! How do you arrive here when there’s so much evidence to the contrary, so many examples of another way to live? Why are you holding on for dear life?” I don’t know the answer there, but I always suspect, when playing a character, that you’ve just got to get to the possibility of what could have happened to them. Did she grow up in a home where she had no voice and it was only the Bible and the church? Did she have an abortion because she was the shameful one who had sex and got pregnant, and did she have to shut it down so completely and grasp so tightly just to survive, going to the far right, to “The Bible is all”?
I do think she bought into it. I think she’s a lonely soul. As you say, not a lot of social skills. I think she was probably made fun of. I asked [show creator] Bruce [Miller], “What did she do before?” He said, “I think she was a teacher.” Oh my God, it made so much sense! You can picture her in an all-girls school, or even a public school, where, you know—the language, the promiscuity, the talk of abortion. I think she was just [thinking], “What is going on?” And imagine trying to teach a moral-education course and they’d laugh in her face. I think she was shamed repeatedly. And she showed up at these meetings [of people planning the creation of Gilead] and she said, “I will participate. And I have experience here. I know how to handle a classroom.”
I don’t even think she wants to be important. Or get back at people. I think she genuinely cares for these girls and loves them, and that’s her life. And I think her actions—as twisted, good God, as they are—she shelters her girls, in her mind, and when she’s had to damage them, she looks after them. Janine is a case in point. [After] taking out that eye? “Hey, this girl is not okay. She’s not stable. So I’m going to have to keep a very sharp eye on her.” And I don’t think it’s out of malice. I think the ones that scare Lydia are Offred [Elizabeth Moss’s character] and Moira [Samira Wiley’s]. “I can’t read those girls”—Lydia can’t. “They’re too sharp. They’re too tough. They do what I ask them to do, but I know there’s another agenda going on, and I can’t get to the bottom of it.” Those are the ones that really unnerve her.
There are so many more complex and interesting roles available now than ever before for women on television—and not just women in their 20s and 30s, but women like Patti and Lydia too. To what degree do you think television is as good as it is now because of that?
Today, there are so many more opportunities, so many ways to write your story and get it out there, and it doesn’t have to fit into a well-defined box. If it’s thrilling for an actor, imagine how thrilling it must be for the writers. So many extraordinary ideas and imaginations, and now a place to put it. I think that’s just remarkable, what’s been waiting all along to come flying out. And when you put together the writers and the crews and the artists and the actors. In True Detective, in the last episode, playing that sister, you think, “How do I get ahold of that world?” Well, I’ll tell you how. You walk into that house that the art department created, and there are fetuses in the corner and there are air fresheners hanging from every part of the house because they don’t know how to deal with the smell of rotting fetuses. See what I’m saying? You put all of those minds and imaginations together and you don’t limit it and it’s so stunning.
And lucky me, time-wise. Before, I would be playing, if I was lucky, a grandmother. Which is a lovely thing to play. However, there are other parts of a woman’s life, and now we’re seeing them. Lydia has no man. Neither did Patti. They had their own paths to follow, without children and without men.
And if you are a grandmother, there are many other parts of you too, so let’s see some of those.
Well, exactly. But in the typical television we had years ago, you didn’t see so much of that person. You just saw the caregiving part.
And a lot of sweet old ladies. You used to play a lot of sweet young ladies when you were younger, right?
Right! I’m much more in my element now. [laughs] It’s a blast, I tell you.
You said in one of your recent interviews that the first time you saw your husband you thought to yourself: “That’s my husband.” What was it about him that made you think that?
He was at the bulletin board reading something. And he had a backpack on, green, and he had a scraggly beard because he was in Antigone. I had never seen him—I mean, I had seen him, but I had never spoken a word to him—and it was just the same thing, that knowing. I said, “Oh, that’s my husband.” And then I said, “Huh, don’t love the look,” because he had that beard.
So what was it about him that you recognized? Do you know?
I haven’t a clue! [laughs] I mean, it’s funny; I did not have dreams about my wedding or who I would marry. Not consciously, anyway. I was in acting school and I was going to be an actress and I was going to work—and there he was in front of me, and I thought, “Ooooh.” And I’ll tell you, 34 years in September. Without him, I don’t even know what—I have no words. [laughs] It turned out to be the real deal. He’s my true soulmate. So lucky me, is all I have to say.
Written for Slant Magazine
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