“It was ‘very, very challenging’

Mara Reinstein: First of all, congratulations on your Emmy nomination.

Carrie Coon: Thank you! I was really surprised!

Are you just saying that?

No, I was genuinely surprised. I was with my parents. My brother and sister had driven in. My son had hurt himself and was screaming, and I hadn’t had breakfast, so I completely forgot it was happening until my agent called. It shows how little I actually thought about it. But the real shocker was that Tracy also got a nomination (for his one-episode role in Winning time). He said, “This has to be a mistake.” I consider it a Lifetime Achievement Award.

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And why did you want to play a supporting role in His three daughters?

I found the script, which was handed to me, so refreshing that it didn’t feel overly sentimental. The dynamics of the relationship felt real and true. I also loved that the film is structured so that the sisters are on the same journey as the audience. They start out as stereotypes, and then as their perspectives on each other become more complicated, the audience’s perspectives on all the sisters become more complicated. I hadn’t seen anything that structurally good in a long time.

Not to sound too gloomy, but what are your thoughts on death and dying? The theme runs through most of the film.

I think about death all the time because of the state of the world and the state of the environment in particular. I would say I’m also vaguely Buddhist in my spiritual life, and so I think it’s actually quite healthy to think about that a lot. I like to look around a set and imagine that one day all these people who have gathered here will no longer be here. And that alone is enough to make every moment special, and it’s also enough to kind of take you outside of yourself and appreciate the larger workings of the universe around you. So I find that thinking about death actually keeps me very present when I’m working.

Did you know Natasha and Elizabeth before we started filming?

No, we had never met! But I knew what kind of artists I was working with.

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How could you not know Natasha? You’re both cool New Yorkers!

No, no. She’s part of the scene and I’m not going anywhere! It was a really fun and interesting time working with Natasha, because she’s really going full throttle. And I feel like Lizzie Olsen’s best work is yet to come. She’s so young and so extraordinary.

Don’t you think you have yet to finish your best work?

I mean, I hope so. But I’m at the age now where I’ve been doing this long enough that I have this weird nostalgia; I’m very moved by people who are younger than me and when an actor gets his first big job. When that happened to me for Missing girlI was surrounded by incredibly loving and helpful people.

Missing girl was quite a breakthrough.

It was my film debut and definitely my big break. I will always be grateful because that led to a big change in my career. The only person on that project who knew me was (author and screenwriter) Gillian Flynn because she lived in Chicago and saw me on stage in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Your husband is notorious for his thousands of DVDs. Can you name three recent movies you’ve watched together?

Oh my god. I was in Thailand, so he was watching movies with our babysitter, who is an actress. He showed her An unmarried woman (from 1978) and Salvation (from 1972). Oh, my God, that’s an extraordinary film. And then I would say the other film that had the most impact on her while I was gone (1975’s) was Dog day afternoonwhich she had not seen either. If I had to recommend three classics from our film collection, I would recommend these!

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Where do you actually keep them all?

Well, when we got this house, we had to make sure we had enough room to put a theater in. So we put in a theater with a nice projector and that room is lined with shelves. Outside of that room is another set of shelves. We can never have enough shelves.

And come on, can you say something about what we’re going to see next year with White Lotus? Even a sentence?

Nothing! But you’ll see that soon enough.

His three daughters will be available exclusively on Netflix from September 20.

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