In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and awards editor Jack Smart for this guide to living the creative life from those who are doing it every day. This episode is brought to you by HBO.
“Every five to seven years, I have a new awakening about it, and I question it all over again,” says Alia Shawkat of her career as an actor. The verdict every time? “I keep falling back in love with it,” she adds with a smile.
“You have to keep falling in love with it,” she continues, “and also decide how involved you’re going to be. Are you going to keep going on auditions and just hope for the best? Are you going to get more involved? Are you going to be more specific about what you want to do? Because it’s definitely not an easy career.”
That’s one of the many pieces of valuable advice Shawkat offers in her In the Envelope interview, and she learned it at a young age. Inspired by kids’ variety show “All That,” she convinced her parents to help her pursue modeling and acting gigs, eventually breaking out on “State of Grace” and as Maeby Fünke on the long-running, SAG Award–nominated “Arrested Development.”
“I kind of was a goofy kid,” she remembers. “I just had this weird confidence when I was young that I’ve been trying to get back ever since!”
It was after the initial three-season run of “Arrested Development” that Shawkat reassessed what she wanted from her career versus what the industry expected of her. “It’s healthy to have inspiration from other people’s careers, but there are no two careers alike,” she says. “I know some people who work all the time, but they’re not happy, necessarily. And then some people who don’t work so much, but they still love it…. There’s a timing and a luck to this. And then just perseverance.”
Shawkat has worked regularly on TV (appearing on “Drunk History,” “Transparent,” and “Broad City”) and the big screen (starring in “Whip It,” “The To Do List,” “The Final Girls,” “Blaze,” “Duck Butter,” and “Animals”). But she’s now entering what she thinks of as “a third stage” of her career: working behind the camera. She wants to continue making visual art while emulating the paths of actors she admires, such as Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and Isabella Rossellini.
January TV Premieres Include ‘The Gilded Age,’ ‘Women of the Movement’ + MoreFor five acclaimed seasons, she has produced and starred as Dory on Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers, and Michael Showalter’s hit series “Search Party,” which started on TBS and eventually moved to HBO Max. “I’ve learned so much from that about carrying tone,” she says of the mystery-comedy, which will air its final installment Jan. 7 on HBO Max. “When we were making the first season, we were like, ‘Does this make sense? Does this track?’ Because I’m playing it dead serious, and John Early’s being hilarious but kind of over the top. And we’re like, ‘Where do these characters meet?’ And then when we saw it. We’re like, ‘Oh, they meet in “Search Party” world.’ ”
Asked if she draws on her own experiences and memories to play a character like Dory, Shawkat says, “I feel like it’s always personal. As an actor, you’re sharing so much of yourself. I think that’s why people connect to actors so much…. I’m always asking myself—my unconscious—what’s happening underneath: Why has this part come to me? Why am I meant to play this person? What in me needs to come out in this character? And as much as I value actors and think it’s a beautiful craft, we’re still clowns at the same time.”
Shawkat also stars alongside Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem in Aaron Sorkin’s Amazon Studios film “Being the Ricardos” as “I Love Lucy” writer Madelyn Pugh. Speaking to the cast’s approach to recreating real-life Hollywood figures, she says that they were “trying to make a painting, not a photograph.” And isn’t that the ultimate job of the actor—to bring themselves to a character impressionistically?
“We’re definitely always making paintings,” says Shawkat. “We have to decide what they are, choose our colors, make it specific, and tell the story. That’s the freedom that we have.”
To hear more, tune into Shawkat’s full interview wherever you listen to podcasts.
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