Carrie Coon is only in London on a flying visit. A very short break from filming season three of The Gilded Age, Julian ‘Downton Abbey’ Fellowes’s hit HBO series set in New York’s 1880s boom years, for which Coon received another Emmy Award nomination and which she was convinced was about to be cancelled. “I told everyone it was over,” she says.
Coon welcomes us warmly, jumping up to offer us a glass of water – because you’re never too jetlagged to be polite. She knows Big Issue’s work. “We have something similar in Chicago, though not as substantial as this. And you’ve got lovely Chris Eccleston on the cover?” she says, glancing at a recent magazine featuring her on-screen brother from cult hit HBO series The Leftovers. “I love him so much. He’ll always be my brother.”
His Three Daughters, Coon’s new film, is a beautiful, singular depiction of grief and the preparation for grief in all its complexity and intensity. Co-stars Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen join Coon as a dying man’s three semi-estranged daughters who reunite, awkwardly, in a small apartment for his final days in New York. It is written, directed and was meticulously planned by Azazel Jacobs.
“He first sent me a letter that said, I have this budget, we have this amount of time, we’re going to shoot it in order, and this is my vision,” says Coon. “Then he hand-delivered scripts to all of us, saying he had written it with us three in mind. It was extraordinary!
“The dynamics of the characters felt so real to me. It was very intentional about capturing how time feels in those moments when you step outside the rhythms of your life into this very specific vigil that’s unfolding to the metronome of these monitors in a back room. It’s this liminal space that’s out of time. You’re really just waiting. I think we all went through that a bit during the pandemic.”
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It’s testament to Jacobs’s growing reputation – built via films including The Lovers (starring Coon’s actor-playwright husband Tracy Letts) – that the three leading actors signed up and Netflix came on board this intimate film – shot almost entirely inside one rent-controlled New York apartment.
“Anyone who’s done storefront theatre knows that creative restriction creates an energy that is quite liberating,” she says.
“It was almost like we made a home movie wherein Azazel could process the future, which would be the death of his parents, and that we were doing it for him. This wasn’t cobbled together with an eye toward commercial viability. It was a very personal and singular vision, lovingly executed. And therefore it was viable in the market. We’ve really gotten away from that. The machine has taken over, We’re building movies around algorithms not artistry.”
The setting pushes the three sisters, who are introduced almost as archetypes rather than characters before revealing their depths, together. Katie (Coon) is a super-organised, high-flying Brooklyn mom eager to take control of the situation (and her sisters), Christina (Olsen) is a free spirit, yoga practitioner and away from her daughter for the first time, while Rachel (Lyonne) is a reclusive, awkward stoner. She is also the one who had been living with their father throughout his illness before having her space invaded.
“We started behaving in a very intimate and sisterly way,” recalls Coon. “The three of us were confined to one sofa between scenes while everyone moved equipment from room to room. So we were just on each other’s laps. There was a physical intimacy but we also so respected each other’s work before we came into that room. And we were thrilled by the integrity of the process that the quick and dirty machine of TV does not always have. We came in wide open and ready to share.”
Carrie Coon is riding high. Before returning to The Gilded Age, she completed the hotly anticipated upcoming season of The White Lotus in Thailand in July. This year also saw her starring alongside Paul Rudd – plus Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd – in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, her second instalment in the franchise. But films like His Three Daughters, she knows, are rare.
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“Even though you’ve had these big tent pole movies like Barbie and Tar with very strong, female led and driven storytelling, last year had the lowest number of female-led films in a decade in America,” she says.
“So we are talking a big game but it hasn’t actually changed that much. There isn’t that much film work for women, which is what makes a film like this even more extraordinary. You have Natasha at the height of her powers and Lizzie, who is always extraordinary but we haven’t even seen the best of what she has to offer yet. So it was such a gift.”
Next up is Nora Fiffer’s debut film Another Happy Day, which was filmed under vastly different conditions to most movies – including on-set childcare, something Charlotte Riley has led campaigning on for years.
“In America, we don’t have a lot of protection for families,” says Coon. “We’re offering families nothing. And the Republican project appears to be forcing women to have children without supporting us at all.
“JD Vance comes from my state, Ohio. So I have a particular desire to see him not be in charge. Because he’s not doing anything for my siblings in Ohio. My sister’s a single mom who has three jobs, my brother has twins and he and his wife work full time, my middle brother just had his second baby, and my sister’s on leave from her job, which makes money really tight. JD Vance isn’t doing anything for any of them.
“But on Another Happy Day we did eight-hour working days and there was childcare on set. Everybody knew they were going to be home for dinner and bedtime. And we still managed to make a movie!
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“So I’m really proud. It’s extraordinary Nora Fiffer was able to make it – but to make it in these conditions proves we don’t have to be a capitalist machine. We can have care and respect for human beings in this industry.”
Nora Durst and Matt Jamison – together again! Carrie Coon with a copy of The Big Issue featuring her The Leftovers co-star. Image: Adrian Lobb
Before we leave, we take a picture of Carrie Coon with our magazine, reuniting her with her The Leftovers co-star – before surprising her with a question supplied by Big Issue ambassador Eccleston. Whisper it, but we may just have engineered a family reunion…
“Carrie, my sister! A fantastic, fantastic actor. My question for you is: When and where can we next see you on stage?”
Coon replied: “The Leftovers was a really special project for all of us. The only people who ever recognise me are fans of Nora Durst in The Leftovers. So Chris, sadly, what’s happening with Broadway makes it untenable to get a play on with a fair-to-middling star such as myself.
“It’s very hard to get anything produced on Broadway right now, because it’s still suffering from the effects of the pandemic. But I would love to come to the West End! My husband’s career started here. So the London theatre scene is very meaningful for us. And I am very, very eager to make a debut somewhere. So, Chris, put something together and I’ll come in a heartbeat!
Carrie Coon’s big issue
“My big issue right now is climate. If you’re paying attention to climate scientists, who, by the way, are being arrested in the UK and the US – and the reason they’re getting arrested is because they’re trying to get people to understand just how existential this is – then it has to be the big issue. I have two young children and the planet I grew up on doesn’t exist anymore. I’m very fearful for what the future holds for them and what their lives will be like. And the people who will suffer first are the most poor. They’re already suffering. So we know who will be hit the hardest. It will be a long time before rich white people suffer the effects of climate change, but by then it will be too late. It’s already too late. We would do well to be paying attention to the way we treat our most vulnerable people – because it’s exactly the way we’ve been treating the earth.”
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His Three Daughters is in select UK cinemas now and on Netflix from 20 September.
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