June Squibb has been a big fan of Akira Kurosawa films for decades. She and her late husband, Charles Kakatsakis, watched every work by the Japanese master at a New York retrospective during the 1960s. Yojimbo remains the Oscar-nominated Squibb’s favourite. It’s about time she landed a samurai-adjacent role.
“I never thought of that,” says the 94-year-old, laughing. “That’s true.”
Squibb essays the titular protagonist of this summer’s liveliest caper. Thelma is a US hit comedy about a granny who gets phone-scammed out of $10,000 and – despite her concerned family (played by Parker Posey, Clark Gregg and Fred Hechinger) – tears across Los Angeles in a reckless gambit to retrieve her money.
It’s the veteran actor’s first leading role and her first crack as an action heroine. Writer-director Josh Margolin wrote the role specifically for Squibb and based the character on his 104-year-old granny.
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I went to the cinema to see Small Things Like These. By the time I emerged I had concluded the film was crap
“It was a beautiful script,” she says. “I knew immediately that I wanted to do it. I have a friend that reads all my scripts and she read it and called right away and said, ‘Well, you’ve got to do this one’.”
In Thelma, the heroine is partly inspired by watching Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible movies. In real life, Squibb emulated Cruise by performing her own stunts alongside the late Richard Roundtree: the Shaft and Roots star plays Thelma’s reluctant companion. Roundtree died from pancreatic cancer last October just after he completed work on the film.
“At the beginning, the stunt co-ordinator would run along beside me, to make sure I wasn’t going to kill myself,” says Squibb. “He began to have a lot of respect for me on the scooter because I got really good at it. The scooter would buck when you brake. He used to say, June can stop it on a dime. I have that scene with Richard where we run into each other in the hall. They told me not to do it. They said, ‘We’ll have the stunt people come in.’ I just thought that was ridiculous. That look of surprise you see on Richard’s face? That was real. I pounded it into him. He had no idea I was going to do that. And then I zoomed around him and I thought: I hope they’re getting this on camera!
“I was working with Richard and thinking: that’s Shaft! And then I had scenes with Malcolm McDowell and thinking about A Clockwork Orange.”
Thelma sparked a bidding war at Sundance last January and debuted in the US box office top 10 last month, with a $3.8 million haul in its first week of release, and a 99 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“I think we’re making money and that will make a difference,” says Squibb. “From the moment I read this, I thought, age is being put in its place and there is a place. Every magazine you pick up has an article about age in it. We’re becoming an ageing population. I just shot another film in New York about a 90-year-old. I think it’s happening. I think people are more and more interested in ageing.”
In this spirit, Squibb has just wrapped Eleanor the Great, her second lead role and Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, and Lost and Found in Cleveland, a comedy co-starring Martin Sheen, Dennis Haysbert and Stacy Keach. To date, she has played Larry David’s mother, Lena Dunham’s grandmother and Jack Nicholson’s wife. It’s an impressive list of scene partners with some notable absentees.
“I’d love to work with Robert De Niro,” she says. “I’ve admired his work for years.”
Squibb has been around the arts since she was born. Her mother, JoyBelle, was a silent film pianist; her late husband of 40 years was an acting teacher; their son, Harry Kakatsakis, is a director and actor. She enjoyed a long and storied career as a working actor before she broke into movies in her late 50s, working on and off-Broadway, as a catalogue model and even a stint as Santa’s helper in a department store.
“I remember when I worked on cruise ships, they would have pirate night,” she says “We’d jump out and threaten people with swords. That was pretty silly. But everybody loved it. I started young and in New York. There was no better place. I started in the off-Broadway production of The Boyfriend. And that shot me to a place where people began to say ‘June Squibb’. They knew who I was. And then I did Gypsy on Broadway. I did A Happy Time. I did Gorey’s Stories. I never dreamt I would be going in the film. That was the last thing on my mind. I just thought I would spend my years on stage. It’s funny. I went back to Broadway in 2019 to do Waitress. And I was regarded as a film actress coming to the stage.”
It was a very special film. I think it’s one of Alexander [Payne]’s best. Even the crew would make comments. That does not happen often
— Squibb on Nebraska
Squibb’s film career began in 1990 with a role in Woody Allen’s Alice. She was swiftly embraced as a scene-stealing favourite among American auteurs, working with Todd Haynes on Far From Heaven, Alexander Payne on About Schmidt and Martin Scorsese on The Age of Innocence.
“I had a very small role on The Age of Innocence,” says Squibb. “I played a maid who came in and introduced people. Martin Scorsese didn’t like the painting behind me. And so he said, we’re not going to shoot this here. We’re going to shoot it in the studio with a different painting. We go to the studio and there’s Martin Scorsese to direct me in this little scene. I cannot tell you how much that impressed me because I thought he would send an assistant director. That says a lot for him, I think.”
Aged 84, she received her first Oscar nomination, for Alexander Payne’s Nebraska.
“It was a very special film,” she says. “I think it’s one of Alexander’s best. Even the crew would make comments. That does not happen often. But I don’t think we knew how special until awards season when it really blew up. My career would have been entirely different without it.”
Inevitably, there is new Oscar buzz around Thelma. If Squibb wins, she will become the oldest winner of best actress in a leading role, beating out a comparatively youthful Jessica Tandy, who was 80 when she won for Driving Miss Daisy.
“It pleases me,” says Squibb. “After going through Nebraska, I know how it all works and what’s happening and everything. But it’s thrilling that our film Thelma is getting this kind of talk around Richard. He was a wonderful actor. And this is unlike any role he had done before.”
Thelma opens on July 19th
