At age 84, June Squibb has joined Kathy Bates in Alexander Payne’s hot tub of elder supporting actress Oscar nominees. It would not be a splash-free zone. Bates’ flashed the camera in About Schmidt, Squibb flashed the gravestones in Nebraska.
Squibb herself had a small role in About Schmidt, as Jack Nicholson’s deceased wife. In Nebraska Squibb has her largest role to date as Bruce Dern’s caretaker wife (and for a woman who didn’t start acting in films until age 60, that’s a pretty big deal).
Apparently, the great American actors of the 1970s now grow old with Squibb.
They also get upstaged by her.
It was Squibb’s Helen who trained Nicholson to pee sitting down, and now it’s Squibb’s Kate who both puts down and stands up for Dern. It’s a performance of arsenic and lace: her bite reveals love.
Amidst the chaos of Academy Award nominations CraveOnline was able to take a few minutes of Squibb’s time to ask about the award season whirlwind. We found out that she used to model for bug spray in fishnet stockings and short shorts and that her family lineage includes a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company.
CraveOnline: The Academy Awards season is seemingly longer than any recognized weather season. After premiering at Cannes, there’s been months of awards shows for Nebraska. How has the ride been as a first time nominee?
June Squibb: I’ve been involved in all the different awards shows. Apparently what I wear becomes important. I’ve also wanted to be at the various guild awards that I’m not a part of – like our editor Kevin Tent (nominated by the American Cinema Editors for Best Edited Feature Comedy Film) and Bob Nelson at the Writer’s Guild – because their contributions are so great for a performer. [laughs] Also, there are a lot of parties. So I’ve been doing it all. It’s been fun. But it is busy.
You have an interesting back-story. Could you tell us about the various acting and modeling gigs you did before jumping to film in your 60s?
I was at the Cleveland Playhouse for five years and then I went to New York. To make money in New York you have to add gigs when starting out, so while I was acting quite a bit, I would do modeling. I was Santa Claus’ helper at a department store. I often times did the sexy covers for the True Romance and True Detective magazines. I would also travel around for arena modeling at business conventions. I wore fishnet stockings and shorts for Ortho bug spray. So I was working a lot. I loved New York. I made enough money and studied acting with Kenneth McMillan, which was my first formal training.
Is it any less cutthroat coming to Hollywood at age 60?
I never found it cutthroat. That might be my older age of arrival. I went through all of that in New York, but that’s young actors everywhere: always meeting with different tier of agents and having odd auditions.
Speaking of auditions, did you have to audition for Alexander Payne after already having played Jack Nicholson’s wife in About Schmidt?
Yes. In fact he didn’t think I was right for it because of About Schmidt. So I had to kinda force my way in. He thought I was too sweet and ladylike for Kate.
So he didn’t see your old lacy dime store novel cover work then?
Yeah, I guess he didn’t know about all that.
