Carrie Coon on Filming ‘White Lotus’ and ‘Gilded Age’ Back to Back, Morgan Spector Being a ‘Zaddy’ and Why Self-Tapes Can Be ‘Disrespectful’ to Actors

Carrie Coon has had quite a year.

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Not only is she going into the Emmys as a nominee for her work as Bertha Russell in “The Gilded Age” but she spent months in Thailand shooting the third season of Mike White’s HBO anthology series “The White Lotus.”

“I got back from Thailand a few weeks ago, and I went back to ‘The Gilded Age’ 48 hours after I landed,” Coon says on the latest episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “I wasn’t supposed to stay that long, but ‘The White Lotus’ ran over a little bit because of the weather. I didn’t have any time in between, and it was very jarring, to say the least, to go from wearing bathing suits to wearing a corset. It was a little extreme.

“And I was terrible. I was just terrible the first couple days,” she continues. “I said, ‘You guys, I just need a little more time.’ I think everyone was like, ‘Yeah, she does. She needs a little extra time to settle in.’”

Earlier this year, Coon reprised her starring role in the second installment of “The Ghostbusters” franchise reboot. Next, she will be seen starring in Azazel Jacobs’ Netflix drama “His Three Daughters” as Katie, who reunites with her two sisters (played by Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen) when their dying father begins hospice care in his New York City apartment.

How much of the first two seasons of “The White Lotus” had you watched before getting your role?

I’m a Mike White fan from way back. I love “Enlightened.” I think “Enlightened” is one of the most extraordinary and complex shows that’s ever been on television. And of course, we have “Chuck & Buck” on DVD. You can’t even find it anymore. I’ve always been a fan of Mike’s. When the opportunity came up to audition for him, of course I took it. And the cast is so big this year. What I can say is that there’s so much of the show I wasn’t involved in shooting. I’ll still get to watch it with the eye of a fan outside of my own work. There’s just so much show this year. It’s big and complex.

What was the audition like?

I made a tape. I was given some sides, like always, with a little bit of context but no script or anything. I have a great friend named Olli Haaskivi who works all the time. He was in “Oppenheimer” and he helps people make tapes. I don’t come from the self-tape generation. I started my career when we still got to go into casting offices and try to win the job in the room.

Do you think directors are really seeing the best of you with self-tapes?

I do think it’s detrimental to our profession, primarily because what’s really happening — that I think is unfair to actors — is that now everything is so secretive, and so rarely are you even given the real material. You’re given dummy sides. You’re rarely even told what genre something is or anything about the character, which does not dignify what we do. It really is disrespectful to the actor’s process not to give them any information, not to trust them with the information, because that’s what we do. We’re given nothing. And sometimes you’re given 30 pages of nothing. Now, it levels the playing field in so far as any actor from anywhere can submit a tape. Somebody like my husband [playwright and actor Tracy Letts], who grows up in Oklahoma, has probably a better shot than they’ve ever had before because they don’t have to live in New York or L.A. But I just miss the sort of power and tastemaking that casting directors can offer. They can really champion actors, and I think the business suffers for that.

When will we see a musical episode of “The Gilded Age”?

Oh, my gosh, we are leaving money on the table! I think we could do a whole Broadway musical, actually. “Downton Abbey” has the Christmas movie. I think we should have the Christmas musical on Broadway.

How many seasons do you think “Gilded Age” could go for?

Right now we’re on a one-year deal. So I’m optimistic that we could get another year. If for some reason the numbers skyrocket this season, perhaps we’d get a multi-year deal, but that’s really above my pay grade.

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What do you think about Morgan Spector [he plays Coon’s husband on “The Gilded Age”] with his newfound fame as a “zaddy”?

I’m always telling him, “Just lean in. Just embrace it.” I love it. I love the discovery of Morgan Spector. It’s really delightful to me, especially because he is so down-to-earth and such a great socialist, feminist. To see this whole other internet side is really thrilling. His pantless selfie in his Bertha shirt was really popular.

I had done a podcast with him, and literally it was two days later the shirtless Interview magazine photos came out .

You got to work hard in your garage to get that bod.

“His Three Daughters” takes place almost entirely in a small one-bedroom apartment in New York. Where did you shoot it?

We shot it in an apartment a few blocks from Aza’s house. They papered the building with flyers and got three apartments in that building so we could have some green rooms and a production office in the basement. And I can’t remember which intersection it was. Not far from the East Village, I think, on the east side. It was quite a challenge to shoot because you can’t move the walls in an apartment. You have to figure how to shoot with those constraints.

What’d you like about Katie?

I relate to being a responsible sibling. I’m one of five. I’m a middle of five, but I act more like an older sibling. I responded to her need for control, something I understand, and the idea that, if everybody would just follow her advice, everything would be fine. I do that to my siblings a lot, I think they would say.

Any more Marvel for you?

Don’t know. Again, above my pay grade. Somebody really high up there at the cloud makes those decisions. If I do come back, I’d love to be with some other actors. I had a pretty lonely time my first go because when you’re just kind of jobbing in like that, it was one day of work, and nobody else was on the set. I would like to be with other actors if I come back to Marvel.

What do you say to the actors who say Hollywood has been taken over by Marvel too much?

Well, I don’t disagree with the sentiment in that the movie industry has changed. That’s not only Marvel’s responsibility. It’s what happened because of sequels. Right? Sequels started before Marvel. And IP. And it’s not really Marvel itself. It’s the fact that our business is owned by, now, banks. And now these decisions are made by algorithm based on what they think will be most profitable, not what is the most interesting or necessary art we need in the world. That’s not how these decisions get made anymore.

Listen to the full interview with Coon above or download “Just for Variety” wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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