11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 amongst three visitors, all captivated by her beautiful mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in Annie Baker's quiet yet evocative directorial debut Janet Planet.
Ahead of its digital release, FILMHOUNDS sat down with star Julianne Nicholson to discuss the process of making a film so close to where she grew up, and how that informed her understanding of the film and her character.
How did you first get involved with the film and what attracted you to the role of Janet?
I was a fan of Annie Baker's. We both had plays on at Playwrights Horizons in 2010, Circle Mirror Transformation of hers, and I've just followed her ever since then. So when I heard from my agent that she was interested in meeting I was really excited, and then when we met she told me a little bit of the story and we shared our personal histories and realised we were from the same place, which is where Janet Planet takes place in Western Massachusetts. So it felt a little bit…kismet.
I'd heard that you were from that area…so was it easy to keep that conversation going in terms of understanding place and setting?
It was amazing, because I hadn't been back in about 30 years but it felt…pretty unchanged. If you can believe it?
I can believe it.
It felt like such a gift to be able to go back and explore those places and memories as an adult.
In the opening scene where Lacy is in the mall, and there's these wonderful things – a suit of armour, the fountain – it's quite magical, but it feels like the start of that rampant consumerism and I wondered how you saw Janet, as part of this alternative community, it does seem she's quite new to it. Is there a sense that that lifestyle was becoming more mainstream. Is that how you saw Janet?
I saw her as still sort of a pioneer. I feel like that was just when the alternative community was beginning to be recognised. I still feel like there was some… judgement on it. I feel like it's much more widely accepted now, so I feel like she was just searching and that seemed like a community at that time, of many people in the same shoes. Many people are very strong in their convictions and understanding and belief in that as a practice and a way of life, but she feels to me as someone still searching to find her place.
Going back to the mall, it's all from Lacy's perspective, I love the way she sees bits of things, the half of everything. Things aren't really explained to her. It's a really magical way of capturing her summer.
I know, I love that about it, I feel like you really hit the nail on the head there, and that's what we do as kids right? We only have a percentage of the information and we're trying to make sense of it with our young minds. I love how Annie captured that, and the magic of that.
She sees too little at times, and then a little too much with Regina, exposed to a little more about womanhood than she ought to at that age.
Yeah, when you start to understand that the adult experience is not the same as your parent's adult experience, like everybody is having their own version of that.
It felt at times as though Janet couldn't escape the choices she'd made. Do you see that Janet was trapped in that lifestyle a bit?
You definitely feel some earlier bad choices, missteps, but I actually feel that by the end of this summer it starts a shift in not just their relationship, but their experience in the world. It's very subtle, and maybe it's even wishful thinking, but for me it feels like… things are still moving and there's hope in there.
That leads on to something I was going to ask a little later, but where do you think they end up? Do you have an idea? It feels as though Lacy has almost fallen out of love with her mother just as Janet seems to be turning. Have you thought about where they might've ended up?
I feel like… it's like they need to come apart before they can come together more healthily. It's such modern speak, but in a way that feels better to them both. They've stretched that tether and now they'll figure out their new way of being together, which is a work in progress, like every relationship, it's always changing.
How did you feel that Lacy was reflective of her mum, or did you feel that there was quite a strong difference between the two?
I felt like they were quite different actually. I felt that they were quite different. Of course she's observing her mum all the time… she doesn't feel as… well see I've not even thought about this and now I'm thinking ‘hmm maybe they are a little alike?' because Janet's sort of need from the outside world, I guess Lacy has that from Janet…to be seen or feel loved. But they feel like fundamentally different people and it's just a very particular relationship of a single mom and a daughter and how close they can become when there's nobody else in the relationship, in the house in any sort of regular way.
It does seem like the tender moments between them come when there's nobody else around. I wanted to ask about the puppets and toys Lacy has. There's a lovely scene where she peels back the hood on the doll and it goes from grandma to the wolf. Did you interpret that as discovering your family can be difficult? That masks slip and you see them differently?
Yeah that's a good way of looking at it, I actually looked at it in a much more practical way, it was very reminiscent for me and a number of women friends that I know that have seen the movie from Massachusetts and from England had that doll, so for me it was much more evocative and nostalgic about a time and a place in my life. Mine was much more literal. Being yanked back to being 10 or 11-years-old myself and things that I saw, things that I touched, a time when there weren't cell phones, there TV is not on much, it's much more outside and for me that moment feels very reminiscent of that.
Was the doll sent by Annie to you prior to the film?
No, it was in the script, so I'd read it in the script, but it wasn't until I saw it… where it brought me back. We have these little talismans right, from our childhood and particular periods in our life that, as you get older feel special.
Did you find the whole thing cathartic?
Yeah, it was amazing. Every day I felt… the power of returning and telling this particular story. I felt it every day, it sounds goofy but it was just… you know going back to the mall, I used to go to that mall, and we'd do our shopping there at the JC Penney.
I was going to ask if you were a mall kid…
I wasn't really a mall kid, no. But my mom would bring us there, because basically we only went shopping once a year and that was back to school, and we'd go to the JC Penney. There were just certain things that you did if that's where you grew up and so to return to those places – Northampton, Thorne's market where we always go Christmas shopping – I guess I'm just getting a little sappy the older I get but it felt very special just to be driving down the same roads and jumping in the same swimming holes and eating ice cream from Emack & Bolio's, it all felt so specific and rich for me.
Janet seems to really want to please everybody. Is that something you can identify more with now or is that a part of the character you had to get on board with?
I definitely want to please people and it's sort of work to also feel okay with disappointing people and not being everything for everybody if you can't be for yourself. I feel like women in particular my age and for a couple of younger and for sure older… we were taught to please people and I feel like we're still dealing with that, but I feel like I've gotten better with that and hope to continue to do and hope to encourage my children to be ok with not saying yes to everything, but I also feel like I know people like Janet and I feel like it's a real thing, and I felt empathy for that feeling.
One last question that I couldn't resist asking. Snog, marry, avoid and you have Avi, Regina and Wayne…
Snog, marry, avoid…oh gosh that's so hard because of course I love all three of them.
This is on the characters…
On the characters yeah, so I would say… I mean they're all a mess [laughs]… so let's say from what we saw in the movie… I have to avoid Wayne, you gotta avoid Wayne. There's not a lot good happening there. I guess snog Avi, and marry Regina. What about you?
I didn't think the question was coming back. Regina seems irritating to live with.
[Laughs] Yeah but what about Avi? Those dinners? You wouldn't ever want to sit down at the table
He seems very charismatic and I would probably get easily lured into his world. We're aligned on avoiding Wayne
[Laughs] It's just who do you snog and who do you marry? No you might be right, also maybe marry Avi, maybe he needs to go out in the world more, whereas Regina might stick around?
I think you'd get a pretty good best-selling book of how you were in a cult if you marry Avi…
[Laughs] Silver linings.
Janet Planet is available to Buy or Rent on Digital from 30th September
