Julia Garner reveals the advice she received, which changed her acting career forever.
Julia Garner has won two Emmy’s for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Ruth Langmore on Ozark. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Julia Garner talked about a failed audition early in her career that led her to more meaningful acting opportunities and why she doesn’t focus on how she performed in each take of every scene she does.
Garner opened up about an audition for a Nickelodeon program when she was a teenager that gently wrong. She recalls, “The casting director stopped me in the middle. She was like, ‘Honey, you’re great, but you shouldn’t be here.’ I’ve never been stopped in the middle. I was like, ‘Excuse me?’”
Garner continues, “[The casting director] is like, ‘You should do independent films.’ I was too natural maybe in terms of acting. I was just too weird-looking. When you think about teen actors, you think of them having this gorgeous, luscious hair and being so pretty that you’re like, ‘You would never be the shy girl in high school.’ I was definitely not [the luscious hair girl]. My style, it’s still the same. It’s been the same since I was 6 years old, which is a black turtleneck.”
The advice paid off. Garner appeared in films like Martha Marcy May Marlene, We are What We Are, Grandma, and The Assistant. She also appeared in drama series like The Americans and Waco before getting cast in Ozark. All of that dramatic work gave Garner the ability to lose herself in her performances, which is something she focuses on in each role.
She shares, “I never like the feeling of remembering a scene because that means that I wasn’t present. If you’re hearing yourself talk, you’re not listening. It’s the same thing when you’re acting. If I remember what I did on a take, I ask to do it again.”
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