New Movie Stars Junie Squibb and Parker Posey

June Squibb is having the time of her life. At 94, the actor is taking on her first leading role in a film (a thoroughly enjoyable crime drama Thelma And there is another queue (Eleanor the Greatdirected by Scarlett Johansson). She also voiced the title character in the box office hit Nostalgia. Inside Out 2. Her late-life career resurgence began when she received her first Oscar nomination at age 84, winning Best Supporting Actress for Alexander Payne’s Nebraska.

She hadn’t lost her mind from all the attention, had she?

“Oh, gosh, I hope not,” Squibb said, laughing. “No, I don’t think so. God, I’ve been through as many phases as a person could go through. I do think it’s been fun. I mean, a lot of it is exhausting, but a lot of it is fun, too.”

exist SelmaSquibb plays 94-year-old Thelma Post, who is tricked by a fake lawyer over the phone into thinking her grandson Danny is in jail for hitting a pregnant woman with his car. The lawyer says the only way to help is to send $10,000.

After sending the money, Selma realizes she has been scammed and decides to get it back. What follows is an entertaining farce that exploits Mission Impossible On one side is cross stitch, and on the other side is the assistance of Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree.

Importantly, the film never treats its heroine as inadequate, nor does it look down on older characters. That’s because it’s based on a real woman: Thelma Post, the 104-year-old grandmother of the film’s writer and director, Josh Margolin.

“That’s what’s so exciting,” Squibb said. “Reading about a woman my age being able to go out there and do what she did, it gave me a sense of ‘I could do this.’ You know, if I had to (chase the money), I could do it. Of course, I didn’t know if I could do it, but when you read her story, you feel it, the way she handles it is so beautiful. It’s not like, ‘Look at me.’ It’s like, ‘Well, of course I can do this.’ That’s her whole perspective on it.”

Squibb was talking via Zoom from her home in Los Angeles, while on another screen in New York was her 24-year-old co-star Fred Hechinger, who plays Thelma’s grandson Danny.

The two had careers that were polar opposites. Squibb began her tap dancing career at age 19 in Cleveland, and then spent 50 years on the New York stage. She didn’t get into film and television until her 60s, and her witty and humorous performances allowed her to fit in perfectly in a variety of fields, from Girls, office and Curb Your Enthusiasm Payne’s Movies About Schmidt and Nebraska.

Meanwhile, Hechinger found success in the first season playing the moody son. White Lotuswho will next play the villain Emperor Caracalla in Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated film Gladiator II (He joked that if Caracalla had a grandmother like Thelma, he wouldn’t be “such a rude fellow.”) Despite these grandiose titles, he remained in awe of Squib.

“It’s similar to what we were talking about with the character of Thelma, and I feel like there’s a similarity between her and Joan, where when you set your mind to something, you’re going to do it no matter what,” Hechinger said. “I think that’s one of your great strengths as an actor. If you read something and you want to do it, nothing’s going to stop you, and you’re going to find a way to bring that character to life no matter what.”

“I think I learned a lot about the thought, preparation, confidence and practicality of it, and knowing that when Monday comes and we’re shooting that scene at 9 a.m., you have to do it.”

Squibb was equally effusive: “He was one of my best friends. He knew how to be a good friend, and that’s not easy because sometimes you like someone and it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. But Fred did it, so that was great for me. He’s a great actor, too.”

The two work well together on screen, as both Thelma and Danny want to prove their independence to Gail, Thelma’s daughter and Danny’s mother (played by a very nervous Parker Posey), and her husband Alan (Clark Gregg).

“With Thelma, his love is less suffocating,” Hechinger said. “It feels more fulfilling and less judgmental. She really trusts him. She believes he’s going to be great, but she’s OK with him when he’s a little messed up because I think she has a longer-term view of him. She knows him so well, and that gives him a confidence that he doesn’t always feel when he’s with his parents.”

Squibb understands how children’s perceptions of their parents and their abilities change because she has seen it firsthand in her own life.

“I know I did it because I thought it would calm him down, you know, he wouldn’t be upset, he wouldn’t have to worry about it,” Squibb said. “I have a friend who has a daughter… We say there comes a point in our lives where the kids take over. They become the parents and we become the kids, and it’s true.”

Does her son know she’s doing her own stunts?

“I didn’t tell him,” Squibb said, laughing. “But he’s seen the movie, so he knows. He loves it.”

Squibb insisted on doing her own stunts, training for months on a scooter in the parking lot of an apartment building. She was able to get great drama out of even something as simple as a tumble on the bed, while Hechinger Mission Impossible A moment in the car scene.

“When I read about the sheets, I was like, ‘I know what he wants, I know what he’s talking about,’ ” Squibb said. “I didn’t know if I could do it, and they certainly didn’t think I could do it. I said, ‘Well, let me try.’ I did it perfectly. They said, ‘Oh my God!’ ”

Hechinger added: “Our lives are like action movies, and even if we’re not blowing up the Death Star every time, these things may seem small, but they’re very significant because we’re going through them and we’re surrounded by people we care about and we want to keep those people safe.

“But it’s messy, it can be difficult, it can be challenging, and all of these things that seem like small things are actually big things in our experience. You know, I’ll miss the train, and I’ll sweat like you when you watch a Jason Statham movie.”

It was easy for the film’s writer and director, Josh Margolin, to spot the drama in Thelma and Louise: This was his grandmother’s daily life.

“The film was kind of written out of a debate that I had internally: I want her to be safe, I want her to be OK, but also accepting the fact that obviously sometimes she does need help,” Margolin said via Zoom from Los Angeles. “But sometimes I have to believe that she’s capable of more than I give her credit for.”

“So the idea was almost because I could look at myself from both perspectives and try to be like, ‘OK, you have to sit in this room and you can’t do anything because it’s dangerous,’ as opposed to, ‘Hey, I can’t totally control it.’ Sometimes, it makes me nervous because I know she’s out there, but also knowing, okay, this is life and she’s lived it longer than I have.”

It is for this reason that Margolin was careful not to “suppress” Selmadon’t make fun of older characters and their abilities. In an early scene, Danny gently coaches Selma on how to use a computer. This could have easily made Selma the butt of the joke—old people can’t use technology and so on—but instead it comes off as caring.

“Tonally, it was very important to me to have fun with the premise and enjoy the absurdity of how far she pushes the story, but at the same time not feel like we’re disparaging her or making fun of her,” Margolin said. “Because I think once you do that, you lose the point. This is a movie that’s in awe of her, even as it’s funny and absurd.

“There are things that happen that make you go ‘Oh, Jesus,’ but I never want it to sound mean because it’s an ode to her.”

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Margolin had photographed his grandmother for years before he began filming Selma (She appears in the film’s end credits.) He said she was thrilled by the attention.

“She really loves the show, which is such a relief and really sweet,” Margolin said. “I think it’s both very exciting and a little bit surreal for her because a lot of things from her real life are coming to the screen and out in the world that she never thought would happen.

“She’s been involved in the business for most of her life… or as her significant other, so I think it’s weird and interesting that now she’s the lead in something. I think her reaction at the time was ‘hmm,’ but she’s also really excited about it and loves the attention on it.”

Since many scenes in the movie are imitations Mission Impossibledoes Margolin have plans for a sequel? Selma: Dead Reckoning Or something like that?

“I’d have to talk to Joan about it,” Margolin said. “But I don’t think it’s impossible.”

Since Margolin says he hasn’t asked Squibb about a sequel, I’ll just ask. Is she willing?

“My only answer is that if we’re going to discuss all these movies, we’re going to have to do it really quickly,” Squibb said, laughing. “Oh my goodness, yes, I think we should do it. Thelma and Louise“Yes. I did.”

Selma It will be released in theaters on September 5.

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