"I feel like my process has gotten so much more outside-in"- When Carrie Coon opened up about portraying grief
Few actors currently working embody characters as well as Carrie Coon, the acclaimed actress behind gems like The Post (2017) and His Three Daughters (2024), roles which required a great emphasis on emotions and tragedy, especially for the latter one. It is quite clear by now that the Critics' Choice Television Award winner is among the best actors when it comes to portraying grief.
Carrie Coon spoke about her method of portraying emotional roles and how it changed over the years in an interview with Interview Magazine in 2023. She discussed how it is often a different approach while playing roles where a lot of grief is portrayed and how her method is now different from when she was younger.
Carrie Coon answered Christine Baranski when asked if she stayed in character during the breaks in a shoot:
"For my work on The Leftovers—as you pointed out, often we are asked to inhabit an experience we have yet to live through—the burden of playing a woman who had lost her children felt really serious because at that time I didn’t even have children to lose. And so it felt like a false note would be not only insulting, but damaging in some way. So in that case, I felt that it was important to inhabit grief in between takes to stay in the moment as much as I could."
She continued:
"I feel like my process has gotten so much more outside-in than it was when I was a younger actor. I’ve always had an intellectual way into the work, but now it’s becoming more of an embodied one. But yes, I drop it in between and I joke around and I jump back in, because ultimately what I’m looking for is presence."
Perhaps Coon's approach to playing these characters plays a big part in how well she can portray them, and how she is always on point with her characters' emotions.
She also has a distinct worldview that plays a key role in her acting approach.
"It feels so moving to me"- Carrie Coon on thoughts of death
In this same interview, the White Lotus star also opened up about her take on death and how she perceives things while looking at the world and all the people around her.
For an actor, feeling things is among the most important aspects of acting well, and it seems that Carrie Coon is an evident master of that. After she deciphered how she takes on sad characters and sad moments, she went on to decipher how she feels about death. She told Baranski:
"Sometimes I look around at everyone who’s working so hard, and they’re all at different stages of their careers and lives. They were all children once and they’re all going to die. And it feels so moving to me that there we are in that moment, collected. It’s something I weirdly think about a lot that actually keeps me present."
With her incredible thought process, Carrie Coon has remained one of the most acclaimed names in the industry in recent years. She recently appeared in Lake George and is also a part of The White Lotus season 3, which is airing episodes every week right now.
