Patti LuPone’s fearless big screen splash: ‘It’s the absolute best role I’ve been given’

Broadway legend Patti LuPone wants to do film, but has spent the majority of her career on stage. In writer/director Ari Aster’s new movie, “Beau is Afraid,” LuPone says that it’s the “absolute best role” she’s ever been given.

“Beau Is Afraid,” which is now playing in theatres, follows the titular paranoid man (Joaquin Phoenix), who embarks on an odyssey to get home to his mother (LuPone). But mayhem ensues, sending his life in a new direction. He is forced to confront the lies he’s been told by those closest to him. It also stars Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan and Parker Posey.

“Everybody thinks of me only in musical theatre terms, and not my history as a straight actor,” LuPone said in a virtual interview. “Beau is Afraid” is the “best role I’ve ever been handed on film; it’s a complete role that I’m able to call upon my emotional capability, and Ari’s very specific, very fantastic writing. It’s a big achievement for me. I hope it opens more doors for me as an actor on film. I was so fortunate that Ari cast me in the role. I don’t get these roles on camera.”

In the third act, audiences finally get to see LuPone, 74, make an entry. She is fierce and commanding, delivering a monologue that, in lesser hands, wouldn’t have landed the same.

“Ari wrote a great role for a woman and how many great roles for women my age, or even 50 years old, are there?” The Tony winner for her turn on stage in productions such as “Gypsy,” “Company,” and “Evita,” was surprised when the filmmaker reached out to her. Turns out, he saw LuPone in a David Mamet play on Broadway and the rest, as they say, is history.

The level of intensity that the New York-born actor and Phoenix share in a dialogue-heavy final act is one that won’t easily be forgotten. Both actors impressively pull their weight. For LuPone, understanding Phoenix’s style of working helped her give it her all.

“It was important for me to understand how Joaquin worked. I was not about to impose my working process on him. I am there to serve him. I don’t want to sound obsequious in any way, but I didn’t know his process, and I didn’t want to interfere with his process. I think I’m a flexible enough person to understand how to work with any actor that way. Once … I garnered his trust, and I think I did, then we were able to play.”

She continued, “I gave Joaquin those speeches, I gave it to him every take we had. I gave him the same intensity of that dialogue … I just continued to give him the intensity of that scene in all of the takes.”

It was while filming in Montreal that LuPone bonded with Aster and Phoenix over early morning coffee, and that downtime proved essential prior to filming the intense scenes.

“We dealt with each other as people and talked with each other as just regular people so that when we got to that intensity, Joaquin knew me a little more as Patty, as opposed to the actor coming at him with those lines,” she said. “I think that was very essential, very important. I saw Joaquin with his wife and his little dog and his little baby. It was a sweet experience before we had to dive into something that was terrifying and disturbing.”

The actress loved filming in Canada: “I’ve worked in Canada before and the crew is fantastic, Montreal was great. We went to Quebec City, which was fantastic.”

After asking me where I was located, she enthusiastically added, “I love Toronto. I’m singing in Toronto. I think we moved it to November. It was going to be next weekend. I shot in Toronto a couple of times and in Edmonton, (in) Nova Scotia. The only place I haven’t shot is Vancouver.”

Taking a spin off the title, I asked, “What is Patti LuPone afraid of?”

Without missing a beat, she said, “The dark. I’ve always been afraid of the inside dark, not the outside dark. Somebody read me a book when I was in elementary school that scared the sh** out of me and so I’m still afraid of the inside dark.”

Then she got more personal as she pondered the question: “I’m completely terrified in my life and I am fearless on stage. That’s just the way it is. I am more terrified now in the world we’re living in than I’ve ever been. I have honest to God fear for my son’s life, fear for my husband’s life, fear for my life, fear of falling, fear of anything. I have fear. I don’t deny it. But put me in front of a camera or put me on stage and I’m fearless about it. That’s why it’s where I belong. It’s my happy place.”

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