Why Julia Garner wants to be the next Richard Dreyfuss: “I love a really intense energy”
If you haven’t seen The Americans, the Cold War-set drama that ran for six seasons between 2013 and 2018, then believe me, it is something you should make an immediate priority. Get some snacks, put aside roughly three or four days, stream the entire thing on Disney Plus, and then come back here and thank us profusely. It’s fine, don’t worry about it; it’s our job.
As you’ll know by the end of binge-watching the absolutely mind-blowingly good show that features a pair of married Russian spies living in 1980s American suburbia – helpfully right opposite an FBI agent – once you get to about season five, you’ll meet Julia Garner. Or rather, you’ll meet the character she plays: Kimberly Breland. She is the daughter of a CIA operative and ends up being manipulated into getting information on her father for the Russians by Matthew Rhys’ character.
As evidenced by that performance in The Americans, Garner has that indefinable quality that some actors possess, seemingly without effort, of simply being captivating while on screen. And she does it just as well in another brilliant series, Netflix’s Ozark, alongside Jason Bateman – another tale of a married couple living a secret life among the unassuming American populace. She picked up three Emmy awards for that one.
Perhaps it is in her studying of the finest actors of Hollywood’s yesteryear that she found the inspiration to be able to hold an audience’s gaze like she does. She told The Hollywood Reporter that growing up her artistic parents would constantly watch the Turner Classic Movie channel, on which Garner would marvel at the likes of Bette Davis.
And when asked about which actor she might like to follow in terms of a trajectory, she gives a fairly surprising answer in the form of Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss. Garner explained: “I love a really intense energy on the screen. Your eye just goes straight toward that actor. They don’t even have to say much, they don’t even have to move their face much, but there’s something that almost feels like you don’t know what they’re going to do next, you’re guessing.”
Garner has that in spades already in her early thirties, and the actor, who only got into the trade to get over some crippling bouts of shyness, looks set to reap the rewards as she moves from doing a lot of TV to films. She’s about to be seen in the reboot of The Fantastic Four as the ‘Silver Surfer’, predictably facing some backlash as the first female to play the character so far.
She doesn’t seem fussed, however, batting away that kind of basement-dwelling criticism by simply saying, “Oh, well, you know…I’m just going to still do my job.”
That kind of ability not to be swayed is also evident in the projects Garner chooses. Over the last decade, as her star has been in the ascendancy, she has not picked films that many would see as straightforward or box office. Perhaps that’s why she said of being involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “I’m grateful to be at this dance, to be completely honest with you.”
In the past few years alone, Garner has appeared in Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7a, an Australian psychological thriller called The Royal Hotel and The Assistant, a post #MeToo movie involving the relationship between a powerful executive and his closest female aide. These are not roles for an actor who isn’t interested in pushing the envelope.
But as Garner explains: “I’ve never been in those girl-next-door TV shows because they never hire me. But it all happened perfectly in a way. Every part has to be different from the last — for me, at least.”
