Juno Temple (Fargo Week)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hello. Oh, baby.

Today kicks off a fun week for us.

It does.

We're doing a theme.

Our favorite show of 2024 thus far.

Yes.

Fargo season five. We've talked about it endlessly.

So good.

And we got the idea, let's do a Fargo week to celebrate the people that are making the show, because it's so next level great. So today is Juno Temple, who plays Dot, right?

Dorothy. Yeah, our protagonist.

Dorothy Lyon. Juno's a total revelation to me, because I missed out on Ted Lasso. But Juno is an Emmy Award nominated actor. She is from Ted Lasso, Killer Joe, The Breast Teapot, Maleficent, The Offer, and, of course, our current obsession, Fargo, season five.

She's incredible. And she's incredible in Ted Lasso too. She's so good.

Aaron, did you know her before? you were watching Fargo? No, I'm obsessed with her now, though. Oh, she's incredible. Yeah, the only, I've never watched Ted Lasso, but that's what everyone says.

Yeah.

Feather in the cap. Well, I am so excited about Juno Temple. What a mind-blowing performance in Fargo. I mean, my goodness. She does all the things.

Batches can go bad.

Well, they cannot pass QC, which we, thank God, we would not want to put out anything that is perfect. But this batch is perfect and golden and delicious. And if you want to order a 12-pack, a six-pack, some merch, go to tedseegers.com because we're back up and running. Two days left of sober January. Yeah, that was the goal.

Dry January.

Dry January. Last 48 of dry January, let's hit it hard. But the good news is we've figured it all out. We've learned a lot. And now it'll be an endless supply.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

A little gun shooting.

How fucking crazy was that?

And it ended up being like some rogue drive-by shooting from some cool guy in Vegas. It was some crazy shit. I was like, what? Oh, no.

You're not allowed to shootings in England. Very few.

Almost never.

Non-existent.

More knife things. Yeah. Or sword fights.

Okay, so wait, you just bought your first house here in Hollywood? Yeah. Okay, and do you love it? I love it. How long have you been in it?

Very little, because we got it and then had to go to the UK and start work. So, all in all, I've been there probably like three weeks.

Out of how long of owning it?

Middle of October.

Is it heartbreaking? Do you want to be there so bad?

Oh, so bad. But it's also kind of, right now, it looks like creative chaos slash being robbed, because, you know, it's like doing multiple trips and not fully ever unpacking a suitcase. So you just make piles or elegantly pile suitcases on top of each other and hope no one will notice. At some point, I need to do some good organizing.

You're shooting the Marvel thing in England? I gotta just say, we're so excited that you made time, because I know you're crazy busy and you're already doing a bunch of press and you were out there.

No, I'm so thrilled.

Okay, when do you go back to England? In an hour?

This weekend, yeah, maybe. This weekend?

Yeah. Okay, and what's the schedule on a movie like that? Is it like a nine month ordeal?

Crazily, no. It's about three months in total, I think. Maybe a little bit more. I was surprised at the timing of it and I think that's quite unusual for one of those movies. This is my first real experience doing one of these.

In a Marvel movie. Venom 3. Yeah. But it's not the third Venom, or is it? I don't know enough about Venom.

Yeah, no, I think it is. I could be wrong. No, no, no, it is. The third of these in Storm, like,

Oh, have you seen the others, Rob? Yeah. Okay. Because Tom Hardy? Yeah, I like Tom Hardy a lot.

So do I.

Did you watch Peaky Blinders?

Yeah, but he's also just brilliant in everything he does, really.

Yeah, it's impossible. Are you guys from similar areas in England or no?

We're from the southwest of England, an area called Somerset, which is about two and a half, realistically, three hours outside of London, down towards Cornwall, in the middle of nowhere. Like I grew up with no cell phone service. If you had a power cut, it was like candles for a good three days. We have a stream near us where we have our water system linked up to that. So you have stream water and stuff, but it means that if the stream dries out, you have to switch to the mains.

Well, the town's like a thousand years old, right? Some of the buildings there?

Yeah, some of the stuff has so much history.

Is it by Goodwood? Goodwin, the crazy car show. They have? like, there's a racetrack. It's in the southwest.

I'm gonna be honest. I don't know how to drive. So car shows would be something I don't know a huge amount about.

I'm so bummed because it's the only thing I've got going. for me is a cool car collection.

I love a great car, don't get me wrong. I wish I could figure it out.

You just have no desire to drive one.

My brain, it just won't. Have you tried? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I failed the written test multiple times. I passed it once, which was great.

You can't keep that straight.

That's a big part of it.

You really wanna keep that straight. But I have a hunch. this is in your category of I can't swim. That's what it feels like to me. Because Monica has a story that she can't swim, but she can.

Okay.

I could probably survive if I got thrown in. Probably. But I haven't done it in so long. I just don't know and I don't wanna find out.

Yeah, that's fair. I've tried to get behind a wheel multiple times and I've done it on different movies and quite quickly. after you do one take, where you almost take out a camera and go behind it, people are like, you know what? We're just gonna give you a little shove.

Oh, you weren't being humble. You fucking can't drive a car. I cannot drive.

No, no, no. And my fiance, who's an amazing, amazing guy, he's a mechanic, truly, in his heart of hearts. And he's a big motorcycle man.

I am too.

Are you?

Does he do track days? Does he go to the track?

Out here, he's kind of figuring it all out, but he loves that stuff. And he's got a KTM here, and then he's just bought two kind of junk bikes that he's taking apart and wants to redo. And so he's doing that kind of stuff right now.

Do you know him?

I doubt it, but you guys should. Yeah, you should. You guys should hang out if you're a motorcycle man.

I'm kind of, if you move to this town and you wanna know all about where to be riding and stuff, I am the kind of go-to.

So I need to, if you're up for it, hook that up, because that would be absolute heaven.

There's nothing I like more than lecturing a stranger about what they should do. Sounds like a perfect day for me. Tell him to block out like three, four hours for it. I can give him a lowdown. Every single track in California.

Oh, that would be sick. He'd love that.

I wore this sweater for you, but that's as much as I could take of it.

English vibes?

It feels, well, specifically, it's my Beckham phase. Ah, okay. Did you watch the doc?

I haven't seen it yet.

Oh my Lord. Well, growing up there, were you in love with him? Because, to let you know where I'm coming from, I knew he was famous. I don't know anything about football. I didn't know if he was great or he just was really good looking.

Yeah, he was a great player.

And then so fucking attractive. I couldn't stand it. It was maddening.

Yeah, very beautiful. So I grew up and I had a household that I kind of grew up listening to really old rock and roll music. So people that I had crushes on were like Tom Petty and Jim Morrison and stuff. And I'm still kind of bad with up-to-date culture.

Do you have, like an old soul quality?

You look old as hell.

Thank you so much.

You look like a baby.

That's why I've got the perfect face for podcasts.

No, you have, like an old soul, quality. Do people say that?

Yeah, I've had that said to me before, which I think is one of the highest compliments you can get, right?

It's a huge compliment.

I feel very unwise about certain things. And then there are some things that, and some people you meet and you're like, whoa, this is kind of more ancient than what's going on right now.

Yes, like you've always been here. Kind of like the guy from the show, which we'll get around.

Oh, my God, the Swede, yeah. Maybe he's 400 years old, I don't know. I think he is. Do you think, I'm gonna take a stab at something psychologically. So, not knowing this at all, and I watched a bunch of interviews with you and this did not come up, my hunch is you adore your dad and your dad was very much embroiled in that early rock and roll scene.

And that's what I listened to. God Save the Queen is somewhat of a lullaby for me. And I think my dad is a huge inspiration for everything I do, because he really can't do anything that his whole heart doesn't believe in. And I think that's an extraordinary thing to stay true to for his whole life thus far. Whether it's gardening or making a rock and roll documentary, it's like he can't half-ass anything.

I may have put them in the house.

Yeah, but then we'd talk about why it tickled me or whatever. I think there's something about certain synth sounds that sounds sort of water-like and repetitive that I really like. But it means that some of my playlists can be playing for hours and someone would say, has that been the same song? Sure, sure, sure, sure. No, no, no, absolutely not.

What genre are we saying this is?

My brothers actually educate me a lot.

You have two little brothers?

I've got two little brothers who are two of the most incredible humans. My middle brother just got a fellowship at Cambridge University. Oh, come on.

Are you fucking kidding me? Get out of here.

Sorry, I'm so proud. I don't even know what to do. They're cool names too.

Like Leo and- Leo and Felix. Yeah, they sound like a couple of cats in a cartoon.

Oh my God, your parents must be so proud of their children.

Yeah, and then my youngest brother, Felix, has just come out to LA, which is really exciting. He's doing really cool graphic designing for a great company called Superculture. They do really interesting collaborations, particularly with clothing, that is really cool, and he's doing graphic design for it.

Okay, and then mom also produced movies? Mm-hmm. Okay, so they're very artsy, and so is it a bohemian-esque lifestyle, growing up? Yeah. Are rules, I don't know.

Rules are there to be bent. Okay. But at the same time, things that were important always were being honest and being accountable, and then also education was key. My dad always said to all of us, you know, knowledge is the key to life. The more you know, the more that you understand, the more you can do.

King's College?

That was one that I went to. that wasn't my favorite school, actually, but finished my last two years at a school called Bedales, which is a very creative school, and I had a really great time there. But it's funny, because boarding school is a big thing. in England. It's kind of a given, whereas here it's more of a choice.

We just had Paul Giamatti on and he was promoting this great Alexander Payne movie. I don't know if you saw it, The Leftovers. You see it?

No, no. The Holdovers.

The Holdovers, yeah. Leftovers is a show. Yeah. With Justin Theroux. Okay, so you saw The Holdovers.

Yeah, and he's so brilliant in it, and I'm so excited for all of the things that are happening for him.

I could watch that character rummage around that room and smoke cigarettes and drink for five hours if he wanted to, no words. But yeah, he was talking about the history of our boarding schools and how they're very much the English model. Here we have this kind of fantasy, there's like a Hogwarts-y element that we have, that we tie to it, right? There's something enchanted about it from our perspective. What was it like from your perspective?

It wasn't Hogwarts, for sure. There was no-.

No potions class?

Uh, I mean, not far off, at B-Dales, actually. It was a school that was unusual for a boarding school because it didn't have school uniform and you called your teachers by their first names, which feels more of an American trait, actually. Yeah. But it was a school that in the 60s, I believe, was a kind of big, hippie school, and I do know that Daniel Day-Lewis went there. Ooh.

Oh my God, now I'm even more interested in it.

We were not there at the same time, unfortunately. It was a school that really encouraged artistic brains, but then at the same time would say, B, you gotta get your math GCSE, so we'll figure out an extra class in this. If you wanted to do kayaking, they would organize a way for you to go kayaking and do extra homework to pass your math exam. It was a really interesting school for that, because it's very much about encouraging artistic minds that don't necessarily work with numbers.

And do people board there? Yeah. Did you? Yeah. Okay, now that's a very peculiar thought for me.

Well, also in the US, it's normally an airplane ride away going to a boarding school, whereas in the UK, it's not.

That makes sense.

One of the boarding school I went to before King's College was only 25 minutes from my parents' house. So I could see them on most weekends. And then the second boarding school I went to was further. It was about a three hour drive too, but I would have these great road trips with my mom. We'd listen to The Pretenders a lot.

What kind of kid were you in high school? We would call it high school.

I was such a kid kid for a long time, but I started smoking at like 13, 14, but still played with Barbies. So it was like this weird combination.

Yeah, mixed messages.

Totally. And then I was always kind of creating these wild universes when I was younger, that really were encouraged by where I grew up, because we've got this incredible, wild, beautiful terrain around us. And so I was quite a kind of dreamlike teenager, I guess.

You were living in fantasy a lot.

Kind of, yeah.

Can I also tell you one thing to alleviate any stress? You have we at it, and anything you would want to, you, just tell us.

Okay, great. Thank you.

I just wanted you to know. There's a huge safety net here.

Thank you. But I was trying to think of the right word, because I was also somewhat quiet, but then would be encouraged by certain best friends to kind of be wild and crazy. And I think I tried to stay young for a really long time. And I still find that kind of a thing, that I have some nervousness about. growing up fully into a woman, I feel.

What parts of being a full adult woman scare you? Having kids, is that part of it?

No, I think that's something that would be an incredible journey, and that can happen when you're a teenager sometimes. But I think it's more about real life, things that I'm really bad at, like being on time to things.

Driving a car.

Driving a car.

Taxes? How do you deal with filing taxes?

Taxes, I have an extraordinary business manager that helps me.

Yes, that's right. Perfect.

But I'm not good at the everyday sort of things that come along with being a grown up, right? And I see some of my girlfriends who I'm so in awe of, who can be all the things. They can go out and have wild dancing nights and be like these young-hearted angels, and then can cook dinner and also organize taxes and file things. Put their clothes away.

when they come home from vacation.

Exactly, fold the laundry and do all these things, and they kind of have this incredible marriage of being able to do both. And that's something that I would love to be able to do one day, but I don't know if it will ever happen.

Or is it? maybe you'd be sacrificing that free spirit for a more...

Yeah, do you think you might lose something in the trade?

No, I just am not good at it. They say that you can have things that your brain is kind of turned off to. It's almost like relearning a new skill, which, like driving, I hear, is a lot easier when you're younger.

When your brain's more plasticky? Yeah. I think that's what they say. You started acting young, right? You're in a movie at nine or 10..

Well, that was my first experience, and I got cut out. So I learned early, you don't always make the cut.

Right, so how were you pursuing acting in this very tiny town of 64,000 three hours away?

Do you actually know that it was 64,000 people?

That's what your town is.

Wow, he does lots of research.

Does he really?

And I know that the buildings are 1,000 years old there, which is very exciting. I would love to stare at a 1,000-year-old building. You get a bit of that in London. There'll be a plaque on something, because we're such a young country, relative to everyone else. That's hard to fucking believe.

You dig it.

Oh my God, how can you not be interested in that?

Yeah, like Stonehenge, the fact that you're saying you drive by Stonehenge, to us, Stonehenge is like almost maybe just in sci-fi. I'm not even sure it's a real thing. It is. It's absolutely magical. Did you ever go there and do, like, mushrooms as a kid?

Not at Stonehenge, no, but I grew up going to Glastonbury Festival, and there's an incredible tour there, which has got a lot of amazing history, too. And when you walk around places like that, you literally think about the Knights of the Round Table, where, in conversations of being here, and I grew up, my little brother was obsessed with the Knights of the Round Table, and King Arthur, and Merlin, and wizardry like that. And my dad taught him everything he could about it. They would go on these incredible, like, Excalibur quests across the Quantock Hills and stuff. I think if you start getting bored of that kind of history, then what?

Is this Leo or Felix?

Leo, actually. He's got this extraordinary brain that when he gets into a subject, so maybe it might be the ancient Egyptians or the Knights of the Round Table, fish is another big one.

The band fish?

No, fish, the creature, fish. Oh, the actual sea creatures. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He will try and know everything he can about it. It's an extraordinary brain.

I want you to ask him if he's seen the John Borman movie, Excalibur. It is the best of all these movies.

Is that quite gory and quite old?

Yes, it's dark as fuck.

I think my dad and him were watching it when he was like five, and there was this moment where I was like, oh my gosh!

No, it's graphic, there's tons of nudity, it's gory, it's scary, and for some reason, that was one of the first things we had on VHS tape in like 1983, and my brother and I watched it every single weekend. we were at my dad's. I know that movie, Backward and Forward. And yeah, I love it, Merlin and Sir Lancer live, Guinevere's a babe.

So the fact that the Glastonbury tour actually housed a lot of those feet and walked around and they had conversations and cried and laughed, and it's amazing.

Yeah, I like that. you are aware of it. My assumption would be, you just would take it for granted.

I feel like I would take it for granted. You can't, because it doesn't let you.

You know, buildings that are that old, like the house that I grew up in, at night, it literally decompresses, and so if you haven't stayed there before, people are like, oh my gosh, this ghost is definitely haunted, it's all these things. Which, probably. Yeah. And I've had friends that have had great stories about being in my childhood home, but the floorboards actually decompress at night. It's almost like the house has to be like.

Exhaled.

Fucking hell, that was a long day. You know, it's like.

I've been fucking doing this for.

A thousand years. Oh my god.

Yeah, I'm exhausted.

Kind of can't not be aware of the history going on there.

Well, and the inconveniences, as you say, like you're using candles, sometimes, because the power sucks.

But is that an inconvenience? It's a beautiful thing.

Well, it's wonderful, no question, but it depends what you're in the middle of. If you're in the middle of blending batter for a cake, and it goes out, yeah, that's inconvenient.

Then you gotta whisk it by hand.

You do, you gotta pull out that bicycle kind, where you can spin the shit out of it. Okay, so how are you pursuing acting in this cute little hamlet? Presumably, I imagine also your parents are fine with it right out of the gates, because they're.

Well, that's what's interesting, they actually kind of want. I remember having a feeling about it when I was about four and a half years old. It was the first time I actually felt aware of wanting to be an actress. And it was actually, my parents lived here, and I had chicken pox, like really badly. Unbearable itching, and I was being annoying about it.

God bless him. Amazing. He's such a dad to have a Laserdisc.

And still has it. And so he had it, and this was a while ago now, it was a good 30 years ago, and pulled down the projector screen and put on La Belle et la Bête, this black and white Jean Cocteau, Beauty and the Beast, which, if you haven't seen it.

I haven't seen it. I'm feeling like a Philistine right now. Can I micromanage one thing? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, good job, Dex, yeah.

Oh my, hi.

Two things are happening,

I couldn't hear you as good as I wanted to, nor could I see you as good as I wanted to. Oh fuck, now he's gonna micromanage my micromanage.

Oh, wow.

Oh, Wabi Wabi.

Because I'm shorter than everybody.

Now, how tall are you?

So I put lifts in all my shoes.

You do?

Yeah, even in these ones.

Yeah, those are big boys, you're right.

Those are nice. Are you five feet?

I'm five, two.

Okay, you're taller than me. I am. But now I'm gonna start doing lifts.

Yeah. Oh, my God. They're life changing.

She's younger, she's got more sex.

I know. I already know this, and that's why.

This is hard.

It's hard for me. It's hard for me when people come in and they're younger and wiser and more talented and. Oh, come on now. And they've been to Hogwarts and they party.

Dad has a cool laser disc collection. Oh, yeah, my dad doesn't even know what that is.

You're a piece of shit.

You're just like me, you're a piece of shit.

I am.

Laser discs are great.

They're bomb, they look like a fucking album.

Yeah, they're like a vinyl, right? Yeah. So I watched this movie and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. and I forgot I had chicken pox. And that for me was the first experience of real life magic.

Because they know, they know how the sausage is made and they know about the rejection and the disappointment.

I don't think rejection ever gets easy, you know? Right. But at the same time, you understand it.

It's hard for me to believe you were ever rejected.

Of course I was, because I'm not right for every project that a director has this incredible vision of. And that's what you always find out when you see the end product. You watch the movie and you understand why you weren't cast. That's a really important realization when it happens that it's not just you. It's actually about how you fit into this universe that somebody is creating.

Let me be quick, how did she even find out? Was there like a Backstage Wesk version in London?

I think a friend of hers actually ended up sending it to her.

I guess that makes sense. She's already a producer.

Yeah, and I went with one of my best girlfriends at the time to somewhere in East London, a kind of warehouse set up. And there were a lot of people waiting in line to go and do whatever it was we were gonna do. when we got into that room. When it came to finally getting there, they just took your picture and asked for your information.

The first round was simply that.

Yeah, and then I, the next day, had a phone call from somebody that was working on this project. And the director was Richard Eyre, who's just brilliant. And it was with Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, and Bill Nighy. Oh. It's insane.

You have an inordinate amount of these.

That, to me, never gets old. Yeah.

Oh my God. She's my single favorite actor alive.

She's extraordinary. Yeah, Cate. And the way she transforms into a role, it's honestly one of the most breathtaking things still to date I've ever seen happen. And so, when I got this phone call about doing an audition for this, could they bike the script over? Literally, I was like,

huh, what does that mean?

They're gonna bike the script?

What?

It was like this. crazy. Like, is that slang?

What does it mean? What does it mean?

Pigeon? Yeah. They're gonna send you your sides via courier. pigeon. Be by your window at seven.

Don't be late. So then this script came, and I got to read this incredible story.

Had you done any acting before that?

At school. And I'd been in a couple of my dad's films, but had not made the cut, ultimately, of one of them, which was a good learning experience at a young age.

Also, if your own dad could pitch out something,

you're like, oh, this happens.

Yeah, it's like a really bad dinner that night.

Well, you would tell yourself, and you'd be kind of like, oh, the director didn't like me. It was like, no, my director loves me, and I still am cut out.

Yeah, my parents thought it was so cool, and the next round was so cool, but you don't think it's gonna go.

They have reasonable expectations.

Yeah, and about a week later, I remember my mom, I was sitting in the car, and we were about to go into town. She came out, she was crying, and I was like, oh my God, what's happened? Oh no. She's like, June, you got the fucking part. And I was like, what?

What do you mean?

I then learned sides, and I went to an audition, and it was the first experience of ever doing a real audition in the real world, with a real casting director and a real director, where you have other actresses that are in before you, and you can hear them doing their audition first. So you go in, and you are so nervous that I have no recollection of what happened in that room, and that happens quite often. I still get nervous as hell every time I do an audition, actually.

Me too. Never nervous on set. Are you nervous on set?

Yeah, every day.

You are nervous on set?

Every day.

I love to hear that, because I think most people are, but they feel like if they're at a certain level, they have to just be chill.

I'm nervous every day, but I also think that's because I want to be great for the people. I'm a scene partner to. You care. It's like, you want to be on it enough to make the whole moment work, because it's never just about you, right? So the nervousness is about everybody else in that room that have done extraordinary work, and then you walk into an amazing set that's lit in a certain way, which is a fucking privilege to walk into, with cameras set up that are ready to capture what you're going to do with your partner, or multiple partners, whatever the scene is, and you don't want to let anybody down.

Yes, but can we have our first fight?

Yeah, go for it. Okay.

A surgeon doesn't need to be nervous to go in and do an incredible job, and the stakes are very, very high.

But I don't think it has to be, is the point.

Say that again?

You said, surgeon, doesn't have to be nervous.

Right, and in fact, I would prefer the surgeon not be nervous. I don't think it would be advantageous for the surgeon to be nervous. It depends. But I think I have a bunch of stories. I tell myself that is, oh, that's the fuel in my tank, and I'm pretty certain that's why I can sit down and write, because I'm a pessimist, and I think I'm going to be penniless.

I can't believe you. just put me in that group.

You are, you are. You're so fucking in that group. I'm not even going to accept you denying that, but you know, if you want to be nervous, that's great. What I can see quite clearly is you have a skillset that does not require that as fuel.

But maybe it does. We don't know. What if it's part of the sauce?

We shouldn't mess with what she's doing. This is what she's saying, but I'm just wondering if it actually is a quintessential part of the sauce. In the same way that I question my own motivations for things, the story I tell myself of how I need to feel, to perform in the best way. And sometimes I wonder, well, no, maybe I could just work from a place of happiness and I would get the same result.

But I think the happiness for me is also part of everyday at work too. I love what I do so much. And I genuinely do not think I could do anything else. And I think it's something that, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely more method than I think I would like to really admit. I think it happens without me realizing.

Just how you see people, I think, especially the character.

And also sometimes how you may want to be seen. What an amazing role. I still can't believe that she got to be a part of my universe.

Okay, let's go there right now. Okay, so I don't know who you are. In retrospect, I do. As I'm learning about you today, I'm like, oh no, I totally remember you from Lovelace, but I don't connect those two things, right? There's definitely several.

I was terrified about the idea of joining a comedy because I am not known for comedic acting.

Yeah, was that scary?

Yeah, I thought Jason had text the wrong actress. I was like, oh, this is gonna be really awkward when you meant to reach out to a different actress in Los Feliz. Yeah, yeah. But he was so lovely about it. I was like, well, please read it.

All Time.

No, it's on Hyperion, right by the reservoir.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh, down from Blaire's.

Like, Gurgels or Lauren's? No, down from Blaire's. Oh, I was gonna say Blaire's.

It's also a bar.

Hyperion Public, Stella, Ellen E, Ellen E, Oyster Bar, Botanica. Monica, you're asking the right person.

Oh, my God, the Zagat.

Elemento, oh God, this is gonna drive me nuts.

Speranza?

No, but.

Oh, if you got it on the first one, Rob, I would kill you.

Well, he's looking at a computer. Edendale? Yes!

Oh, Rob.

Sorry, that was way off. Good job. Edendale.

Edendale's cute. And I had- So you've been? Yeah, very cute.

One of my best friends had turned 30 the same night. And so I was pretty dressed to the nines for a dinner and went to go meet him. And he was very low-key in t-shirts and ball shorts. And I was like, well, howdy doodle. I literally dressed to the nines to celebrate a friend's 30th.

Immediately my favorite character, as I'm watching it, I'm like, oh my God, here she is again. And my wife's like, fuck, this bitch can do it all. Can't she? We were both just kind of marveling last night. But I prefer the order I saw it in, because one thing, it's so much more fun for us in the States to learn someone's not American after you've already fallen in love with them.

All of them on Succession.

Yeah, I'm like, what? I get, to get more impressed. So I think if I had seen Ted Lasso first, I would have gone in already knowing. So for me to watch Dot and then to see how great the Minnesota accent is, and then think that's a hard accent for many Americans.

That accent is a fucking nightmare when you first start learning it.

I gotta imagine there's an easy, like. I could do it with you, like the cartoon version.

You'd be surprised at how real the cartoon version is.

Well, that is true. But what I was really thinking about is, because you've been asked so much about the accent, I'm really resistant to even bring it up.

The one thing I will say, as I started learning it whilst I was still playing Keighley. So that was a quick turnaround. I rapped Ted Lasso on a Friday, had Saturday to pack and had to be on a plane on a Sunday, and then started Fargo Thursday that week.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, that was quick. But it was good because it meant that I couldn't sit and grieve Keighley for too long. Actually, that fast switch was quite important, I think.

Yeah, I'd argue as well too, you didn't have too much time to stew and get nervous about the Minnesota of it all coming.

My brothers had come and seen me a few weeks before in London, we were having dinner and I tried out the accent on them and they were like, so how long have you got? Ha, ha, ha ha.

Textbook brothers. Oh God. Pulling no punches.

Yeah, but I think it's an accent that actually really helps with every single chapter that we've seen of Fargo so far and the movie when it comes to the element of comedy in these stories, because the stories are not funny.

No, yeah, it's the juxtaposition of this nice, nice, nice, kind of funny and cartoony in a very graphic and bloody violent world.

So it becomes a real part of your character that you don't have to think about. that brings the lightness to it.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

I stay in accent the whole time. So I'm practicing all the time because I'm an emotional rollercoaster of a human. Okay, great. And trust me, I do that specifically for those moments where you don't want to trip up in a scene that's an important scene, whether you're angry, whether you're feeling sad, whether you're expressing something that, yes, is out of your kind of like everyday sort of vocal range because you don't want to have that moment. I describe it as, you know, when you trip in public and you get that kind of hot rush through your body being like, fuck, I almost died, but I'm okay.

Deeply embarrassing.

Yeah, you just feel embarrassed at the fact that you are ruining this moment for everybody. Whereas if you stay in the accent and you get used to sometimes fucking up, it doesn't stop you from being able to continue a scene. You just continue. And then afterwards you go, I know I messed up that word. Can we do it again?

So the whole time offset, you're speaking in it.

Yeah. I remember when we were going from London to Calgary, trying the accent out in the airport. Because why not? Yeah, of course.

It's a freebie.

I think it's important to test out in places like that. When the accent clicks for you, the Minnesota accent, you don't really want to stop, because then it becomes this musical rhythm that is so much fun.

Yeah, you're like playing an instrument at that point.

Yeah, and because it's also so affected by the weather and it was cold in Calgary. Yeah. Even though it's one of my favorite places I've ever filmed. actually. I had the best time there, and the crew was so kick ass and just guided you through this kind of vortex of a snow globe that I'd never thought could be real, whilst doing their jobs at the fucking highest level.

When you're calling your fiance, when you get off work and you call your fiance.

Oh, he came with me. I needed a hug at the end of some of those dates.

Oh my God, I can't imagine.

So when you're coming home from work and you guys are having dinner together, and wherever you're staying, you have Dot's voice.

Yeah, but it would, as the night went on, start to become, so. it'd be full Minnesota and then start peppering in some English words, and by the time I'd fall asleep, I would be English. There would be the moments where it was half and half, and that hybrid moment is definitely whack.

Yeah, what is his reaction?

He's so used to it now.

So he's just plowing through, kind of just can ignore the fact that you're speaking in this Minnesota accent.

I mean, sometimes he would try it with me, the Minnesota accent too. And he's from Poland originally, so that's a completely different kind of rhythmic situation. But also the rhythm of the accent really helps you with the dialogue, which is written for that rhythm so brilliantly by Noah Hawley. The way he puts phrases together make the accent easier and vice versa. So, I mean, I would run scenes all the time with my guy and if I would mess up the accent, it would mess up the rhythm.

The whole thing would fall apart quickly.

Are you a Pisces?

No, Macanthus.

Yeah, she's a J2C. She's July 21st.

Wow, that's a special club. Dax has a club.

My soulmate, best friend, since I was 11.

The very watery sign, also like Pisces, makes sense.

Monica's in an astrological phase of her life. This is new.

It's a thing that people talk about and it's an interesting-.

More in America?

More in L.

This is new. So far it's been cute, but I am wondering when it's gonna tip into. most of her questions are about astrological.

One day, soon, I'm gonna be able to nail everyone's. It's just gonna take a little practice.

And do you do all the moon rising and things like that?

I'm getting into it.

You are getting into it? Because that can be a completely different sign, right?

Exactly. You have sun, moon. Dax is gonna be really upset if we keep talking about this, but anyway.

As long as we are into Taylor Swift at some point, I think we'll be fine. We can do 20 on her.

Kristen is a Cancer.

She's a Cancer. Oh, yeah? Yes, yes. I think Cancers and Capricorns do very well together.

My youngest brother is a Capricorn. He's got the same day as you, January 2nd. Wow.

No. J2C.

Hold on a second. Your brother's birthday is January 2nd.

My youngest brother, and guess what? He was also born on the millennium.

He likes the Arthurian legends.

That's the middle brother. Fuck. He's the one who's just moved to L.A. He's millennial baby on January 2nd.

Wow, that's lucky.

Would he agree? it's the worst birthday on the calendar year?

I mean, we make it more important than Christmas.

That's nice.

My issue isn't Christmas, and I hate to bore everyone, because it was just my birthday and I've already been talking about this a lot, but this is why, fuck Christmas, that's fine. It is the fact that it is the day after New Year's, everyone's already partied their asses off, they're hungover, they've quit everything, and then you're like, come to my birthday party. They're like, great, I won't be able to eat or drink, and I don't want to be anywhere but my couch. Let's go.

See, I'm kind of thrilled that I feel the opposite, because to me, New Year's is kind of the celebration. I'm like, who cares? Who wants to start the new year off, feeling shit? So celebrating my brother's birthday the day after feels like a better way to start the year, personally.

Yeah, well, I like that. You're a good sister.

I love my brothers so much.

That's so nice.

Okay, so how does Noah Hawley, who you know, we just interviewed.

Oh yeah, this is Fargo Week, by the way.

We're doing a Fargo Week on this show today. I'm sure that was explained to you, right? We're so obsessed with it, we're gonna do a whole week.

Oh, I didn't know. there was a whole week of it.

Oh yeah, we're adding more episodes, just so we can have John on and you and Noah all in one week.

Oh, wow, dope.

Because we're so obsessed. And, by the way, Noah, I'm sure you could do 10 minutes on him, but the intellect is so fucking ridiculous.

It's insane. And you see that with each chapter of this show. It's a quiet education in that time period of America, which is somewhat terrifying and also extraordinary to learn, and that is so interweaved in his writing. And that's one of the reasons that I loved all of Fargo is that you do get a quiet education from it. You're not realizing it.

It's also the most deeply feminist show I've ever seen in my life, this particular season. It's always female-driven, but this one is really, really feminist in the greatest way possible. But how does Noah know, based on Ted Lasso, that you can be Dot? What's the process that ends with you joining that cast?

I don't know how he knew that, but I got a phone call from my team saying he wants to talk to you about being in Fargo. And I was like, what? I mean, the movie changed my life when I was a teenager, and I'd seen the first three chapters of Fargo. I remember the first one. I genuinely could not believe that had been done, because it felt like an extraordinary continuation of the world of the original movie and the performances.

It embarrassed every movie of the year.

It was extraordinary. And that switch of good and evil at the end, which you're like, oh my God, no, evil and evil. What the fuck? Blew my mind. And so I didn't expect that phone call.

And did he, on that phone call, tell you that he had come to you by way of Ted Lasso, or was there something else he had seen you in that he was interested in?

I think Ted Lasso was probably a part of it. I feel like that definitely opened a lot of doors for me, because it was something that people watched, because I've been acting for a really long time, and most of the time, nobody's seen anything about these beautiful indie movies that I love, but they have a hard time getting all over the world.

Yeah, do you think it's preferable, because I have the exact opposite experience you did, which is like I had auditioned for nine years, never got a thing, ended up on a reality show, punked, and then the next day, I'm starring in three movies in a row, and it's like a light switch. And then there's a downhill slope from there. From my vantage point, I feel like I'd far prefer your situation when it's like you're working, working, working, you're making a living, you're doing really good work, you've been in so many really, really good movies, and then all of a sudden, now, the floodgates are just wide open. As you're saying, you've been doing it for a minute.

Mm, I've been doing it for over half of my life.

Are you grateful? that was the rollout?

Oh, for sure. I think I would have probably died quite young. Yeah, same. Otherwise. I think also, I remember talking to someone about this not too long ago.

2009, maybe?

Something around that time, and I still am convinced that my younger brother made it happen, but it happened, and it was such a great thing to have in my life, and still at this moment, to be like, yeah, still rising. You just want to be able to do great work. You want to keep fighting and finding extraordinary females to play, and hopefully one or two people watch them, because you care about them, and you want to live in their shoes for a while for a reason, and hopefully they will impact somebody else in some way. But I think, I was never interested in being an actress because of fame and fortune. I don't know how that really can benefit an actor, really.

Only having known you for an hour, I can't imagine you'll enjoy the increased attention.

I'm not very good at like.

I'm nervous about that part.

Compliments, yeah, I'm a somewhat private person. I think it was great in Fargo that I got to have such a different look, and it was an extraordinary change from jumping straight from Ted Lasso, where Keely Jones definitely isn't a little mouse of a woman. She's like a rainbow that you can't help but kind of see shoot into a room.

She's very assertive. She's very competent. She's very street smart.

Yeah, but also she dresses exactly, like the way she presents herself with her personality, and I love that about her.

She's like our version of Jersey Shore, almost.

Kind of, yeah, and has fun with it. Her outside presentation of herself also projects her inside presentation of herself. Today, she's feeling twinkly and pink. Tomorrow, it'll be another version of twinkly, in a different shade of pink. Then, going to Dot, which was the polar opposite of you, meet this woman, and she doesn't really want to be seen by people other than her husband and her daughter, who mean more to her than I think.

Do you think it's fair to say, like, Keely is making herself big as possible, and Dot's trying to make herself small as possible, to not be discovered, to not be seen, to blend in?

Yeah, and I think that's an interesting thing that we do as humans, right? You have to learn when to take up space in a room and learn when not to. And that's a really amazing thing to watch people figure out, but also to start figuring out yourself, I think, and makes such a huge difference to a character when you figure out how much space they want to take up in a room.

Right, like that can inform so much else. Everything.

Your posture, the way you walk into the room, the way you sit, the way you make eye contact with people. How loud you talk. It affects everything, yeah.

Were you, when you were reading the first episode, were you having the same experience that us viewers were, where I was like, oh, there's a Jason Bourne element to this. Like, does she have amnesia? Were you having the, like, how will this be explained, this crazy skillset she has at surviving? Or were you thinking more of the acting?

I was completely floored by the first three scripts, which is what I got initially. They blew my mind. And this character, this woman, fascinated me and frightened me, which meant what a privilege to have her be a part of my life, and that somebody believed that I could inhabit her. You know, I still am grateful to Noah for that, because she taught me so much.

Well, this is weird, because it's going to be out of order, so try not to give too much away about Noah's episode with us. But he does say that each season of Fargo, there's a character who is experiencing a ton of denial. And for the other seasons, it's interesting, because the denial is something they've done. They've participated in, inflicting.

She's hit and run somebody, and she's just not accepting she did that.

She won't accept it, exactly. But in this season, and again, not to give too much away, but that is not the case. You're in denial of something that happened to you. And it's so profound to watch this season. I mean, I think, for everyone, but especially as a woman, there's domestic abuse flags at the end of each episode, because it's so real, this idea of suppressing your own trauma for your family, or for the presentation, or for survival.

That's what it is, it's for survival, right? You know, survivors of domestic abuse. This is something, Noah, and I talked about, too, very early on. You either get out of it, or you don't. It doesn't have a kind of in-between, and it's definitely a form of survival to be able to-.

Compartmentalize.

Yeah, have traumas that get buried deep. You don't know how they're going to come back out again, but they probably will if you don't work through them.

Secrets do, right?

But also, she's a mother, and she's an utterer, in a way that is a beautiful thing, too. So it's this combination of the two, and finding a way, in scenes where she's being more kind of a warrior, or a survivalist, or a fighter, finding the moments to also add the mother in there was really important, and vice versa. When she was being motherly, and having moments where, still as a mother, she could frighten somebody.

I've heard you and Noah talk about it, but this bouncing back and forth, and even a scene like the epic gas station set piece. What a bit of filmmaking that is.

By the way, the first night we filmed there, so we're out in the middle of nowhere, and they've built this beautiful set, and I'm looking at the sky with my fiance, who was there with me that night, actually, and there was this kind of wild dancing going on in the clouds, and I was like, that's weird, it kind of looks like a slightly green Hollywood movie premiere, shooting through the clouds. It was the fucking Northern Lights.

I heard this, too. And the whole production shut down all the lights,

and we watched it for a second.

Cool.

Is that the first time you'd seen it?

Yes, and then later in the shoot, they were above my house when I came home, and they were real bright.

They were banging. Amazing. So I've only seen them once. They were in Detroit one time when I was in high school. My first thought was, holy shit, that's nuclear radiation.

No, my fiance joked about it. He was like, it was the Northern Lights, and then literally someone was like, can you see the Northern Lights? I was like, what is happening? That's so cool. It was wild.

I heard you say this, and I have the same skepticism Kimmel had.

It's true. What does it sound like? Wind chimes.

No, that's beautiful.

I'm going to Scandinavia this summer. It's supposed to be an incredibly powerful year for Northern Lights, and I'm going to have my ears at full attention.

Please, let me know. I want to know what that sounds like, because to me, that would be really spooky.

I don't understand how that works, my understanding of physics, but I'm open to it. I'm not shutting it down.

It's about the electromagnetic field, right? And so when you think of electricity-.

Crackling.

And the power of even just sometimes going through a wire, you can hear it a little bit. So imagine that in the fucking clouds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like both beautiful and ominous. It does feel like it's the last thing you're going to see before you die. Like, oh my God, what is this thing that's happening? I interrupted myself. So yes, back in that gas station scene, and this happened on the day, which I think is interesting.

Beautiful.

It's so satisfying.

It's almost more Fargo than Fargo has ever been, right? Yeah. It was the idea of truly allowing forgiveness and offering it to somebody in a meal. Yes. It's such a beautiful thought.

And instead of engaging him with might, engaging him with love, and that would be the only thing that could destroy him, if we would just say the version of him we're afraid of. And it's so true, the kill him with kindness thing.

Yeah, and it's like this Minnesota. nice is a veneer, but then there's real nice.

And you see that with the family, and that's a whole sequence where they are not letting him get to the dark place he wants to. And little Scotty does it. Wayne does it. I mean, the two of them were so beautiful throughout this season. David, who plays Wayne, I think, is-.

He was sort of the cat of all.

And also, he's such a magic human, and he was somebody that we talked about. We have definitely helped each other through some shit in a past life. He became really, really, really important friend of mine. And he was like a safe word almost for me. And for the last few episodes of this chapter of Fargo, I wasn't with my family.

How many months did it take to shoot that?

October through March.

Okay, so like six months?

Six months, yeah.

And having come from movies and done, I guess it's four years on Lasso, three? Three. How do you like being on something that long?

I've done a few limited series before. Lasso was the first time I'd ever returned to a character. There was a moment where I thought that was gonna happen on this show that I did on HBO called Vinyl. I was so excited.

Mick Jagger, Scorsese.

No, Mick Jagger wasn't.

Best rock star, best director. Let's go.

Martin Scorsese was another person that I hope everybody gets a moment to say hi to him, because he's one of the kindest, most interested humans I've ever met.

We were just interviewing Rob Reiner, who, by all accounts, is one of the greatest directors to ever live. And he's talking about being in a scene on Wolf of Wall Street in like a giddy fashion, getting to see this guy work. And I'm like, yeah, even Rob Reiner's, like dying to see how Martin Scorsese works.

And he's giddy when he's working, Marty. You hear him laughing during takes and stuff on the monitor. But at the same time, when he comes to give you a note, a piece of direction, it's always very quiet. And I love that. Because some of the best things people can say are said quietly.

If you didn't play dark during COVID, you might not be sitting here.

Yeah, and I think she really taught me about kindness to yourself. I needed that reminder, to be honest with you. And so she was a gift to come back to.

Did you have the moment, I had this, again, forgive me, audience, I've said it a bunch of times, but I was on a show for six years, and I had a moment in season two where I came home and I told my wife, I'm like, I think I suck now. And she goes, oh no. What's happening is it's effortless for you to play them now, and you feel like you're doing nothing, but you're actually getting better. But that was a weird- Moment. I was so used to just going to a movie, trying to get that thing right, and then it's over in three months, and then you move on.

I think it was more about the kind of comedy side of it. I don't know if I ever quite felt that I was doing great or not. It was just like trying always. But often, any of the comedic moments with Keeley, it's because I genuinely don't understand the joke. So, no, no, no, it's really true.

oh my God.

Often, that would be the case. And Jason just wouldn't necessarily correct it, because that's what made her funny and genuine. And there would be moments where it was a breakup sequence, and I was like, I don't understand how to make that funny. I'm really sorry, I don't know the comic timing of that. But there was a great moment in season three where it was a simple scene that I was doing with the dreamboat, Hannah Waddingham, which, if you haven't had her on the show, you should, because she is one of the most extraordinary women you'll ever meet.