Cynthia Nixon

Queue: What was your first role, and can you tell us about that experience?
Cynthia Nixon: When I was 12, I had done a few things, but I got cast in a movie called Little Darlings, starring Tatum O’Neal and Matt Dillon and Kristy McNichol. It was a super thrill for me; I was especially a fan of Tatum O’Neal, and the idea that I would be in a major motion picture and working with her completely blew my mind.

Who or what inspires you the most?
CN: I was like a kid for a long time because I started acting so young. Now I’m 55, and I have to say that young people really inspire me. My own children, of which I have three, but also so many young people that I run across on sets, tremendous actors that I haven’t heard of yet and I’m so thrilled to be working with, and also young activists. I feel like young people are so informed and they’re so united over all the social media that we have. Unlike older people, they’re not jaded yet, and they think that we can change the world in the most important ways, and because of them, we can.

If you could play any other character on Ratched, who would it be?
CN: It’s really hard to imagine; all these characters were played so deliciously and so completely by the people who played them. But if I had to pick one, I guess I would pick Sharon Stone’s character, just because I would like to act with a monkey.

What inspired you to pursue a career in acting? Is there a film or a television show that made you fall in love with acting?
CN: When I was, I think, three, I saw my first movie in a movie theater, which was The Sound of Music at Radio City Music Hall. It’s a three-hour-long movie, and I was very little, and apparently I turned to my mother when it was over and said, “Is there more?” So I have to say Julie Andrews; between The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and her television version of Cinderella, she was a big thing for me when I was really little.

I would also say Carol Burnett. I loved to watch her show and all the funny characters that she would do, but I also loved how she would talk to the audience and take questions from them extemporaneously, always being so funny and interesting when she answered them. When I was little, I remember realizing that Carol Burnett had no idea who I was, and that was so startling to me because she seemed like such a part of my life; she seemed almost like my friend. Many decades later, I was at Carrie Fisher’s Broadway show and I went backstage, and Carol Burnett was there and she knew who I was. And she said something nice to me about myself. My seven-year-old mind was blown that she didn’t know who I was, and then my 30-whatever-year-old mind was blown that, actually, now she does.

What is your dream role or project?
CN: I played Emily Dickinson in a film by the British filmmaker Terence Davies, and that was the role of a lifetime. I feel such simpatico with Emily Dickinson, and I’ve loved her poems ever since I was really little. We had a record we used to listen to of some of her poems and letters. So, it was amazing to play that part, and it took incredible range to play her through so many decades of her life. I do have a role on stage coming up, when we’re able to do things on stage again. It’s a two-actor play, and one actor plays a particular 30-something-year-old man, and I play his mother, and all the other people in his life who are different ages, ethnicities, and genders. It’s more than a dozen different parts of very different people. So I'm very, very excited about that. One of these days, when theater is happening again, I’m really excited to do that.

If you could play anyone in history, who would that be and why?
CN: There are so many great women to play in history. I’m just going to pick the first thing that came into my head, which is Queen Elizabeth. A lot of great actresses have played her, from Bette Davis to Cate Blanchett, Margot Robbie, and many others. But she’s just such an extraordinary person, and it’s really interesting to be able to play a woman so far back in time who had such a massive amount of power, but was also imprisoned in so many ways. I think playing royalty is really interesting, but particularly playing female leaders at a time when they were so scarce. I’d like to play Queen Elizabeth.

What was the last thing you watched on Netflix?
CN: I guess the last thing I watched on Netflix was probably The Crown, but I just want to put in a special plug for Kim’s Convenience, which is a show that my whole family watches together and that we just love so much. We watched the whole thing and we’re probably going to start watching it all over again. We miss it.