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The eight-foot shutters adorning the windows in the front room.
A wall chandelier gifted by a good friend.
A fleur-de-lis tray holding small glasses on her coffee table.
The soft navy carpet in her bedroom.
Each room evokes the understated decadence her hometown is known for.
Its also filled with markers of her long career as an actress.
You want to know who gave me this?
One of dreamiest directors Ive ever worked with.
Its really way too heavy.
Blanche is a continued presence in our conversation aboutSharp Objects.
Coming off the success ofBig Little Lies, Jean-Marc Vallee acts as the seriess director.
Marti Noxon and Gillian Flynn, among other writers, pen episodes.
But none are as emotionally fractured, and with as deep a sense of a twistedpast, as Adora.
Shes the kind of character who could easily fall into caricature, a villain whose humanity is constantly obscured.
But Clarkson plays her as a contradiction.
In other moments, shes hard-edged, biting in her cruelty.
Shes also keenly aware of the darkness within Adora.
Remember, shes seducing her children, she says, her voice dropping.
It is the most frightening thing Ive ever done as a character.
It created torment in me, as Patti.
Its this borderline incestuous relationship thats ultimately about control, and deep psychological … lackings.
She knew I had an even more tortured Blanche inside of me.
She graduated from Yale Drama School at 25, landing her first film role at 26 in 1987sThe Untouchables.
I did a lot of supporting characters, a lot of wives.
Ive cooked a lot of dinners onscreen; Ive chopped a lot of vegetables.
But for the most part,High Arthelped me, Clarkson says, referring to Lisa Cholodenkos first film.
Im always indebted to Lisa.
She did truly change my life.
Im a rather dark person at times.
InHigh Art, Clarkson plays Greta, a former model whose glamour has curdled due to her heroin addiction.
The sensuality Clarkson projects in her work is immediately apparent when youre in her orbit.
But its a trait Hollywood often has no idea what to do with in older women.
Everybody was just like, Oh, god.
Give that person a vagina, she says with a blunt laugh.
It was everything that made you just wither inside.
As shes aged, Clarkson says, shes been called upon more and more to play characters with sexuality.
Just as our emotional life expands, our sexual life expands, she continues.
Our sensuality, I hope, is inherent, and therefore apparent.
Ive played a few of those!
But we were complicit because we were holding our heads above water.
And you know, Harvey [Weinstein] really opened it wide.
That is the only upside of that whole tragic mess it just cracked us open wide.
Many of us have talked about that, those of us in our 50s now, she says.
We look back on the 80s and the early 90s and we were all like, What?
Producers, people, would be like, Why dont we have a drink?
Just come up to my hotel room?
Oh,okaaaaay… A lot of us said yes!
I guess Im fortunate I didnt, and Im sad for those women.
This is especially true of Woody Allen, who cast Clarkson inWhatever WorksandVicky Cristina Barcelona.
Is this a genuine desire to speak truth to power or a form of moral grandstanding?
As actors we can always say no, and thats the power I hold.
If Im uneasy with someone, I say no, she begins.
It feels wrong that everybody is seeking this answer from all of us who knew him.
Im going to know the answer, but its going to stay with me.
I have the ability to work for … low wages, Clarkson laughs.
She can also be choosier about working with whom she wants.
She clearly relished collaborating with Vallee onSharp Objects, whom she describes as a beautiful nightmare.
With Jean-Marc, youre completely on instinct.
Talk about the house, talk about this, talk about that, she mimics the director instructing her.
I just thought,Oh my God.
Im about to shoot three-and-a-half pages.
Ive never said them.
I simply know them in my head …
I looked at Chris and I said, Lets fail.
She isnt transformative in the traditional sense that we expect of actors.
She doesnt gain or lose weight in a dramatic fashion.
As actors, we can only create so much, Clarkson says of her own process.
At a certain point our own heart, our own blood, has to be there in the scene.
The body never lies is a phrase Clarkson picked up from her movement teacher at Yale Drama School.
Its evident both in her work and natural aura.
Shes a woman who speaks eloquently with her physical form.
Its hard at first glance to find a through line in her greatest works.
It only occurred to me during our second time speaking, when I found her leaning against her building.
Perhaps this is what her best performances share.
The suggestion that these women have hidden grooves and corners to their personalities, secrets they refuse to share.
