So, she said: “I took sort of a back seat, willingly, because I could. But I didn’t realize what I was really doing.”
Conners kept working on her own, turning to trusted collaborators and friends for intellectual stimulation. Matthew Specktor, a writer and longtime friend of Conners, used words like “forceful” to describe her. When they met in the late ’90s, before she was married, Specktor said they would go out after work with their partners and talk about books and movies. “She was an incredibly complete, culturally and cinematically literate person,” he said. “She has a kind of beautiful willfulness,” he added.
Family Matters
Originally Conners wanted Billy Crudup to play Sammy, but he declined. After finishing the casting process, the pivotal role remained unfilled. Goggins and Conners have been together 21 years. He is often the first reader of her work, she said, and he read the part to help her better hear the lines as she was writing.
“I had imagined Sammy a bit softer, but when Walton read it, he played it so sharp and strong,” she said. That energy helped evolve how she had imagined the dynamic of the on-screen marriage.
“I certainly wasn’t auditioning for the role when I was reading it with Nadia,” Goggins said. “I just did that because, you know, she’s my best friend and she needed help. My interpretation of it made her laugh — I think my manic side, my insecurity, my anxiety, makes her laugh.”
Goggins arranged a break from shooting his series “Fallout” to shoot “The Uninvited.” That was two years before he rocketed to paparazzi fodder with his role as Rick Hatchett in Season 3 of “The White Lotus.” Now, Conners jokes, she may not be able to afford him.
