What did you know of each other before “The Seagull/Woodstock, NY”?
PARKER POSEY Hari Nef — oh, she was in “Transparent.” I remembered exactly what a performance that was and how much she lit up a scene. She changed the temperature of the room. I don’t keep up with a lot of things. I don’t have a lot of social media — I forgot my Instagram password a while ago and I tried to sign on a few times with the password I thought I remembered. But of course it was the wrong password.
HARI NEF I knew so much about your work. “Party Girl” is a favorite, but I’d also seen you on “Search Party,” the whole gamut. A friend of mine said that you in “The House of Yes” is probably one of the greatest screen performances he’s ever seen. And he doesn’t play.
POSEY When we met for the first read-through, Thomas said, “I’ve just got to tell you, ‘The House of Yes’ was a big inspiration for me and my writing.” That [script] was Wendy MacLeod’s Yale thesis. I didn’t know that playwriting can be so subversive.
NEF I was always so attracted to you and your work because you were glamorous and you were dramatic and you were cool and you were distinctive and uncompromising, but not in a way that was obvious or traditional. You are beautiful and talented, that is obvious and traditional, but you always did things your way. I knew that if I was going to make a career as an actor, much less as an actress, I would have to do things non-traditionally. I didn’t have anyone quite exactly like me to look to so I looked at your work and I looked at Tilda [Swinton] and Chloë [Sevigny].
POSEY I got lucky because at a time in the culture, you could do Off Broadway and afford your $700 a month apartment. And you could do independent movies: “It’s only 22 days, yeah, I’ll do that one.” It was kind of punk rock or like being in a band. Everyone was hanging out together and it was very organic. It was a little pocket of time that didn’t last that long.
NEF I’ve been able to spend my entire fall and winter doing Off Broadway shows because I did Fashion Week before this and that visibility brings other opportunities. You can get paid three, four, five times what I’m going to make for both these plays combined by going to one dinner and being photographed there in an outfit. I post images of the films I like on Instagram not just because I find them inspiring and beautiful — I do — but it’s me going, “I want to be in movies like this.”
POSEY You’re having the best of both worlds because to be online and have a social media presence is kind of to be your own magazine. I need to learn. But that time is a different time; it is your generation’s time right now.
