Netflix ‘Ozark’ Star Julia Garner Talks With THR on Her Emmy-Winning Role, Getting Turned Down for Roles as a Teen and Her Dedication to Her Craft
It is unconscionable that Ozark‘s Julia Garner had next to no luck starting out in her entrancing acting career, but now she is thriving.
It is a guarantee that you could not forget Ruth Langmore after watching the hit crime drama series, Ozark on Netflix. More accurately, Emmy award-winning actress Julia Garner. The 26-year-old is show-stopping, so how is it that a casting director once stopped her in the middle of an audition to tell her she should leave? Garner tells all to the Hollywood Reporter, how she went from failed auditions and awkwardness to well-deserved stardom.
Garner began acting classes as a means to overcome shyness. Maybe we should thank Nickelodeon for not selecting Garner for the part she auditioned for at age 15. Her third or fourth acting audition did not go so smoothly either. Garner tells the Hollywood Reporter, “The casting director stopped me in the middle. She was like, ‘Honey, you’re great, but you shouldn’t be here.’ I’ve never been stopped in the middle. I was like, ‘Excuse me?’” Shocking isn’t a definitive enough word.
Don’t hold your breath, it wasn’t over yet. “The casting director] is like, ‘You should do independent films,’ ” Garner spills to the Hollywood Reporter. “I was too natural maybe in terms of acting. I was just too weird-looking. When you think about teen actors, you think of them having this gorgeous, luscious hair and being so pretty that you’re like, ‘You would never be the shy girl in high school.’ I was definitely not [the luscious hair girl]. My style, it’s still the same. It’s been the same since I was 6 years old, which is a black turtleneck.”
Fast forward 11 years, and you have a jaw-dropping Primetime Emmy Award-winning “It Girl.” Approximately 29 million viewers tuned in to Netflix to binge watch Ozark in the first four weeks of the pandemic lockdown.
Julia Garner used acting as a way “to overcome my shyness,” after multiple learning disabilities prevented her from being able to read until she was 10
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 12, 2020
Ozark Co-star, Laura Linney, who plays the role of Wendy Byrde, describes to the Hollywood Reporter Garner’s remarkable talent: “Julia throws herself into her work with an abandon,” Linney says. “She doesn’t even remember what she’s done after they yell cut. You can see her face morph in ways that you cannot do if you’re self-conscious. She sticks her finger right into the socket.”
Garner takes her dedication to her work so seriously that she literally finds herself lost within a scene. “I never like the feeling of remembering a scene, because that means that I wasn’t present,” she gushes. “If you’re hearing yourself talk, you’re not listening. It’s the same thing when you’re acting. If I remember what I did on a take, I ask to do it again.”
You can read the full interview of the remarkable Ozark actress Julia Garner on the Hollywood Reporter here.
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