Laurie Metcalf

22nd April 2019

Join us for a conversation with veteran actor Laurie Metcalf. You almost definitely know Laurie from TV’s Roseanne. For 9 years she played Jackie, Roseanne’s sister on the show. She’s now starring in The Conners, the ABC produced spinoff of the show. She’s also an Academy Award nominee for her work alongside Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, the fascinating, beautiful coming of age film directed by Greta Gerwig.
These days, Laurie’s been working a lot on Broadway. She’s been nominated for a bunch of Tony’s and won 2017’s Best Actress award for her role in A Doll’s House part II. In a profile earlier this month the New York Times called her “The First Lady of American Theater.”

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Photo: Dan MacMedan/Getty Images
Laurie Metcalf on her Academy Award nominated role in ‘Lady Bird’
Laurie Metcalf is a veteran actor. In the late 1970s, while she was in college, she and a few of her classmates started putting on plays at a Unitarian Church in Deerfield, Illinois. Those classmates included people like Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, and Tracy Letts.

The theater, called Steppenwolf, became one of the most acclaimed theatre companies in the US. Maybe you were lucky enough to see Laurie in the Off-Broadway rendition of Balm in Gilead back in the 80s – she won a bunch of awards for her part in it.

You almost definitely know Laurie from TV’s Roseanne. For 9 years she played Jackie, Roseanne’s sister on the show. She’s now starring in The Conners, the ABC produced spinoff of the show.

In 2017, she was nominated for her first Academy Award for her starring role opposite Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, the fascinating, beautiful coming of age film directed by Greta Gerwig.

The movie centers around the title character, Lady Bird McPherson, a high school senior living in Sacramento, California. She’s played by Ronan. Lady Bird dreams of leaving Sacramento, moving to the east coast, going… wherever writers live, she says.

These days, Laurie’s been working a lot on Broadway. She’s been nominated for a bunch of Tony’s and won 2017’s Best Actress award for her role in A Doll’s House Part II. In a profile earlier this month the New York Times called her “The First Lady of American Theater.”

This interview originally aired in February of 2018

In this episode...

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  • Laurie Metcalf

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Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

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