People, Places, Preoccupations
JESSE DITTMAR/REDUX
17
The Conners
to Broadway
(But Not Out
on the Town)
D
on’t expect to see Laurie Metcalf
holding court at Sardi’s after
performing in one of the most
anticipated shows of the spring
Broadway season, Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf? That’s not just because the Broadway-
adjacent bistro hasn’t been cool since the
1980s. Metcalf prefers to spend her free time
holed up in whatever apartment producers
have rented for when she’s on the stage in
New York.
“I’m kind of a hermit, so this just gives me
an excuse. ‘Oh, rehearsal was so hard today.
It’s my only day off this week. I have to stay in
tonight. Sorry!’ ” says the L.A.-based actress,
who stars with Rupert Everett in two-time
Tony w inner’s Joe Mantello staging of Woolf.
(Previews begin March 3.)
Metcalf, 64, has been a fixture on American
TV since 1988, famously playing the neurotic
Jackie on Roseanne and now ABC’s revival
turned spinoff The Conners, but she is enjoy-
ing a sustained renaissance. Her past four
Broadway performances earned consecutive
Tony nominations, with wins for A Doll’s
House, Part 2 (2017) and Three Tall Women
(2018), joining three Emmys (of 11 career nom-
inations) and an Oscar nom for 2017’s Lady
Bird. Spared the full for-your-consideration
gantlet by the staging of Three Tall Women,
Metcalf looks back on her Lady Bird awards-
season run as “quick and fuzzy — talking
about yourself that much is hard,” she says.
Self-aggrandizement and glad-hand-
ing are clearly not skills in the demure
Midwesterner’s otherwise full toolbox. The
Illinois native was reminded of this while
playing a fictionalized Hillary Clinton in 2019’s
Hillary and Clinton. In fact, recent cover-
age of the New Hampshire primary gave herLaurie Metcalf (“I’m kind of a
hermit”) returns to the stage in
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
By Michael O’Connell“I love knowing
where a really
strong, juicy
laugh line is
coming, teeing
it up in just
the right way
and getting
that response,”
says Metcalf.