I’m always thrilled when a veteran character actor gets her dues, women like Ann Dowd and Margo Martindale, who cut their teeth in theater and now sweep award shows for scene-stealing performances. Among that group, perhaps no one has waited longer for her screen career to blossom than June Squibb; she made her film debut in 1990 when she was 60, and received her first (and only… for now) Oscar Nomination for Nebraska in 2014, at the tender age of 84. Not that June is complaining by any means! She worked steadily on Broadway for decades after moving to New York in her late twenties. So although June is not phased by her late-in-life fame, she’s old enough to know to enjoy it. And she certainly enjoys herself in Thelma, her first starring film role, in which she plays a grandmother out for revenge on the telephone scammer who conned her out of $10K. The Independent just ran a lovely profile on June, here are a few highlights:

A leading lady at 94: June Squibb is 94 years old and would like to commit murder. “Ooh, I’d love to do that!” The newfangled movie star hums a little, pondering the concept. “I’ve been murdered, but I’ve never murdered, so that’d be fun.” Squibb, best known for her Oscar-nominated role as the foul-mouthed family matriarch in Alexander Payne’s monochrome road movie Nebraska, is thinking about her fantasy roles because they’re suddenly — improbably, you could say — achievable. For the first time in her seven-decade career she is the leading lady of her own film, which is in cinemas now.

‘Thelma’ sounds delightfully offbeat: It’s more or less an action movie, or at least a spirited mystery cum thriller, only with a hero who gets tired easily, enjoys doing puzzles and can’t quite work Google. Squibb nails the comic fragility of her character, but also her upset and irritation — gentle widow Thelma Post knows her body is shutting down, and she sure as hell doesn’t like it. That’s partly why she’s so angry when she is swindled out of $10,000 by a telephone scammer. Only then does Thelma become the Liam-Neeson-in-Taken of the geriatric set. … Thelma sets out to identify the crooks and get back her money, partnering along the way with retired thespian Ben (the late Richard Roundtree, in his final performance). Thelma wields guns, toys with criminals and pops a wheelie while riding her mobility scooter. “I did not do that,” Squibb tells me, matter-of-factly. “That was a stunt woman.”

She’s always pushed back against expectations: Despite her parents’ objections, Squibb moved to New York in 1957 at the age of 29, where she found work in plays and in nightclubs. Her success was clear to all, but her parents remained convinced acting was a phase. “My mother once saw me on Broadway and afterwards she said, ‘Well, now you’ve done that, you can come home and get married and have kids.’” She laughs. “And that’s what I mean — I’ve fought it tooth and nail.” Squibb’s voice drops to a whisper. “My father, I think, understood me in his own quiet way. I don’t think my mother ever, ever understood me. Who was this child she had? This child who wouldn’t listen, who did her own thing and said, ‘To hell with everybody else!’, you know?”

Lessons from a nonagenarian: “No matter your age, there is still life to live,” she says. “I know so many people who give up. They don’t move any more. They don’t do this, they don’t do that. There are certainly things I can’t do, but also things I can do. So just enjoy what you’re able to do.” She wants to leave me with a bit of wisdom, too. “We need to have strength in what we want,” she says, firmly. “And if you want it bad enough, you’ll break all the rules to get it.”

[From The Independent]

June is so lovely here, the whole interview feels like a gift. She’s confident without being cocky, encouraging without being sappy, direct without being terse. I was pretty teary reading this — there’s something about seeing or listening to someone who’s lived their life well and thoroughly themselves, that I find very overwhelming. In a positive way! And for June to care so much about conveying the messages of believing in what you want, and that “there is still life to live” at any age, is just so so kind of her. And then she’s also hilarious, in her deadpan clarification that no, she didn’t do the scooter crash stunt work herself, lol. Fittingly, June voices Nostalgia in Inside Out 2, in theaters. Thelma (which has a stacked cast: Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Fred Hechinger, and Richard Roundtree!) is available on demand.

So yes, I thoroughly recommend giving the entire profile a read, as there are gems throughout. There was only one line that gave me pause: “…only with a hero who gets tired easily, enjoys doing puzzles and can’t quite work Google.” How concerned should I be that, aside from the Google part, that absolutely describes me?

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