Laurie Metcalf Had the Broadway Season of Her Life and She Earned It

"When it rains, it pours. That’s basically what happened this past year and a half."

Tony and Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf reflects on her remarkable Broadway season, Death of a Salesman, co-star Nathan Lane and the enduring legacy of Roseanne's Aunt Jackie.

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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

Obviously, my first real question is: You have two shows up for Tony consideration, and also multiple projects up for Emmy consideration. Do you not like taking breaks?

I do not like taking breaks. [laughs] This was a wonderful year for me, but these kinds of years are few and far between. When it rains, it pours. That’s basically what happened this past year-and-a-half.

And it has poured for you.

Yeah, it poured. I was caught in a downpour. I’m soaking wet. What can I say?

Let’s start with Death of a Salesman, because that’s the one everyone’s talking about right now. When it was announced that you and Nathan Lane would be paired in this show, anyone who loves theater or Broadway immediately had a little tingle, because you two are icons. What is it about the pairing of the two of you that made people so excited?

Nathan and I had only worked together once before, in a David Mamet play called November, and that was ages ago. I came up in theater in Illinois, so I’ve known of Nathan forever, decades and decades, but I didn’t meet him until that play. I was working with this icon, and then I started to do more and more theater around town and eventually got on the New York theater radar. To be paired up with him…. Nathan is like the ultimate scene partner. You want somebody who is quick on their feet and ultra reliable, and it’s hard to think of anybody better at that than Nathan. He is such a solid partner up there that it takes away a lot of the jitters. He’s just so dependable. We share a sense of humor, which makes for a really fun rehearsal room despite the heavy drama. And I don’t want to call it heavy, heavy drama, because there actually are some laughs in it. More than a handful. But it’s been an honor to share the stage with him. When I went back and looked at the play on paper, it’s really a father-son dynamic, and he and I don’t actually do all that much together. But we open the first and second acts together, so I get to be out there with just him. I wasn’t really able to have that much of him to myself in November. So I’m really cherishing these times on stage with him.

You mentioned jitters. I can’t imagine someone with your resume still getting those. Do you?

Oh yeah, definitely, all through previews. It’s a fear of not quite knowing what you have until audiences teach you that last missing puzzle piece. And an honest panic about going up on lines. I drill and drill and drill before, after, during, but it happens. I’m terrified of it because I’m not very good at getting myself out of the situation. If I were a good improviser, I wouldn’t worry so much, but I come to a dead standstill and need scene partner help to get out of wherever I messed up. That said, I actually have more jitters in front of a camera than in front of 1,500 live people.

Why is that, do you think?

It’s a little mental, because with a camera, if you go up on your lines, you just start over. It’s no big deal. But I just feel more relaxed and comfortable live on a stage. I feel way more prepared, because you’ve spent three or four weeks in a rehearsal room honing your part of the story. I feel grounded and secure in how I want to do the part. Whereas I’ve felt way under-rehearsed in most everything I’ve done on film or tape.

With Death of a Salesman, and also Little Bear Ridge Road, I feel like both shows say something about where we are in the country right now. Starting with Salesman: What do you think it says about where we are, and why do you think this production feels more relevant than recent versions?

I’ve never seen another version, and people tell me afterwards that they’re hearing certain lines in a new light, so I can’t fully speak to that. But for the 75 years it’s been around, it hits audiences differently depending on the era. The father-son theme is still strong, but the financial problems, the confusion of “I did everything right, I played by the books, why aren’t I further along?” really lands with me when I sit backstage and listen to it every night. I also forget how risqué it was when it first opened. The boys are talking about girls in a very coarse way, and then you have the father being found. People who know the play know what I mean. Those things on a stage in 1950 must have been so shocking. Some of that shock value is probably lost on a modern audience, but everything else I think is still hitting home. And in Little Bear, Sam Hunter, the playwright, wanted to write about people who are struggling with money in a really realistic way. That was one of the reasons he put those two characters together.

With Little Bear, there’s the money component, but I also think film and television haven’t been able to capture the trauma of COVID the way theater has. Theater was fundamentally hurt by COVID in a way film and television weren’t, and so to have a play that explores those themes of isolation and trauma, I think Broadway has spoken to that experience better than other forms of entertainment. What was the impact of Little Bear in terms of how audiences received those messages?

Sam set it during the outbreak of COVID and the two years following, and he was so smart about it. He used it as a plot point. The nephew shows up wearing a mask, which I think triggers the audience a little, like, is this going to be all about this? But he used it as a device to force these two people to live together for the next two years, in a world where jobs are scarce, you’re on top of each other, you’re just watching TV, everybody’s stalled out with no progress being made. We never actually refer to COVID by name, except for that. The mask was a great device to have looming over the show, but really it was the perfect mechanism to glue them together, whether they wanted it or not. I remember in March of 2020, I was nine previews into a little play called Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Just a tiny one.

Which tried to kill me, and then Broadway shut down. We thought we’d have two weeks off and come back. Then I went back to The Conners, which was one of the very first things back. I’m forgetting some of it now, but I remember the testing every day and how that drove production costs through the roof with all the medical requirements. Everybody really took a hit, but I thought Sam used it all really well.

One of the reasons audiences come to your shows and watch your television work, I think, is the intimacy of what you do. In theater, it’s live, and in television, you’re in our homes. We have this very close relationship with you. So when you bring these characters to life who are living the experiences we’ve all been living, it somehow makes it deeper. I don’t see Angelina Jolie on my couch, but I can picture sitting on the couch with you.

I can see Aunt Jackie vacuuming furiously around that couch, really, really mad that she’s being distracted. Just everybody get the hell away from me.

With everything you’re doing, the Broadway shows up for consideration and now your television work like Big Mistakes, what do you think it is about that intimate relationship audiences have with you that makes the characters you play feel so real to us?

When I first got that part [Aunt Jackie on Roseanne], I knew Roseanne was so good and so popular that the pilot had legs. I’d never done TV before, but I had an inkling this thing could run for a long time because of her. And it crossed my mind: do I want to be on a show where I might get typecast? Do I want to spend nine years doing one part that’s a broad character, third banana, because that’s what it was. That’s my sweet spot, by the way. I love that level. It’s pretty broad, they can’t use you too much because it becomes too much, so you come in, get your laughs, and get out. But also, because of that broadness, I worried these characters get stereotyped. Would I be able to go back to theater and have people not see me only as that character? That was a consideration I had for one second, until the casting directors told me I was out of my mind and should obviously take the part. But when I did return to theater, I’d mostly been in Chicago, so when I tried New York theater, I did feel like I had a target on my back for coming from TV, because nobody knew me from Steppenwolf. I had to prove myself in New York as something other than this crazy character from a TV show.

How do you think you did? Because Jackie is culturally defining, she’s on T-shirts, she’s an icon, and for you to move on from that and do the work you’ve been doing in theater really is a testament to you as an actor.

I have to give that over to audiences who grew up on that show, because for them to be able to separate Linda Loman from Aunt Jackie, if you really grew up on that show, is probably a little hard to do. So I have to give a lot of props and thanks to the audiences who are able to do that.

Do you know how big a cultural impact your performance as Aunt Jackie has had, particularly on millennials? She’s become this representative figure: the single woman just trying to get by, living in the shadow of her sister. Do you understand how significant that is?

I didn’t, I guess, but when you point it out, I think of her as kind of a victim with an attitude. She’ll never give up trying, but there’s always something else that happened, you know? She didn’t always quite take responsibility for the mistakes she made along the way. What I find funny is that over nine seasons, really, really good writers can look at an actor and see their strengths and start writing to those strengths. That cements a strong character, because they’re highlighting what they think you do best comedically. I can see what you mean about her being identifiable. I like that with her, it’s like the show must go on. We’re just gonna keep moving forward.

Which is kind of you in a lot of ways, too.

I guess so.

Were you surprised by the level of comedy you’re capable of, given your theater background at Steppenwolf?

Coming up at Steppenwolf specifically, we were all the same age, all got together, there were like seven of us, because we had the same sense of humor. And mostly what we did was try and crack each other up. We were working on plays, and yes, we tried to make each other cry in the plays too, but mostly it was about spinning a line in a funny way, or doing something physically funny that your fellow actors, your peers who you were learning how to act with without knowing it at the time, would appreciate.

After Roseanne, you could have easily gone the route of trying to get your own sitcom and probably had a very good career doing that. But you focused on characters. You were always a character actor, and now, particularly on television with Big Mistakes, but also your performance in Monster this season as Augusta Gein, your character work is just so insanely strong. Do you consider yourself a character actor, and do you hope to be remembered as one?

Yeah, I guess I would. That’s definitely what I am. I gravitate toward those. I like being the engine of a show, like in Little Bear, driving a lot of the scenes and being out there the whole time. But I also get a really different enjoyment out of being a character. There’s something very fulfilling about knowing how and when to balance a scene when you’re the second or third lead. Or even smaller than that, like in Hacks: how to just come in and read the situation. Those little parts, cameos, where you just arrive and then you’re gone the next day. To get a handle on the situation and figure out what you can bring, where should my energy come in to match these people, and what can I add in my little moment before they kick me out tomorrow? I find that just as cool a challenge as anything else in acting, figuring out the best way to support the other actor and the scene itself.

You do it so well. I also have to tell you, you probably don’t know this because you’re a very busy, very professional actor, but there are a lot of homosexuals who quite literally lost their minds the year you were up for the Academy Award alongside another icon of TV, Allison Janney. Do you know how much that polarized the community? There were fights. We’re still fighting about it. Do you know?

Oh, that is so funny. Allison would love that, I hope she knows! Oh my God, that’s so funny!

It is accurate.

That is so funny. That’s a huge compliment, thank you very much. If I’m going to be polarizing somewhere, that’s exactly where I want to be.

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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 4:00 AM.