Patricia Clarkson on Lucille Ball

“I didn’t think about being a movie star when I was a young girl but my father and I had a huge love of Peter Sellers and Lucille Ball. Those are the people I remember from my childhood, of imprinting on me or having an effect on me. I was obsessed with Lucille Ball, I watched her all the time. I just loved her, and still, I have these beautiful neighbours who live across the hall from me, these twins who I’m quite close to who are now 13, and they have this incredible love for her too. We just sit and talk about our favourite episodes and relive the candy factory or the Martian. I could never pick a favourite episode; that would be sacrilegious. You can dissect it and pull apart what made her great but she was just fucking funny. And it just remains so, it never wavers, it never lessens, the impact of her comedic ability – it just remains great.”

"You can dissect it and pull apart what made Lucille Ball great but she was just fucking funny" — Patricia Clarkson

Everyone loves Patricia Clarkson. From Martin Scorsese to Woody Allen to first-time directors, Patty as she is affectionately known is the go-to actress for subtle, complex parts few others could play quite like her. Her range is extraordinary, and she can switch from comedy to tragedy in a well-timed instant. Scene-stealer is an epithet often handed to her. Just as charming as a leading lady, the 54-year-old New Yorker is soon to star alongside Sir Ben Kingsley in the film Learning to Drive. “It’s about a woman actually learning to be in a room with someone, learning to really love and be intimate and present. Which is a very difficult thing,” she says, but something she will surely manage to tease out with remarkable, deceptive ease.

This article features in the A/W14 issue of AnOther Magazine alongside AnOther Thing I Wanted to Tell You... with Gia Coppola, Buzz Aldrin and more.