Q&A: Jacki Weaver, actress, 72

Jacki Weaver on hunkering down at home with her husband, her new Australian film - and her spat with Anjelica Huston.

In demand: Jacki Weaver. Picture: John Tsiavis

How are you and actor husband Sean Taylor dealing with the new normal? We didn’t panic but we went into total lockdown in our LA apartment even before we had to. I’m old enough to remember the polio epidemic and I lost lots of friends to AIDS but this is far worse than any of those. We’re reading a lot, and cooking. We’ve been together 18 years now so we know each other very well. We don’t squabble or quarrel; occasionally there’ll be words but that’s usually after 17 drinks.

What soothes you during this anxious time? I’ve got a very tidy pantry – the spices are now all in alphabetical order.

What are you missing most? Going to the cinema.

You have been working constantly in Hollywood for 10 years. Do you land any role you want? No, but I get offered more things than I’ve got the time to accept. Since Animal Kingdom I’ve done 32 films and 52 hours of television. I’ve been very busy, but Hollywood is closed down now and I’m resigned to the fact that I may not work for quite a long time.

We have your new Australian film, Never Too Late, to look forward to… I don’t watch everything I do but I watched this one and I found it unexpectedly moving, even though some of it was very funny. I nearly always play an American so it was pleasant talking in my real voice.

You’ve been Oscar-nominated twice. How important is it that you take one home? It might sound corny, but each time the nomination was really enough; once you get those it changes your life totally. Prizes are lovely but they’re not my raison d’etre. My mother took charge of the Logie I won in 1978 and no one saw it for years. Then when my son was a teenager he said, “Look what I found in grandma’s broom cupboard!”

In your TV series Bloom, eternal youth is not all it’s cracked up to be. Would you want another go-round if you could? No, I’m much more contented than I was in my 20s. I had a wonderful time but it’s really neurotic to wish to go back to your youth. I do look in wonderment sometimes at what’s happening to my body but I don’t lament it, not really.

Are you an introvert or extrovert? I’m very brave when I’m playing a character but I’d rather hide behind somebody at social gatherings. That was one of the great things about being married to Derryn Hinch: he’s such an extrovert – I could just stand beside him at cocktail parties and not say a word.

What sort of film scripts do you reject? Most of the work I do is supporting roles or cameos, which suits me fine but recently I had a lead where I was in every scene, a film called Stage Mother. It nearly killed me, getting up at 3am and doing 12-14 hour days and being in every scene. I like having all the pleasure of being in a good film and none of the responsibility.

Tell us about last year’s run-in with Anjelica Huston. She’d said something disparaging about my film Poms [the actress called it “an old-lady cheerleading movie”] and a journalist asked me what I thought. I just laughed and said, “She should go f..k herself.” It came out that I said it really angrily but anyone who knows me knows I couldn’t care less, really.

Never Too Late is slated to screen later this year. Season 2 of Bloom streams on Stan from April 9.