Queen of the Indies Parker Posey was about to quit before Woody Allen offered her a role in his new film, Irrational Man

SHE was on the verge of giving up her movie career. But when indie film star Parker Posey met Woody Allen everything changed as she “burst into tears”.

MORE than two decades after her breakout role in cult classic Dazed and Confused, Parker Posey was on the verge of giving up.

Dubbed the “Queen of the Indies” for a string of roles in the ‘90s (Henry Fool, Waiting For Guffman), she’s also dabbled in the odd blockbuster, including Scream 3, Blade: Trinity and Superman Returns. “I’ve tried!” she says about her attempts to pursue more commercial work. “I say ‘Yes!’ But then another part of me says ‘No’.”

Of late her most memorable work has been on the small screen, including an acclaimed recurring part on Louie — “what he’s doing for TV is more like film was for my generation” — and a hilarious sketch on Inside Amy Schumer as a nut-phobic whose head explodes.

But Parker admits she felt like the industry had moved on without her.

Rita (Parker Posey) and Jill (Emma Stone) in a scene from IRRATIONAL MAN, directed by Woody Allen. In cinemas August 20, 2015. An Entertainment One Films release. For more information contact Claire Fromm: [e-mail]

Movies have been in a genre phase for the past 15 years and I was feeling like I was still in the ‘90s,” she explains every bit as offbeat and kooky in real life as she is on screen. “ ‘Oh wow, another festival and I’m not in it — I don’t have a film there in Toronto, I don’t have a film there at Sundance’, and I was going and thinking about other career options.”

She considered teaching and began to lay the groundwork to turn her house in upstate New York into a wedding venue. But before she could do anything rash, she received an offer to meet with Woody Allen about a key role in his 45th film, Irrational Man.

“I was told it (the meeting) could last a few minutes or just a few seconds — it didn’t mean anything,” Posey recalls. “Owen Wilson met him for seven seconds and got cast in Midnight in Paris.”

As it happened, their meeting lasted for a leisurely 3.5 minutes — “you meet him shaking one hand and with the other foot out the door” — and she got the call he wanted her for the role while out walking her dog one morning.

“I just burst into tears,” she says. “I was just made aware of how much stress and worry (I’d been experiencing) about my place as an actor … really feeling out of style and out of place. I just blurted out ‘I feel like I’ve been gambling’.”

Rita (Parker Posey) and Abe (Joaquin Phoenix) in a scene from IRRATIONAL MAN, directed by Woody Allen. In cinemas August 20, 2015. An Entertainment One Films release. For more information contact Claire Fromm: [e-mail]

In the film she plays dissatisfied academic Rita, who yearns for Joaquin Phoenix’s Irrational Man (a brilliant but troubled philosophy professor) to take her way to a new life, even while he’s having an affair with a student (Emma Stone).

“(Rita is) feeling like she’s not living the experience of her life,” Posey explains. “She envisaged bigger things, more freedom, more independence and has a fantasy of being rescued.”

It sounds like Posey could relate …

“That’s why I got cast,” she says. “I think he (Allen) saw that. As a certain point in your life you do feel trapped by what you do and you just walk the path you know.”

Her performance has been cited by numerous reviewers as a highlight of the film, and she’s already working with Allen on his next film, opposite Blake Lively, Bruce Willis and Jesse Eisenberg.

Actor Courtney Cox (l) with Parker Posey in scene from film "Scream 3". three /Films/Titles/Scream/3

But she’ll continue to work on her wedding venue plans. “It doesn’t pay that much” she explains of working for Allen. “(But) I would do this for free. I did this for free in the ‘90s. I’m not in this for money, I’m an artist — I know that’s weird!”

And she says she’s just happy to be in a film that gets people talking about something deeper than which minor Marvel superhero will be in the sequel.

“At this time in cinema, to be able to talk about the philosophy of filmmaking and of the director, and what they say, what they do, has been fun,” she says. “We went to Cannes and it was nice and interesting to hear the dialogue about it. I think people really want to talk about it. We want this culture, we want the dialogue that a movie like this opens up.”
Irrational Man opens today

Actor Christopher Guest (l) with Parker Posey (c) and Michael Hitchcock in scene from film "Best in Show". /Films/Titles/Best/in/Show

Originally published as Queen of the Indies Parker Posey was about to quit before Woody Allen offered her a role in his new film, Irrational Man