We caught up with actress Amanda Warren at the New York premiere of her new film “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” which is now playing.
You may remember Warren from season one of HBO’s The Leftovers. She played Mayor Lucy Warburton. Since then Warren has appeared in a number of other projects, but 2017 may be her biggest year to date. She played William’s mother on NBC’s hit show This Is Us. She appeared alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem in Darren Aronofsky’s buzzy Mother! She also stars in the soon-to-be-Oscar-nominated film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This marks her second film with director Martin McDonagh, as she also worked with him on Seven Psychopaths. Warren also got to work with the legendary Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq. Check out our exclusive red carpet interview with her below:
OJ Williams: You’ve just been having a great year from Three Billboards to Mother! to now Roman J. Israel. Talk about really breaking out this year and kind of finding your lane of where you want to be.
Amanda Warren: My first audition of this calendar year was for This Is Us for William’s mother, which I fortunately was blessed enough to land. It has just been non-stop, I am very happy to say. It is the crazy schedule that you always dream of, and I’m just so happy on so many levels. You just want to keep going, keep putting your best foot forward, keep putting one foot in front of the other. These have been some exquisite movies that make you think, that are thought-provoking, funny, intelligent.
OJ Williams: Let’s bring it back to Mother! You’ve got Jennifer Lawrence, you’ve got Javier Bardem. How was working on that project?
Amanda Warren: It was great. When Javier throws me down, it was great. All day, he just threw me down. It was fantastic. Jennifer and Javier are real team players. Darren is definitely an actor’s director. He will be there for you, even in the ADR session, which is just the looping of the sound. We were just having a great time. We come from kind of the same pedigree. He went to NYU film school. I went to NYU undergrad at Tisch. He’s that collaborative guy. He’s got it, and nothing needs fixing. He is just so open and available that he just makes you feel like you were really truly part of something and really made a contribution. That’s never lost on him I feel like.
OJ Williams: Now you have Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It’s getting a lot of Oscar buzz. You’ve got Frances McDormand!
Amanda Warren: Frances is my hero.
OJ Williams: Peter Dinklage.
Amanda Warren: And Peter Dinklage, Clarke Peters, Caleb Landry Jones, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Woody [Harrelson], who I got to work with again, and Sam Rockwell.
OJ Williams: I heard Sam steals the show.
Amanda Warren: That’s what he does. You just put him on screen and it’s like, “I’d better be ready today. Everything that you did last night, be ready honey.” Hopefully, I was. It’s a great group of people. Martin [McDonagh] really knows how to get them together.
OJ Williams: Then lastly, you have Roman J. Israel, Esq., in which you are power.
Amanda Warren: Working with the Gilroys, yes. Amazing.
OJ Williams: You deliver in every scene.
Amanda Warren: Thank you. I haven’t seen it yet. I’m so excited. It’s not everybody that can handle firing Denzel Washington or coming to blows and saying, “This is what’s happening because I said so.” Usually, it’s the reverse. I had a few months to get ready for that … He’s a blessed man and one of the most precious gems in cinema. A real honor. Didn’t think it would come this early, me sharing the screen with Mr. Washington, but it has. I’m very blessed. It’s not lost on me, and hopefully I can just keep going and pursuing my dreams.
