Parker Posey:

It’s been a long time, but I still see this girl. “I’m still that girl, are you kidding?” she said.

I met that girl in 1985, when we were both 16, at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. “We were serious young performers,” she said. It was a decade before Parker Posey became one of the breakout stars of the 1990s independent film heyday.

We met at a loft which was the very first place she stayed on a trip to New York City. But she’s very much a product of her Southern upbringing – and the two people she calls the stars of her family. “My dad would take my mom on dates,” she said. “They would go to the grocery store, ’cause they didn’t have money, and he would make up stories of the people going in and out of the grocery store to make my mom laugh. So, entertain yourself! And if you can’t, work on it, you know?”

And that’s what Posey has been doing with particular relish throughout her career. Whether the part is big or small, there’s always the sense that she’s having fun with it, whether it’s “Dazed and Confused,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “Josie and the Pussycats,” or “Scream 3.”

Parker Christian Posey and her twin brother were raised in Monroe, Louisiana, and Laurel, Mississippi. Her mother Lynda was a chef, and her late father Chris owned a car dealership. Her Southern roots came in handy for season three of “The White Lotus,” where Posey was Emmy-nominated for her portrayal of the pill-popping and much-quoted North Carolina matriarch Victoria Ratliff.

Was any part of that character her mom? “Oh, my God, of course!” she laughed. “It was all the women in my family, and some people that – I mean, I love the drama that the South brings. I remember being in a grocery store and I just thought this woman was hilarious, and she goes, ‘Do you have the ROH-maiiiiiine lettuce?’ You’re just like, Wow! ‘ROH-maiiiiiine’!”

Posey spent several of her summers working at her father’s car dealership: “I was always imitating people and putting on accents. I liked speaking over the speaker. And I’d say, “Good morning. Chris Posey Chevrolet Nissan. How may I help you? Mike Wally, you’re needed on line one. MIKE WALLY, LINE ONE!!!!!!’ Every time would be just, like, start with this, and then just start yelling. I laughed.”

While attending the acting program at State University of New York in Purchase, Posey was cast as Tess Shelby on “As the World Turns.” “I auditioned on a Monday, and by Tuesday I was packing my bags, and Wednesday I was on camera acting on plastic rocks and AstroTurf, and getting all this wonderful help from the great actors that I was working with,” she said.

Her first big lead was in the 1995 film “Party Girl.” Plum roles in a slew of lower-budget, critically-acclaimed movies followed, such as “Clockwatchers” and “The Daytrippers.” That led to a 1997 Time magazine article proclaiming Posey “The Queen of the Indies” – just as the independent film scene itself was going into decline.

So, was that moniker a mixed blessing? “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said. “When someone’s called a name, it’s not a great thing. You’re labeled and you’re in some corner, right? And then you’re not that cool anymore. There’s something about being on the pedestal that must be knocked down.”

Still, she kept on working, notably as part of Christopher Guest’s ensemble, in movies like “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show,” where pretty much all of the dialogue was improvised.

“Chris saw that people weren’t having children anymore; they were having dogs,” Posey said. “And then we started seeing kind of the marketing of dogs, and they just seemed to be more prevalent than they had been. And I’m part of that generation. I had a dog that was like my child.””

She’s also been getting lots of young fans, “which feels good, because I don’t have kids of my own. So, I have these 19- and 20-year-olds coming up, talking about ‘Party Girl’ or movies that their parents [watched], or ‘The Daytrippers,’ these independent movies that they’re really enjoying. And that feels so good.”

Posey is having yet another moment: hosting a new reality show called “The Mob,” and starring alongside John Malkovich and longtime friend Sam Rockwell in the movie “Wild Horse Nine.” She’s in two scenes and, as always, makes them count. “If I like something, it doesn’t matter if the part’s big or not, if it’s resonating for me as a whole,” she said, “which ‘Wild Horse Nine’ just really felt like. It was like a play … as an actor, you enjoy the whole play.”

But I wanted to go back to a moment much earlier in her life, when our acting teacher at the North Carolina School of the Arts said this about a teenage Parker Posey: “She’s better than she realizes.” “She’s gonna make it.” And also, “She’s more beautiful than she knows.”

“That’s so sweet,” she laughed. “I loved my teachers, yeah. I still, oh, now I can’t believe now I’m crying! So grateful I had that guidance. But also my family, I had that guidance, too. Like, I feel like my life has been such a path. It’s not been easy at all, but I have felt in the right place at the right time.”

Story produced by Kay Lim. Editor: Jason Schmidt.

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