Parker Posey said she felt “gaslit” into thinking she wasn’t “viable” for a big Hollywood production despite her standout work in acclaimed indie films.
In an appearance on the podcast SmartLess, the White Lotus star talked about her life and career, which started in the 90s with celebrated independent films like Richard Linklater's coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused in 1993, Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming in 1995, and her standout role in Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s Party Girl in 1995.
She was asked by host Sean Hayes if she considered the “indie queen” label a compliment, likely referring to a 1997 Time story which described her as the “Queen of the Indies”.
“You know what it is? When people point you out in a place as cool as New York City, then you are not cool anymore,” she said to co-hosts Jason Bateman and Will Arnett.
“I felt like I was called a name, in a way. My path was more like, ‘Oh, [The Daytrippers director] Greg Mottola did a reading of his movie that he was trying to get financed’, and then I introduced him to Liev Schreiber who was in Party Girl, and then we do The Daytrippers a year later. It was such a community back then.”
Parker went on to describe Hollywood studios’ involvement in the independent film scene and how she was made to feel that she couldn’t keep up.
“I felt like right when I got exposed, and the whole indie movement got exposed, it also got co-opted by the studio system, and then it became this other thing,” she said.
“All of a sudden, I wasn’t viable to get a movie financed, and it was such a head trip because I would have to audition for Hollywood movies when I had carried the lead in independent movies that were shot in 23 days.
“I’m in a fluorescent-lit room, sweating and feeling like I’m being gaslit, you know? Like, ‘I can promise I can memorise these lines in the script, and we'll have a blast, trust me!’ So, I had, like, a good 20 years of that after, and then working with great auteurs and doing [films], not getting paid a lot, but being able to work and fulfil my creativity.”
Parker, who recently starred in the third season of The White Lotus, has worked with several auteurs in her career, including Richard Linklater in SubUrbia (1996), Kogonada in Columbus (2017), Ari Aster in Beau is Afraid (2023), and several times with Christopher Guest in films like Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), and For Your Consideration (2006).
In a 2020 interview with The Independent, Posey talked about how Hollywood’s shift from independent films made it harder for her to find work.
“I’ve never really got any of the jobs that I had to really jump through hoops for. That’s been disappointing. It’s just a numbers thing now, too,” she said. “What’s that expression? ‘You’re only as great as the last film you did.’ It’s still kind of true. And none of my independent movies made money, so it became like, ‘Why hire her?’”
