From creatorEvan Romanskyand executive producersRyan MurphyandIan Brennan, the Netflix seriesRatchedcrafts a haunting origin story for the iconic character of Nurse Ratched inOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The story begins in 1947 as Mildred Ratched (Sarah Paulson) arrives in Monterey County in Northern California seeking employment at a psychiatric hospital conducting experimental procedures on the human mind. While she presents herself as the perfect nurse for the job, Mildred has a deeper and darker mission she’s pursuing which comes with potentially dangerous consequences.
During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actressCynthia Nixon(who plays Gwendolyn Briggs, the woman in charge of the state governor’s bid for re-election and interested in romancing Mildred) spoke about Murphy’s presentation for this project, the wide array of juicy characters, how this role pushed her, whether she’d consider doingAmerican Horror Story, her upcoming seriesThe Gilded AgefromJulianFellowes, and much more.
COLLIDER: This is one of those shows where it must have been so delicious to sink your teeth into a character like this.
CYNTHIA NIXON: Totally. I feel like not only my character but it’s such a broad canvas with so many characters, so many juicy parts, and so many astonishing actors. I’m in my portion of the show, that’s mostly with Sarah Paulson and some with Vincent D’Onofrio, so it was even more exciting than usual to see it all edited together because there are just all of these worlds inside ofRatchedthat I never got to see.
When you got the initial word about this project how exactly was it presented to you? What does Ryan Murphy say when he presents something like this?
NIXON: He really spoke to me about the moment in American history whenRatchedstarts, which is 1947, right after World War II has ended. He spoke about it as a moment that was such a terrible awakening for women who had been such an integral part of the war effort on the front and even more so back at home, and having opportunities and responsibilities that they had never been offered before. And then, as soon as the war ended, they were told, “Thanks so much, you can go back and sit down now.” There are a number of female characters inRatchedwho have such big ambitions and who have wide horizons that they were seeing for themselves that are now cut off at the knees.
When he told you about your character, did you immediately say yes or did you need to think about it?
NIXON: It was a combination of digesting what he had said and reading the scripts. That was the clincher. And Sarah Paulson and I are old friends, so I was very excited about the prospect of working with her. I also knew that with her in the lead and as an executive producer, it was gonna be terrific.
Had you and Ryan Murphy ever talked about working on projects before this one?
NIXON: No, I hadn’t. Obviously, I knew who he was and I had seen a bunch of his things. You can’t see all of it. There’s so much of it. No, I had never thought about it. In my 40-some years of being an actor, I had never before considered doing a television series in Los Angeles before. Maybe that’s part of it. But whenRatchedwas coming down the pike, I had heard about it for a while, not necessarily for Gwendolyn but just being told, “There’s this Ryan Murphy thing, starring Sarah Paulson, and there’s a bunch of really strong female roles and you might be right for any number of them.” That’s how it was presented to me.
You’ve previously talked about watching the show with your son. Had he seen the movie prior to watching the show?
NIXON: No, I don’t think he’s ever seenOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestbut I think he would really like it. He’s really a student of film, so he recognized all the ways it was noir and all the way it wasn’t.
What was his impression of the series, and what was it like to experience the show through his eyes?
NIXON: I think he enjoyed the mixture of the scary elements and also the campy elements. He did say that, as soon as he watched one, he wanted to see the next one. you’re able to’t ask for more than that. My wife and I and he all watched it.
One of Ryan Murphy’s talents is that he really seems to see things in his actors that they might not even realize is there and he pushes people with the material that he gives them. Does that go a long way in establishing the trust between him and his actors? Does that create an environment where it does feel like that sense of trust is there?
NIXON: Yeah. He’s a collector of actors. He’s a student of actors. In the same way that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of art and old movies, he also has an encyclopedic Rolodex of actors in his brain. As actors, we so admire Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Susan Sarandon. We’re already on his side, by his great taste in actresses in particular, but specifically actresses over 40, 50, and 60. They are some of the best actors around but because of their age, they’re not always given the opportunities they should be, except by Ryan Murphy.
How do you feel Murphy most pushed you, as an actor, in working on this project?
NIXON: I feel like there’s a certain bubble in which a lot of the characters that I play exist and I’m feeling Gwendolyn is really outside of that bubble. Of course, she’s gay and I’m gay, and she’s in politics and I ran for governor, so there are certain predictable things that he might think of me for this role. But she’s so the force of light and optimism and the path of goodness. In life, I am a very optimistic and fairly sunny person but I never get to play that. I didn’t have to add a whole bunch of ticks or a sudden temper. It was hard to trust that would be enough but knock on wood, I think it was.
When you do something in this time period, do you find that affecting how you walk, talk, and carry yourself?
NIXON: Yes but the clothes are incredibly helpful in that regard. It’s the heels and stockings, the tight skirts and fitted jackets, and the hats and gloves. Your face is always very made up and with red lipstick. You just have to carry yourself in a certain way when you’re encumbered with all of the things that a woman needed to be wearing in 1947. It would be such a relief when I got to take it off, at the end of the day. I would thank my lucky stars, every day, that I was not living in 1947 and had to find some way to do my hair and put on a hat.
This character certainly seems like a woman who’s a bit ahead of her time. She really has a sense of who she is, even if she can’t fully express that to everyone. Does she feel to you like someone who was ahead of her time and are there things about her that you were impressed by?
NIXON: One of the great things that Ryan Murphy does is that he goes back and looks at these periods and looks at where people of color and queer people have been erased from the narrative and he puts us back in. I feel like, in trying to imagine what Gwendolyn was like and how she dressed and how she moved, I dove to get into this historical figure I’m very fascinated by, named Lorena Hickok, who was Eleanor Roosevelt’s lover. She was a journalist and moved in a very male world and was hard drinking. She had a bunch of love affairs with women and had her heart broken many times, as Gwendolyn has also. The pool of women who loved other women and moved in the circle of lesbian bars and underground was a pretty small pool of people. There was a lot of effort to remain closeted to anyone who was outside the circle but within that world, it must’ve been just these really incredibly dynamic, impressive women, like Gwendolyn.
After having this experience with Ryan Murphy, are you hoping to continue working with him on other projects? Would you be game to do something likeAmerican Horror Story?
NIXON: I tried to watchAmerican Horror Storyand only made it through one episode, I was so terrified by it. So, I don’t know. Working with Ryan Murphy in general? Absolutely. I’m not sure it will beAmerican Horror Storybut who knows? I didn’t think that a character like Gwendolyn would be my forte either but Ryan Murphy thought differently.
When you play a character like this, where you really get to dig in, does that make it hard to find the next role that gets you as excited, or do you find that there is still quite a variety of characters out there that you respond to?
NIXON: When you get a juicy character like this, it’s actually really helpful in keeping your bar high. I’m gonna start, knock on wood, filming a new television series in New York, calledThe Gilded Age, which is a Julian Fellowes show about New York in the 1880s. Again, it’s a very different character but a very, very juicy one with another large and extraordinarily talented cast. These two roles and these two projects are very different but I hope they will be equally satisfying.
What was it about your character inThe Gilded Agethat you felt drawn to?
NIXON: I play an old maid and spinster who lives with her older, more powerful, widowed sister, who’s played by Christine Baranski. Our newly orphaned niece who comes to live with us, says of us, “One of them is clever but not very kind, and one of them is kind but not very clever.” So, I am the “kind but not very clever” one. Again, it’s the kind of thing that I don’t usually get to play. The character is incredibly feminine in her spinsterhood and all about her heart, and not about power and not about being able to stand up in traditional ways but having to, in a very feminine way, backchannel her needs and her desires.
Ratchedis available to stream at Netflix.
Christina Radish is a Senior Reporter of Film, TV, and Theme Parks for Collider. You can follow her on Twitter @ChristinaRadish.
