June Squibb on becoming an action star at 94: ‘I’ve fought convention tooth and nail’

The Oscar-nominated star of ‘Nebraska’ speaks to Adam White about age, youthful rebellion and her very first time as the lead of a movie – in the mischievous new comedy ‘Thelma’

‘No matter your age, there is still life to live’ (Getty Images)

June Squibb is 94 years old and would like to commit murder. “Ooh, I’d love to do that!” The newfangled movie star hums a little, pondering the concept. “I’ve been murdered, but I’ve never murdered, so that’d be fun.”

Squibb, best known for her Oscar-nominated role as the foul-mouthed family matriarch in Alexander Payne’s monochrome road movie Nebraska, is thinking about her fantasy roles because they’re suddenly – improbably, you could say – achievable. For the first time in her seven-decade career she is the leading lady of her own film, which is in cinemas now.

The mischievous, inventive Thelma also isn’t quite what you’d imagine a film led by a nonagenarian would be. It’s more or less an action movie, or at least a spirited mystery cum thriller, only with a hero who gets tired easily, enjoys doing puzzles and can’t quite work Google. Squibb nails the comic fragility of her character, but also her upset and irritation – gentle widow Thelma Post knows her body is shutting down, and she sure as hell doesn’t like it.

That’s partly why she’s so angry when she is swindled out of $10,000 by a telephone scammer. Only then does Thelma become the Liam-Neeson-in-Taken of the geriatric set. Despite worry from her family (daughter Parker Posey, son-in-law Clark Gregg and grandson Fred Hechinger, of The White Lotus) about her declining health, Thelma sets out to identify the crooks and get back her money, partnering along the way with retired thespian Ben (the late Richard Roundtree, in his final performance). Thelma wields guns, toys with criminals and pops a wheelie while riding her mobility scooter. “I did not do that,” Squibb tells me, matter-of-factly. “That was a stunt woman.”

Squibb is at home in Los Angeles, serene in a black shirt dress decorated in white swirls. Her hair is a glamorous ocean wave of silver, and behind her is a bookcase decorated in awards. There is an inherent kindness to her – but also a sharp, astute practicality. Squibb doesn’t do maudlin.

I don’t think my mother ever, ever understood me. Who was this child she had? This child who wouldn’t listen, who did her own thing and said, ‘to hell with everybody else!’, you know?

“I’ve physically been diminished,” she says. “But this is what happens and you can’t control it. You live with it. I have to use a cane, and sometimes if there’s a long way to walk, I’ll use a wheelchair.” She shrugs. “At first that bothered me, but not any more. It’s like… I don’t wanna walk! Push me!” She lets out a big, lovely laugh. “You do naturally want to say, ‘Oh, I can do it!’ Well… there are things you can’t.”

Thelma was inspired by a similarly zesty older woman, specifically the grandmother of the film’s writer and director Josh Margolin. The real Thelma Post is still alive and kicking at 103, and currently living with Margolin’s parents following the death of her husband. “We’ve always been close since I was a kid,” Margolin explains over the phone. “If anything I’ve always thought of her as a pal.” The real Thelma thankfully hasn’t been scammed but has shared a similar trajectory to the fictional Thelma.

“She’s always been very smart, very capable, and a self-starter in a lot of ways, but I think – probably due to the times – any kind of life driven by her wants and needs got put slightly behind my grandfather’s career and his life,” he says. “She became a wife and a mother, primarily.” When Margolin’s grandfather died nearly a decade ago, though, Thelma flourished. “She had this long, 70-year stretch of being part of these other ecosystems, and this was the first time ever that she had her own space and could keep her own schedule and do her own thing.”

Squibb’s own story was very different. Born in Illinois in 1929, she was determined to march to the beat of her own drum. Even more impressively, this was an era in which specific and rigid expectations were thrust upon young women. “I fought that all my life,” she says. “When I was a kid, when I was a young girl…” She flings her arms to her side, as if telling the universe “Enough!”. Despite her parents’ objections, Squibb moved to New York in 1957 at the age of 28, where she found work in plays and in nightclubs. Her success was clear to all, but her parents remained convinced acting was a phase. “My mother once saw me on Broadway and afterwards she said, ‘Well, now you’ve done that, you can come home and get married and have kids’.” She laughs. “And that’s what I mean – I’ve fought it tooth and nail.”

Silver surfing: Fred Hechinger shows June Squibb the online ropes in ‘Thelma’ (Magnolia Pictures)

Squibb’s voice drops to a whisper. “My father, I think, understood me in his own quiet way. I don’t think my mother ever, ever understood me. Who was this child she had? This child who wouldn’t listen, who did her own thing and said, ‘To hell with everybody else!’, you know?”

Squibb had a son in 1970 at the age of 40 – maintaining her unconventional streak. By then, she’d married a director and acting teacher named Charles Kakatsakis and kept up her career. She made her film debut in 1990 – aged 60 – with a tiny role in Woody Allen’s Alice, before working on and off Broadway throughout the rest of the decade; her CV is also peppered with occasional guest star roles on TV. One was her beloved Law & Order, the cops-and-lawyers procedural drama that she watches to this day. (“Though FBI on Tuesday nights on CBS is my favourite show right now,” she politely informs me.)

Her biggest break was a small part as Jack Nicholson’s wife in 2002’s About Schmidt, whose death kick-starts his character’s existential crisis. Alexander Payne directed that movie and remembered Squibb more than a decade later for Nebraska. The film was a hit, earning Squibb an Oscar nomination. It’s one of the great supporting performances of the 2010’s – spicy and profane, Squibb throwing herself into a character who swears like a trooper and flashes the gravestone of an old and apparently deeply boring old flame.

Lots of small bursts of work followed – she memorably played Lena Dunham’s ailing grandmother in an episode of Girls, and recently voiced Nostalgia in Inside Out 2 – but the Oscar attention didn’t transform her ambitions. Even getting top billing in Thelma hasn’t changed how she works. In other words, there have been no diva moments. “I appreciated it, but it hasn’t made any difference,” she says. “I worked from a script. I learnt my lines. My way of working didn’t shift. I didn’t change at all.” Still, she admits to finding pleasures in the newfound attention. Had she been on a billboard before Thelma? “Yes,” she hesitates, “but not alone!” She chuckles. “I’m not going to pretend it’s not exciting.”

Funny and profane: Squibb in 2013’s ‘Nebraska’, which earned her an Oscar nomination (Shutterstock)

Margolin says he immediately saw the “spirit, grit and single-mindedness” of his grandmother in the actor he chose to play her on-screen. “June was just a consummate pro,” he remembers. “She never dropped a line, which is crazy for an actor of any age. But she also comes from the stage and an era of acting where there’s so much discipline and so much training.” She turned 93 during filming and insisted on doing as many of her own stunts as she could. “But we were obviously hyper-concerned and hyper-focused on making sure she was as protected and safe as possible,” he says. “She didn’t do the scene where Thelma falls down – we didn’t shove June in the dirt in the middle of the night, I promise. But she ended up doing a lot more physical performing than we anticipated.”

As for Squibb herself, she hopes that audiences come away from Thelma with more faith in themselves. “No matter your age, there is still life to live,” she says. “I know so many people who give up. They don’t move any more. They don’t do this, they don’t do that. There are certainly things I can’t do, but also things I can do. So just enjoy what you’re able to do.”

She wants to leave me with a bit of wisdom, too. “We need to have strength in what we want,” she says, firmly. “And if you want it bad enough, you’ll break all the rules to get it.”

‘Thelma’ is in cinemas