Extended interview: Tracy Letts and Carrie Coon

So I imagine the two of you get pitched all kinds of projects. The idea of putting Bug back on, how do you sift through the number of things you could do and end up, yeah, you know what, let's do this and let's do it now. Well, Steppenwolf was the, you know, you finally got this up and running at Steppenwolf, and so we've really just been in a fight to try to get it to Broadway since then. Yeah, this falls in the category of something we wanted to do, as opposed to somebody coming to us with a thing and asking us to do it. Because it felt like unfinished business from pre-pandemic? Well, it felt like there was a reason to do the show again, given the state of the world. And it felt like, again, we had an opportunity to do it in a larger house, and we had an opportunity to do it with a director whose work I really admire, and Carrie. Carrie had aged into the part. She wouldn't have been able to play it when we first met, but she's now the age where she can. And when we started it at Steppenwolf, we also knew we had in Namir Smallwood a very compelling Peter, and those Mike Shannon shoes are big shoes to fill. That was a memorable performance. And we knew we need to come at the play in a different way. We'd have to rethink sort of who Peter was. And Namir was just really, you know, he joined the ensemble before me, I think, and firing on all cylinders and doing all that work. And just an extraordinary actor, very watchable. So whose idea for Carrie to play Agnes? Mine. How'd that conversation go? You should play this part. I'm scared. I think you're old enough to do this now. What do you think? You want to do this? You want to take this on? But I mean, I'm told of all the female parts you have written in all of your plays, this was the one you most wanted her to play. Is that right? Is that true? Who said that? I got more in me. I don't know. I don't know that that's true. But the timing of it was, I was just, like you say, I was kind of the right age to do it. I was in the ensemble. We had the chance to do it at Steppenwolf. I think, in fact, I had tried to do it a couple of times before, in just a few years before, a couple of years before with some different actresses, and it hadn't worked out. And in the meanwhile, yeah, you kind of aged into the part. So there are rules of engagement, any playwright and any actor, about how to interpret the words and the ideas that the playwright has written. How are those rules of engagement either intensified or changed in some way when playwright is married to actor? Well, I would say what's actually different is when we're working on a new play of Tracy's, he is very present in the process, and he's in the room with us, and he's reshaping the language. And like when we did Mary Page Marlowe together, we were talking a lot about that play in process, and you were doing rewrites. This play is 30 years old? Yeah. So he's done with it. He already wrote it. He doesn't have to change a word. He just comes in for fun now. And so it's very different when we're working on a new Tracy Letts play versus a published Tracy Letts play. But I just mean the process of, so when you're observing, and I imagine there are times where you would say to an actor, actually, let's think about this. It's no different when that actor's your wife? No. Tracy, I will say, having worked in these kinds of processes a lot with all kinds of people, is a very collaborative artist. And I'm not just saying that because he's sitting here. I think anyone who's been in the room with him when he's working on, especially a new play, would say that he is always willing to hear the best idea in the room. And he's not precious about the language. He is very much engaging everyone in that process. He's willing to throw out, to edit and change things if they're not working. He works very closely with a dramaturg. He works very closely with his director. And the actors are also part of that development. And I think that for actors working on a new play with Tracy, it's very satisfying because you feel invited into that world. You don't feel like he is the boss and you have to do everything he says. He's very open to our experience of doing the play. Is there any dimension that's different because you're married? No, other than... I don't think so. Access. I mean, the fact that we may have a conversation about it over dinner or... Or he'll give me a note in the car ride home that I'll have to go to the director and say, and confess that he gave me a note. Just access. It just sounds very clean. We like each other. We met working together. We're good at working together. We have good communication just all around, just in terms of marriage and life. And again, she knows I tell the truth. I'm not... Right. I don't have to... Yeah. She knows I'm not blowing smoke. That's true. Yeah. Both ways. If you have something to say, whether it's praise or criticism, you know it's the truth. Yes. Even with things I wear. See? Hey, Hollywood game. As a woman married to Tracy, if I come down the stairs and there's something that's maybe not, he'll be like, that's... Let me just say. I suggested to him earlier that maybe there might be a little bit of amending of language. I'm sure he knows when to take care of me too. Like if I was three days postpartum, he's not going to give me that feedback. Right? He knows the appropriate time to give feedback. And he's right. He's got good taste. How did this whole thing get started? We were rehearsing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I was playing George and she was playing Honey at the Steppenwolf Theater. We were both with different partners. And we spotted the one across the room. Yeah. And I think it was kind of obvious to everyone there. It was obvious and it was pretty early. Unexpected. I mean, we have a little age difference. We weren't playing opposite each other. Normally you think of a showman's happening between two people in a relationship on stage. Right. Until they come to their senses and realize that the person and the character aren't the same. What was the energy? Well, we were making a play. We were making a very difficult play together. Yes. Very challenging. Just challenging on every level. Psychologically, memorization, physicality. I mean, it's just a really challenging play. And Edward Albee was still alive. He was present in the process with us a little bit. And it was my first main stage role at a storied theater company. And working with these two titans who I'd seen on stage. And Amy and Tracy at that point had played married couple, I don't know how many times or how many years. Maybe eight times. And so there was this incredible sense of history with them. And so there was a lot. And I had met you at the audition. And when I came in on the first day, Tracy said, I'm very glad you're here. But he meant it in a respectful way. Meant it. He always tells the truth. As an actor, yes. And I felt, again, that I was respected in that process. I mean, it was about respect. You're so talented. He was so talented. And watching them every night was such a gift as a young actor to see. Not to pull out the young card on you, dear. You know, it was really, I learned a lot in that process. But yeah, we just, I don't know. I don't know what it was. We just, it was the right time. We had a palpable attraction to each other. We just wanted to be with each other. And when we confessed to our director and our cast mates that we were officially together by the time we, they were like, yeah, of course. Like no one would, we thought it was shocking. A shocking revelation. Like, yeah, hello. We've been here the whole time. So it was really obvious. And even when my parents were finally, you know, when I reintroduced them to Tracy, not as my cast mate, but rather as my boyfriend, I guess he would have been. They said to me, you know, it's the first time we didn't see you change. That I felt to them like I was still myself when he was around. They didn't see a shift. And that was real. I felt like myself. Because of his capacity. You know, I was aware of Tracy's capacity to kind of hold my life. I would have heard that story entirely differently until I have kids who are married. That's all you want as parents. You want your kid to be recognizable and authentic with their partner. Yep, exactly. Are you two opposites balancing or more two peas in a pod? Well, I'm catastrophizing and Tracy's holding hope. We're neither. We're not opposites. No. There are too many things we have in common. There are too many beliefs we share. There are too many. I mean, we have shared purpose with these children. And I think with our craft, with our careers, we have a shared purpose. Personality wise, we're different. I wouldn't say opposite, but we're different. There's balance. You balance each other in some ways? I think so. I think that's a good word for it. Yeah. And we know, it's very obvious whose purview is what. She's unbelievable. She's just, she does a lot. She's very busy. She multitasks. She does a lot. Are you a little more myopic? I am a little more retiring. I like to be the guy who is reading the newspaper while the women are making all the decisions. That's where I'm most comfortable. Old school. Maybe so. In a way, yeah. In a way. You do leave a lot to us. Yeah. But you'll weigh in if I ask. We're also just, we're in different places in our lives in a way too. I mean, Tracy's entering into sort of this... Oldness? I was going to go elder statesman. But you are, you're in kind of like this, you know, when you turn 60, there's a more contemplative, you're reflecting back on your life in a different way. I'm 44. It's just, they're not the same thing. Yeah. And what Tracy was always really good at is, he's really good at not giving advice, unsolicited advice for anyone. Even when I'm begging him to give someone advice or begging for advice. You have to really beg Tracy for advice. It's actually quite remarkable because I am certainly not like that. No mansplaining. No, nothing like that. No, he's very reserved in that way, which I think is what makes him very attractive and appealing to people. He's not asserting himself in that way. And he always gave me room to grow because I was not in the same place in my life as him. And so our responsibilities in some ways are different. Like what you're sitting in contemplation of at this stage in your life is different than where I am in mine. This is a really interesting point you're raising because it's not like I have a working knowledge of Kierkegaard, but this idea that you live your life going forward and you understand it looking backward. You're in different stages of that process. You're still living your life going forward and there's a little bit probably of looking back. Definitely. Yeah, for sure. So how does that sort of meld? Oh, a lot of jokes. Like your second husband's going to love this couch. Yeah, right. A lot of that kind of stuff. And I'm like, I'm not doing this again. You kidding? It's exhausting. For both of you, this relationship, your partners, your life partners, they had to be theater people, right? Because it's such a consuming world. I think so. I made that... I came to that conclusion a long time ago that whoever my partner was had to be in the profession. Civilians just don't get it. Yeah, it is hard. They just don't get it. It's a hard life. I mean, look, our life is now a life of... There is ease and there is some financial ease and some privilege. But the truth is life of an artist in America is tough. You have to make a lot of compromises. You have to strategize in a way. You deal with a lot of rejection. You deal with... The financial ease I talk about has not always been the case. I got my first credit card at 43. It's a tough gig being an artist in America. So yeah, I needed somebody who understood what it means to be an artist in America, the kind of sacrifices we have to make. And I needed somebody who reminded me that it was important to be an artist and that it was powerful and necessary, which is not something I always have believed. And Tracy, his belief in that has been really unwavering in my experience. Well, when I say in America, that's part of it, right? We value celebrity, but sometimes we undervalue craftsmanship or artists. Even to call oneself an artist in this culture can be challenging. People look at you askance when you call yourself an artist. I'm an artist. You sound like you're... But I'm also... You sound like you're pretentious, you know? But it took me a long time to learn to be able to own that and to be able to say it proudly and to say, not only does this have value, I think it's important. And he lived that when he was broke, and he's continued to live it now when we have, again, some comfort. All right, so let's talk about that, because it is also over the span of your relationship, especially the last five years or so in terms of what's happening with Carrie. I think I was reading some profile from like 2018, and they were interviewing Tracy, and you were saying, he makes all the money, and we're living a very traditional marriage. Because you did. It was September 2018. In fact, he's got the receipts. Yeah, no, I guess I did say that. Interesting. He married well, what can I say? He should have had... I should have had a prenup. But you were making bread at the time, and you said, I think the quote was, he's earning the money. We're in a very traditional marriage right now. Fast forward. A lot's changed since September of 2018. Is there ways in which your success just sort of shakes up the nature of the relationship in terms of power dynamics? Let me clarify my original statement first. A traditional marriage as I saw it, I actually grew up with the example of a very egalitarian marriage. My father did the cooking often and the cleaning. He made less money than my mother. He was a business owner, and she was a nurse, and she worked night shift. So my understanding of what a marriage should look like had both people pulling weight. So I might have said that, but that's not my... It makes it sound like I had some understanding, but I will say this. Yes, I think it has shifted things. Only because Tracy has always been... We both cook, right? We both... I clean out the refrigerator. You're not going to do that, but... Wow. I didn't think I was being taken down for not cleaning out the refrigerator. CBS. But like, when the weight... You will now. The best example of this is when the opportunity came for me to do White Lotus, I turned to Tracy and I said, there's no way I can go away to Thailand for six months. Oh, you had a three-year-old and a six-year-old or whatever. And Tracy was the one who turned to me and he said, we're going to figure this out. And he, especially that first six weeks I was gone, Tracy was doing every morning, get the kids to school. He was doing dinner and bedtime every night and bath time by himself. So that was a really hard six months. I wasn't doing anything extraordinary. I was taking care of the kids while she was going and doing a job. But that's not the case in every... Not every woman gets to leave their family for six months. I'm not pinning a medal on my chest. No, no, and nor am I, because I still have to... But I also, look, we've all run into that guy in the neighborhood who's virtue signaling by all he does. And I'm detecting you were doing this because this is what one does when their partner has an opportunity. Yeah. And we both recognize, I think because we share the same values in terms of the kind of work we choose to do, we know when the undeniable thing comes along and we will both make room for that to happen. That's the thing. Sometimes the job comes across the transom and you go, well, this is the one we have to do. We'll figure it out. So you were gone six months. Vacations, trips, did you see each other? She came home a couple of times for 72 hours. Sometimes to fly 24 hours, to be home for 72 hours, then fly back for 24 hours. Just so the kids could have eyes on her. For you, I know high class problems, but it's real. You're not seeing your kid, but two or three times your children. I mean, it must have been really difficult. Yeah, it was. It was. And I think very hard, especially my daughter, who's three and doesn't have as much understanding of time and what we do. Very hard for her. She didn't like to talk on FaceTime. It made her sad. I will say that when we get to the end of a period like this, we will check in with each other and say, worth it? Yeah. Was it worth it? With White Lotus, we asked the question, worth it? And we were like, might have some long term impact. Borderline, borderline. Yeah, yeah, it was hard. I mean, all kidding aside, there is this calculus, right? Because had you not done your six months in Thailand, maybe you guys don't have bug on Broadway. So it's worth it. On the other hand, you miss those six months and you're never getting them back. How do you do that calculus? Instinct. I mean, it's. Yeah, there's always going to be an opportunity cost, which is my favorite economic term for how to make decisions. Yeah, there's always going to be a cost to it. And we hope we can make up for that in the fact that we're, you know, we are with our children a lot. We do have our schedules are not traditional. So there are many stretches where we're home every day. You know, we take our kids to school every day. We make dinner with them every day. And our kids are being raised. Let's face it. I mean, the worst adversity they're suffering right now is the fact that their mom was gone for a while. You know, otherwise their lives are very comfortable. So and there were a couple of jobs that came my way while she was gone that I couldn't do, which I would have done under normal circumstances. But yeah, just like I'm not doing this. And there was a job. We're going to have one parent at least. That's right. And anything you regret? No, never. And I came back in my age and said, and here's the job that we were hoping to get because of the White Lotus. And I was like, I can't do it because I can't leave right now. I just got back and I'm not leaving. And so you have to make those sacrifices, too, which everyone tells you, well, this is important for your career. And you're like, well, that's too bad because I got to be home now. Would you say if this hadn't come into your life, if you were a couple of actors at Steppenwolf in Chicago, would your satisfaction level with life be any different? I guess I wouldn't know what I didn't know. Yeah, right. You know, I think so. I mean, the truth is that I love working at Steppenwolf. I love working at Steppenwolf. I love working on stage. It was a great place to incubate new plays, a great place to try new stuff. We have a great ensemble there. I mean, any place that you work at for a long time, the familiarity breeds contempt. And so, you know, there's good and bad about that situation. But for the most part, what a great gift to have an artistic home like that. And, you know, I'm so satisfied in my personal life, in my wife and my kids. My family is so satisfying to me. I can't imagine that I would be sitting in Chicago, working at Steppenwolf with a beautiful wife and children, feeling like, oh, but I didn't get something I should have gotten. You had accomplished a lot still, too, by then. And what you realize is I can't take it with you. What does it really add up to, ultimately? And for me, I feel like every place I've been, I was like, this is good. I could stay here. You know, I was at the American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin for four years. Had they invited me to be in the ensemble, I might still be there now. But I got a role at Steppenwolf, and then I ended up in that ensemble. And I barely settled into that before my life changed again. And look, I know how to make chili on a Sunday and freeze it. Like, I know how to live on a budget. We could live on a budget if we had to. You know, we could do that. What we're getting at, though, is not so much whether it's a five-star hotel or three-star hotel on vacation. It's this notion, and I think it's also kind of a disease in our culture. People don't know what is enough. And so now you're living this life very few actors get to live. And I'm asking you, are you still so rooted to the craft that this other stuff, it's nice. Who doesn't like money? Who doesn't like stardom? But that's not what is at the root of your contentment. Oh, definitely not. I can say that speaking for both of us. Definitely not. I mean, White Lotus was a kind of golden ticket for Carrie, but not just because of career opportunity. It's a great show. Mike White's a great artist. She wanted to work with a great artist, right? That's the reason we, it wasn't just a money grab or career advancement. It was more than that. And I have to say that just goes into the calculus. I mean, the first thing we talk, when we have an offer to do something, the first thing we talk about are the practical considerations. Where does it shoot? When does it shoot? And then we talk about the script. What's the script like? That's really the most important thing for us. How good is the script? How can I help tell this story? Is this a story we're interested in telling? And how can I help tell it? So I know there has been moments where you've both been, the post, I guess, is something you were both in, right? In terms of what's left or maybe what's next, how much do you two talk about, and would you like to do something together as sort of male lead, female lead? I don't know. We just played a married couple in an independent movie over the past summer, and that was fun. It's really Carrie's movie. I'm not a big part of it, but I don't know. Our age difference maybe means that we're not great casting for a lot of it. To play opposite him, isn't that what we're doing here? Yeah, right. Yeah. But is there any part of you want that experience, not play right actor, but that chemistry that only can occur between two actors? I feel like I get enough of it at home. I have plenty of chemistry. We love working with each other. We met each other working with each other. We're working with each other now. She was Masha and my three sisters. She was Mary Page Marlowe in my play, Mary Page Marlowe. We did The Post. We did The Sinner. We did this movie, Harmonia, this past summer. And we have a small production company. We're trying to get some properties off the ground. We're like one in which Tracy would be an actor, one in which I would be an actor that he wrote. So we are still working together. We are trying to foster those opportunities for ourselves. Don't feel overly compelled to do scenes with you. We're not the Luntz. That's enough already.