Linda Cardellini Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images Logo text DTF St. Louis might have been in a categorical pickle if it weren’t a limited series. As anyone who’s watched the seven-part HBO series can attest, it can be both devastating and deliriously funny. That’s not easy to pull off. Unless, of course, you’re Linda Cardellini.
In some of the series’ more memorable moments, Cardellini is swimming in an oversized umpire’s uniform. It’s something her character, Carol, wears for the part time job she’s taken to make ends meet — providing physical comedy to a woman navigating a lost marriage and a troubled son in a manner that keeps things from ever getting too dark.
Related Stories
TV Gotham TV Awards: 'DTF St. Louis' Takes Two Awards as 'Pluribus,' 'I Love LA' Win Key Prizes
TV Tubi Nabs 'Scooby-Doo' Anime Series From Warner Bros. Animation
Cardellini’s eclectic career has been punctuated by quite a few tragicomic performances: Dead to Me’s Judy Hale, perhaps the most notable. But in DTF St. Louis, where she’s one point of a love triangle that also includes Jason Bateman and David Harbour, she treads an even finer line. This is something Cardellini quite enjoys. “I feel grateful that I’ve had a career for this long, for sure,” she says. “But the idea that I’ve been able to do this for many decades, and things are really fun right now? I’m especially grateful for that.”
During a recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Cardellini spoke about her work on DTF (she trained with a real umpire!), the movie that most frequently comes up when she’s stopped by fans and why she’s got two horror projects lined up.
Looking back at the time between a first audition and getting an offer, what’s been the longest or most circuitous route to a role you’ve ever taken?
The longest are ones that I don’t get. When I first started, I think I went in for a television show almost 10 times — and then did not get it. That year broke my heart. The following year, I got Freaks and Geeks. So I think I learned early on that when you go in too many times, it’s not going to be you. And that’s OK. But you still get your heart broken.
And you were like, what, 20 years old when they had you come in 10 times?
Back in the day, it was just a big, long process, which I’m happy to be out of at this point in my career. Offer only as a huge perk of having a long career, but it doesn’t always happen.
Linda Cardellini in DTF St. Louis. Photograph by Tina Rowden/HBO I read somewhere that people thought you’d left the industry when, in reality, you were starring on six seasons of ER late in its run.
I had somebody say, “Where did you disappear to?” And I didn’t know that that had happened. (Laughs.) Meanwhile, I remember going to Europe and people coming up and saying, “Emergency room!” Sometimes, what the industry is talking about is not necessarily what people who come up to you on the street are talking about.
What were the indications that you got from the industry that you had no longer “disappeared?”
While I was on ER, I was also in Brokeback Mountain. So, by that point, if you believed that I had disappeared, I think I was back in your eyesight. I’ve been lucky to be able to support myself since I started. So I may have disappeared here and there, but I was probably still working somewhere on a set.
What did you think DTF St. Louis was going to look like when you were making it? Tonally, it’s one of the more unique shows I’ve seen in a while and I imagine there could have been many different versions of it depending on the edit.
I loved the script so much. I loved how it was written. I remember reading Carol and thinking, “I know who she is.” By episode three, she’s this one person. Then, when it gets to be four or five, you realize she’s different than you thought. The idea that she’s not as dishonest as you think she is was fascinating to me. Because what you’ve seen [up until then] is this manipulative, kind of greedy person. And that’s not exactly who she is. The men, you get to know them really easily. But her, not so much.
In your experience, is it often not like that? Somebody like Judy in Dead to Me, you know her. You know her heart. You don’t know what she’s done, necessarily, but you know her heart right away. Somebody like Carol, she’s impassive in a lot of ways. I thought that the show had a beautiful tone. The outcome of anything you never truly know, but I just thought that everybody involved was so incredibly talented.
This show could have strictly focused on male loneliness and mostly followed Jason and David’s characters, making you the wild card. What did Steve tell you about Carol when you were talking about coming on board? Well, Steve always contends he loves Carol. He loves her as a character. So, his care for her and us discussing her always made her feel vital to that triangle. Even though the men and their relationship is really the center focus, I think her being the third in there really helps with the mystery. It helps you see what is happening beyond just the two of them.
Most importantly: what did you learn about umpiring?
I learned it’s a good way to make cash. You get to be out in the sunshine. I learned how to do strike and the counter in my hand. I took a little class with a local umpire. It was great. I don’t know that I could really ump a game, but Carol wasn’t the best umpire either.
The show was billed as limited, but, by all accounts, was incredibly successful. Do you think there’s a world where it keeps going?
I think that would be wonderful because it would be fun to see what Steve would do with it. As far as the St. Louis crowd goes, we are limited for sure. It’d have to be DTF Omaha.
Some of your most prominent TV work — Freaks and Geeks, Dead to Me, DTF — really straddle the line between comedy and drama. That’s more common now, but it wasn’t at the top of your career. Has this throughline been by design or accident?
I never really thought about it like that. Thank you for noticing. (Laughs.) At the helm of those shows, they had people with very specific voices who had a very specific vision of what they were going to do. What they thought was funny. What they thought was dramatic. And I think that really is something that separates it. And those [people] also chose me. So there’s something, I guess, about me that sort of straddles that line.
Linda Cardellini in DTF St. Louis. Photograph by Tina Rowden/HBO You’ve been in a lot of cult hits and many mainstream successes. So, if you’re at the mall, what are people approaching you about the most? What comes up the most with interactions with strangers?
Scooby-Doo comes up a lot. A lot. It’s shocking to me because, when it came out, it wasn’t the same as it is now. Those kids have grown up. They watched it so many times when they were young and now they’re grownups. It means something to them that it did not for the grownups watching it during the time. That’s one that I have noticed, as years have gone on, I’ve gotten more and more and more. But it’s also Judy from Dead to Me and then Freaks and Geeks.
In recent years, you’ve really leaned into horror: La Llorona. You’re filming the new Bill Hader movie. You wrapped Crystal Lake, the Friday the 13th prequel series for Peacock. Were those roles not your thing earlier in your career?
Yeah, I didn’t really do that. I didn’t really do that. So now I’m doing it! Sometimes they’re just really great roles for women. With La Llorona, it’s just this story about this woman trying to protect her kids. And we shot it in L.A. and it took place in the seventies and all those things just seemed fun to me. With Crystal Lake, A24, Peacock and [creator] Brad Caleb Kane all came together and they just had this concept for making this story about Pam Voorhees. And if you watch the original movie, it really operates like a whodunit. Spoiler: at the end, you find out that it was Pam Voorhees.
A character who’s barely seen.
She’s only in the movie for the last little bit, but she leaves this impression on the entire franchise. There’s so many movies subsequent that you’d think Jason’s always been in that mask doing what he’s doing. But that wasn’t the case. I don’t think he gets the mask a few movies down. It just seemed like something that I had never done. I haven’t seen that many female slashers like that. To dive into who she might have been, I thought, well, that’s something I’ve never done. When I’m looking for things to do next, I ask myself what’s something I haven’t done yet. And that was one of them.
To your point, the original Friday the 13th is just about a pissed off mom who’s seeking vengeance.
Yeah, because they let her son drown! There’s fertile backstory there!
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
