For Laura Dern, Casting Carol Burnett on ‘Palm Royale’ Was a Dream Come True
On June 6, the 2024 IndieWire Honors ceremony will celebrate thirteen creators and stars responsible for some of the most stellar work of the TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, this event is a new edition of its IndieWire Honors event focused entirely on television. In the days leading up to the event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers.
Ahead, “Palm Royale” executive producer and star Laura Dern tells IndieWire about the extraordinary experience of working with Vanguard Award winner Carol Burnett.
More from IndieWire
As told to Alison Foreman. The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.
When you have the privilege of being raised by extraordinary people and being raised in the business and meeting your heroes — then you get to meet your ultimate hero and you work with them, and they’re not just everything you dreamt of but they’re beyond your wildest dreams — it brings tears to my eyes. As an artist, as a comedian, as a producer, as a friend, as a cat lover, there’s no part of Carol Burnett that doesn’t just blow my mind.
For me, seeing Carol for the first time is intertwined with all my memories of childhood and my grandmother, Mary Lanier. I watched “The Carol Burnett Show” with my grandmother throughout my childhood. She was my grandma’s happy place and therefore the thing I shared with my grandma. We shared “The Carol Burnett Show” and “I Love Lucy,” and those were the two women who deeply shaped my passion to become an actor. I would say my earliest memories of Carol are probably around five years old; I think “The Carol Burnett Show” was even on when I was born. I loved specific skits with guests. Some of my favorites were attached to characters and some were attached to extraordinary costume design. I loved Harvey Korman and I loved Tim Conway, but Carol and Vicki Lawrence together was just my obsession.
I finally met Carol when I was 13 years old. She and her daughter Carrie had been radical advocates in physical and mental health for teens looking at issues of addiction. They had come to my school and given a lecture about living a healthy life and talked very honestly about drug use. It was a massive moment in my childhood and my friends’ childhoods. To have the experience of witnessing her as a parent and as a public figure that I loved so much speaking so openly was a huge moment. I met her there and she knew my mother, Diane Ladd, but I had not been around her before then socially, so that was a huge impact on me.
In a way, it was easy cold-calling her for “Palm Royale.” When I had made the same casting call to Kristen Wiig about the show knowing what Carol means to all of us — and knowing specifically what she means to women actors, women who’ve gone into comedy, women who have been heroes in sketch comedy like Kristen, women who pursue or even consider the idea of being producers — she was and is the hero in all those areas. As the show was shaping and the writers were working diligently, it was clear there was going to be this role of Norma Dellacorte. Casting Carol was my dream come true.
Just to have the excuse to be around her would’ve been enough, not to mention that she’s a television genius. But then making the call and proposing to Kristen that we might be lucky enough to see if she would really be game to play — and feeling like they would just be such a dream for viewers together as a pair — was unbelievably exciting. I’ll never forget at the first read through Kristen was in tears. It was really beautiful to palpably see what Carol meant to all of us and to see specifically what she meant to Kristen. To know they were going to have so much fun together, it was the greatest time in the world. It was unheard of.
As a producer to feel that my producing hero was walking on the set of something I was involved in because of the likes of she, my mother, and Jane Fonda was a full circle moment. To hope and dream that I could help support a project that would then give artists and female actors, including Carol who inspired me to want to be a storyteller beyond acting, a great time to invent was extraordinary. To see her professionalism, her grace, her enjoyment of being on set — which I see with both my parents as I’ve had the privilege of working with them — to witness that working in a happy place for artists was a gorgeous thing. To be part of feeling like I was one of many people facilitating that opportunity, that felt incredible.
I am always surprised when a very famous and very beloved particularly iconic public figure is radically humble and radically generous in their time, in their storytelling, in their commitment to the work. As much as I’ve been around it, I’m always thrilled and surprised when I see that. To see that it is Carol who is the most professional on a set, who is the most prepared, who is coming five minutes before they’ve called her to set waiting in her chair because she doesn’t want to hold anybody up, that is frankly startling. My parents taught me the rigor and commitment of being the most professional person possible in every environment, but I think we’re all stunned and sit with great admiration when it’s the person that doesn’t have to be the most professional who almost always is. With Carol, she’s earned the right to say, “Let me know when everybody else is there.” And yet, anytime you walk on set, she’s already there.
To be a great artist with consistent staying power, someone who continues to grow and evolve over the course of their career and works a lifetime, that takes the adoration of everyone around you — every crew member, every cast member, feeling like a respected participant in the process. Not because you’re trying to create that as a persona, but because it’s the truth.
Your collaborators, every single one of them, make radical and valuable investments in the stories you create and in the comedy you create. From Carol’s perspective, that includes even those who’ve challenged you, those who have stood in your way, those who have made you feel that what you are worth was too much to ask for. Carol has reminded me of that personally and continues to remind all of us that you can turn those obstacles into self-advocacy. Like Carol, you can become a producer and create your own show because somebody implied they’re never going to let you do that. Somebody at a network said to her, “Well, we don’t do variety shows.” Somebody said to her, “Women aren’t going to produce their own content.” For all the people that stood in her way, those are collaborators of Carol’s on some level too. She tells those stories with joy and humor and fire — not resentment and bitterness. I think that gifts us with the light-filled gorgeous luminous Carol that we keep getting.
My greatest memory to date with Carol is throughout the show she would say to me, “If we could do one thing, Laura, when the show ends and we have some time, can we please have dinner with your mom?” I got to sit along with Carol’s amazing husband, Brian Miller, and the two of us got to watch my mom and Carol share stories. It’s one of the great pleasures of my life to be with literally the two heroes that raised me — one on my television and one in my home — and hear their stories of fighting to become actresses in New York City. To watch the two of them share with such joy those memories and therefore inspire me endlessly was once again a dream come true. I’m just privileged and honored that I now consider and get to call Carol family in my life. Honoring her, I think there is no one more deserving.
Read Carol Burnett’s IndieWire Honors profile.
Best of IndieWire
Unsimulated Sex Scenes in Film: 'Nymphomaniac,' 'The Brown Bunny,' 'Little Ashes,' and More
Every Palme d'Or Winner from the Cannes Film Festival, Ranked
The Best Father and Son Films: 'The Tree of Life,' 'The Lion King,' and More
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
