Sister Act: Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, and Carrie Coon on ‘His Three Daughters’
“That’s gonna be the fuckin’ headline for this piece, isn’t it?” Natasha Lyonne asks, in the most Natasha Lyonne way imaginable. “‘Natasha Lyonne Does Not Slide Into Directors’ DMs.’ Which, y’know, trust me — you’re going to get a lot of people writing in to say that isn’t true!” The actor stabs a fork into a healthy mound of pancakes that her manager had brought her several minutes ago, which she’s been attacking with what can only be called extreme gusto.
Sitting a few feet away, Carrie Coon and Elizabeth Olsen both burst into laughter. The three of them have been doing a photo shoot all day at New York’s Pier 59 Studios, and they’re all just south of completely exhausted. Lyonne really needed the blood-sugar lift. Coon and Olsen really needed that laugh. “I just don’t slide into work DMs. Make sure you print that,” Lyonne says.
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This is the first time that the stars of His Three Daughters, the new film from Azazel Jacobs that hit Netflix on Sept. 20th after a brief theatrical run, have seen one another since the shoot wrapped back in 2022. The story of a trio of estranged sisters who convene at the family’s cramped Manhattan apartment to say goodbye to their dying father, the drama was written by the Momma’s Man filmmaker with each of these specific performers in mind. Jacobs had known all of them previously: He worked with Olsen on the 2018 Facebook Watch series Sorry for Your Loss; he was friends with Coon through her husband, Tracy Letts, who starred in his 2017 film, The Lovers; and per Jacobs, he got to know Lyonne after she reached out to compliment him on one of his films, hence the DM clarification. (At a post-screening Q&A later that evening, Jacobs mentions that before they formally met, he attended one of Lyonne’s birthday parties — much to her surprise. When asked how he snuck in, the director admitted that he went as the guest of the actor Lucas Hedges. “So Lucas was the mole!” Lyonne exclaims.)
But because of last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike, Coon, Olsen, and Lyonne weren’t able to attend the movie’s premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. And since they are collectively the three busiest working actors in film and TV right now, and they’ve only got a short time to do press together, they’re elated to finally be in one another’s company again.
The onscreen dynamic among the fictional siblings runs the gamut between frosty and outright hostile: Katie (Coon) is an uptight, type-A personality with a weakness for red wine and passive-aggressiveness. Christina (Olsen) is a doting mother and a Deadhead who acts as the family’s resident peacekeeper. Their half sister, Rachel (Lyonne), is a stoner who still lives at home, having looked after their ailing dad until things got really bad. The only thing they have in common is their father. That, and a need for closure as he enters his final days.
“It’s funny, because none of us knew each other, but Aza wrote all of these roles for us knowing we’d complement each other,” Coon says. “Yet none of them are tailored to who we are. I mean, I can be controlling. But it’s not like Natasha is a pothead.”
“No, I just present as one,” Lyonne says. “Pot’s not my bag. I’m actually an ex-junkie. But I see why he thought of me, and at first I was like, ‘Oh, no, it’s another “Here’s Natasha as a druggie”’ — which I’ve already done so many times, on screen and in life. [But then once we started] I was riding so hard for two strangers, but it was like, ‘I have to do this because of them.’ And now these two are, legitimately, two of my favorite people of all time. It’s not like a ‘I need to talk to you guys every day’ kind of thing, but it’s so for-real.”
After filming what’s really a three-hander character study in tight quarters, Coon, Olsen, and Lyonne definitely seem a lot like actual sisters now, nestled around a coffee table in a quiet nook away from the set of the shoot they just finished. They’re protective, affectionate, and have a tendency to finish one another’s sentences or reduce each other to tears over inside jokes. It wouldn’t be surprising if they suddenly lapsed into a special secret language usually reserved for twins.
“We were literally lying on top of each other in between shots,” Coon admits. “Usually during lunchtime, you’re like, ‘Let me find some space.’ This time, it was like …”
“ ‘Get over here and help me do the New York Times Spelling Bee!’ ” Lyonne yells.
“In the morning, if one of us wanted smoothies, we all had to get smoothies,” Olsen recalls.
“I remember a lot of” — Coon breaks into a perfect imitation of Lyonne’s rasp — “‘Who’s having a gree-eeen juice?’”
“She’s a health nut,” Olsen says, pointing at Lyonne as she scarfs down another mouthful of pancakes.
“Yeah, you may not know this about Natasha, but every decision she makes is in regard to her health,” Coon says, deadpan, as Lyonne nearly laughs the food right out of her mouth.
The mutual-admiration society was forged quickly over the four days the cast and Jacobs rehearsed in the actual apartment where they shot, on the Lower East Side. There was also the sense that the filmmaker was tapping into something about each of them that they couldn’t see. Olsen says she feels like she often plays harsher, more aggressive roles, so she was surprised that Jacobs saw her playing someone “softer, more nurturing.” Lyonne — who gives the best performance of her career here — admits she didn’t feel she was at the level of her co-stars at first. When she lost her voice near the end of the shoot, she was willing to get steroids from a doctor in order to power through. Coon and Olsen both told her to prioritize her health, and Lyonne says “that created a vulnerability between us. Aza saw that I could be vulnerable. But it wasn’t until they let me feel comfortable enough to go there that I could play it, y’know?”
Coon wasn’t shocked that Jacobs cast her as domineering — “I think my family would say that!” — so much as the fact that he thought she’d be the perfect third corner of this particular triangle. But she did notice that being part of this specific ensemble opened up something in her that she found instructive. “It’s forced me to acknowledge the ways that I am withholding,” she says. “Like, women friends have been a real late development in my life. It’s something I’m still working on.”
“Not with us you’re not,” Lyonne says. “It’s such a joy to be your lady friend.” And before you know it, the three of them are wiping away tears and laughing and huddled together like there’s no other place these lady friends would rather be.
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