Julia Garner has described her five years on Ozark as the equivalent of going to college. Garner skipped the dorm rooms and the questionable cafeteria food and enrolled in a trailer park crime ring with Ruth Langmore as her entire course load. The Bronx native, once painfully shy, is now promoting The Altruists, the Netflix series where she plays Caroline Ellison. Judging by the results, the education clearly stuck.
While The Altruists gives Garner a new face to wear, her real origin story belongs to a trailer park hustler and a five-year education.
Julia Garner says Ozark taught her more than any classroom
Julia Garner views her time on Ozark as the closest thing she had to a college education. The Netflix crime drama ran for five years and made Ruth Langmore her breakout role. It brought her a Golden Globe and three Emmys. Her co-stars Jason Bateman and Laura Linney doubled as professors.
“It was like my equivalency of college, college years,” she said to CBS News.
She then added, “I was on that show for five, five years, and it was such a learning experience for me.”
Garner told CBS News that Ruth Langmore taught her not to be so scared, and that her life looked very different before the role. Even a 2022 Golden Globe nomination for Inventing Anna could not calm her, since she disliked being watched constantly and felt it was getting to her head. So the 2023 actors’ strike sent her to a clown school in France, where she failed often and called it the best feeling.
As Garner learned in France that failing can be fun, one famous biopic is proving the lesson is never done.
Julia Garner says the Madonna biopic changes every hour
Julia Garner has no clear answer on whether the Madonna biopic will ever reach cinemas, because its status changes every hour according to the actress herself. She told CBS that she is as much in the dark as everyone else, and that the final call is not hers to make. The project has sat in limbo since its 2023 postponement, years after Madonna put her lead through a famously punishing audition process.
Garner stays hopeful regardless, saying she gained a great friend and learned how to work from Madonna. That bond has already produced a 2023 tour stage appearance and a role in the second season of The Studio. The studio side is messy too, with Madonna describing a budget dispute with Universal Pictures and a payout demand just to reclaim her own script. Hollywood gave Garner three Emmys for playing a criminal mastermind, yet it cannot give her a straight answer about a pop icon’s biopic.
What are your thoughts on Julia Garner calling Ozark her college? Let us know in the comments.
