“We’re the Alien Nation”: Cailee Spaeny, by Glenn Close

When Cailee Spaeny’s agent first called her about Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment in director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series, they flagged one potential drawback: Spaeny might be too young for the role. “Rian [Johnson] still doesn’t know, but when I met him in person, I wore these absolutely massive hooker heels underneath my long pants,” Spaeny recalls. “ I thought maybe if I just held myself in a certain way, he’d see that I was a woman who could play the role.” Despite being the youngest person on set at 27, and joining a cast of industry heavyweights, the Priscilla actress quickly found her footing. One of her biggest guiding forces was the quiet, intuitive generosity of her A-list co-stars, including Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Daniel Craig, Josh Brolin, and the legendary Glenn Close. To make sense of her whirlwind journey into the beloved Knives Out universe, and what comes next, she reunited with the Fatal Attraction icon for a warm conversation about getting famous, staying grounded, and resisting the algorithm.

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CAILEE SPAENY: So I watched our movie again this morning.

GLENN CLOSE: Oh, yeah?!

SPAENY: I just burst into tears at the end of the film. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching it. I could talk about it all day—and you are absolutely brilliant. I can’t believe that Rian [Johnson] did something as bold as he did. I mean, we probably understand how scary that would be, to confront that early childhood inner conflict growing up in the church. It’s definitely something I can relate to. To lay it all out there while also being incredibly entertaining, working within a genre and being silly and landing the plane and having everyone in tears by the end. You just saw it again, right?

CLOSE: Yeah, I watched it again.

SPAENY: I’m so proud to be part of it and it’s like, the easiest movie to promote because I can just talk about it all day. And I think you were such a big part of setting the tone of leaning in and making it a completely joyous experience to walk on set every day and work on this material. You and Daniel set that tone of real play. And being the youngest on set, it was something I was really clocking and it gave everyone else permission to follow suit.

CLOSE: You never know, do you, when you enter a group of people that you don’t know. Did you know any of the actors when you came?

SPAENY: No, I didn’t know anybody.

CLOSE: So I just want to know, did Rian call you? I mean, how did you get cast? What was that process?

SPAENY: I have absolutely no clue where it came from. I’m too afraid to ask how it came about. I got a call from my agent that he wanted to meet and then it was just my main mission to figure out, “What do I need to say to get this role?” I remember he had said, “I think you might be too young for this part.” He still doesn’t know this but then, when I met him in person, I wore these absolutely massive hooker heels underneath my long pants. I thought maybe if I just held myself in a certain way, he’d see that I was a woman who could play the role.

CLOSE: [Laughs] That’s really interesting what you say about really connecting with Rian as far as childhood’s concerned. I don’t think we ever really talked about it, but I have the same experience. I don’t know if this happened to you, but beliefs are basically imposed on you, you want to please everyone, at least I did. As a kid, I was a little soldier.

SPAENY: Yeah, same.

CLOSE: When I came out of it, I didn’t know what to believe in. It’s like I went right into college and I remember making the conscious decision to not trust any of my instincts because I thought they’d all been dictated to me. Did you go through any of that?

SPAENY: I’m still going through that. I mean, I’m 27, and right now is just trial and error. It’s such a relief when you get that all laid out in front of you. “This is good, this is bad.” How great was that? How great was it every night to give it up? I miss that part of it. That’s what I really responded to in Rian’s script. I mean, I think a lot of me was replacing the church with film sets. I craved community, and I remember you speaking about that a bit. What do you call it? Like, you’re the alien?

CLOSE: We’re the alien nation.

SPAENY: The alien nation.

CLOSE: Artists with our kind of brain and soul, we’re the alien nation. For actors in particular, empathy comes because we have mirror neurons and you look into somebody’s face who’s experiencing some deep trauma or tragedy and you mirror that. I’m sure it would be interesting to talk to somebody who’s done research in this area.

SPAENY: Well, we definitely all tuned into each other, didn’t we? Without having a conversation about it, I just felt like your antennas went to me. Like I said, it wasn’t one moment I could pin down. It wasn’t like, “I’m taking you under my wing.” It was just a slight shift towards me, and that felt really generous. There’s so much that doesn’t need to be said with us actors. I think it’s like, “I see it, I got it.” And that was really cozy for me.

CLOSE: Chemistry is everything, really. Okay, I’m going to do a little thing. [Laughs] I’m going to say the name of an actor and you give me your knee-jerk reaction. Will you do that for me?

SPAENY: Oh, yes.

CLOSE: It might be fun. Okay, Daniel [Craig].

SPAENY: Daniel, oh god. The B jokes.

CLOSE: Oh yeah, bad jokes. That’s all you have to say.

SPAENY: They come in with the worst jokes and they were genuinely shocking. [Laughs]

CLOSE: [Laughs] Josh O’Connor.

SPAENY: I think of helping him write his best man speech. Best writer’s room he could get.

CLOSE: That’s right. Now, Josh Brolin.

SPAENY: Oh my god. He’s so mischievous. And I’m thinking of him coming in and doing Shakespeare for all of us on the pulpit.

CLOSE: We all were just pulverized.

SPAENY: Oh, he did Caesar. It wasn’t Shakespeare.

CLOSE: Yeah, it was.

SPAENY: I love his brain.

CLOSE: Kerry Washington.

SPAENY: I just remember her bag being very organized with a lot of gluten-free snacks.

CLOSE: Yeah. She was allergic to a lot of stuff.

SPAENY: Yeah. Poor kid.

CLOSE: Mila Kunis.

SPAENY: Well, I feel like I can tell Mila anything. She’s not shockable. I just feel like she wears her heart on her sleeve and I could go to her for anything. I remember in the mornings, she’s got the most energy of anyone I’ve ever met. 5:00 AM, usually you’re in the makeup chair and you’re half-speaking. Not Mila, I went to the dentist and I got told that I have receding gums, which was terrifying for me. So, I was like, “I know I can ask Mila what I should do about this.”

CLOSE: She knows the best dentist in the world.

SPAENY: Her best friend’s a dentist. She took photos of my entire mouth and sent it to her friend to give me gum health advice.

CLOSE: Wow. So, what keeps you grounded?

SPAENY: Oh my god. I can’t believe you wrote down questions.

CLOSE: [Laughs] What keeps you grounded in this incredibly challenging profession?

SPAENY: That’s a great question. I should ask you what keeps you grounded because I’m still on the journey of finding it. I love working if it’s on a project I believe in. I’m now at a place where I can wait for the right thing to come along. Obviously, it’s terrifying to know if it’ll ever work out, and you think the job you’re on is the last job you’re ever going to get. But I do know that I’m really unhappy if I’m working on something that I don’t love. In between the jobs, I really try to give myself time to fill out the rest of the pie of life, whether it’s travel or time with my family or time with my friends. I haven’t fully figured that out, but that is always the goal.

I hadn’t worked for a year until I did Knives Out because I just wasn’t finding the right thing. I’m so glad that I held out for that project because it gave me so much. But honestly, I find balance really difficult in this job. The second that I find a routine, then you get an amazing call that you’re going on another job and you don’t know what the environment’s going to be like, you don’t know who you’re working with. But the fact that all of these people on this set are turning to this one thing and have belief in making it, I find that so touching. Every time I walk on a set, I find it really touching.

CLOSE: The collaboration.

SPAENY: It’s my favorite part of it. But in terms of balance, I have no idea. I haven’t figured anything out yet.

CLOSE: Are you a reader?

SPAENY: I’m a slow reader, but I love to read. I’m currently reading Joan Didion’s books, which are just beautiful and devastatingly honest. She talks very simply and concisely. To be able to say something so profound in such a simple way, she really is one of a kind. What are you reading right now?

CLOSE: I’m reading two books. There’s one you must read. You must, must, must read.

SPAENY: Okay.

CLOSE: Do you know Lili Taylor, the actress?

SPAENY: I don’t think I do.

CLOSE: You’ll know her face if you look her up, but she was talking about finding community. I really felt that she and I were soulmates. She’s written this beautiful book called Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing.

SPAENY: That’s a great title.

CLOSE: It just blew me away. She also talks about being an actor and folds all that in, but there’s some stunning-

SPAENY: I love that title.

CLOSE: It’s changing me because I think now, I’m going to stay in my camper this coming week when we’re out in Surrey.

SPAENY: Glenn. [Laughs]

CLOSE: I don’t want to drive back into the city. And then this one just won a National Book Award, by Omar El Akkad. It’s called One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. It’s about Palestine, but it’s about much more than that. He is an incredible writer. There’s a great bookstore in London that I love.

SPAENY: What is it?

CLOSE: It’s the John Sandoe Bookstore. John Sandoe, S-A-N-D-O-E. It’s off Kings Road. I want to just go in there and breathe in the books. All the people there are really, really conversant in the books. I just tried to go in and get Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, which was one of the great experiences I ever had in the theater, so I wanted to reread it.

SPAENY: Wait, I’m writing everything down. [Laughs] I’m really interested in what you turn to that fills your cup.

CLOSE: When I’m working for some reason, I always say, “Oh, I want to go to the museum.” I still don’t know what my next job will be after my last job, you know what I mean? I have more maybe this year than I ever have, which is kinda funny. But I just try to do something that I personally think is good. Not because you might win an award, not because you’ll make a lot of money. But the money can be very important.

SPAENY: Yeah. I always think, “Hats off to you if you did it for the money.”

CLOSE: It’s supposed to be weird that you’ve done something for the money. But it has to be worth leaving home for, that’s for sure. Because now at this point in my life, that’s what I’m getting paid for. I’m getting paid to go away from my family.

SPAENY: Well, that’s huge. But you’ve been working for a long time now. That must be so hard, ‘cause I already feel like, “Oh god, I’ve run out of the tricks up my sleeve. I’ve pulled out all the rabbits.”

CLOSE: You’ve barely touched the surface.

SPAENY: I know, but am I going to find different ideas? Am I going to find a different voice or a different perspective? And your characters are so distinct, and I always want to be doing the exact opposite of what I last did.

CLOSE: If you play a teacher of geography and then you’re offered another teacher, you have to think, “Well, okay, what is new in this territory? What haven’t I explored?” Because that’s the great luxury of what we do, isn’t it? It’s a lifetime exploring what it means to be a human being.

SPAENY: What I love is that you’re still finding that. You still are turning towards a character and opening up and going, “Ooh, there’s something in here for me to look around at and turn sideways.” That actually gives me a lot of hope, I think. Can I just say, you’ve given me some of the best advice. Can I read what you wrote to me before I went on the red carpet?

CLOSE: Oh, sure. [Laughs]

SPAENY: It’s the best advice. I feel like this applies to anyone who’s going into a nerve-wracking situation, whether it’s a job interview or whatever it might be. Sorry, this is my favorite thing. I had to leave early on set when we were filming to go to a premiere for Alien. I was nervous and I sent you guys a photo in the group chat and you wrote the best thing ever. You said, “You look gorgeous. Pretend you’re a queen from a foreign land in the country whose young king you have come to marry. You are gracious, open—or seemingly open—mesmerizing and smart. But you have a hidden trove of wonderful secrets that all those surrounding you will never know.” I’m keeping that forever. Kerry was like, “This is the best advice anyone could ever have.” I just love your brain. You’re just fantastic.

CLOSE: Oh my. Well, I think our brains are under siege. Instead of getting a new iPhone, I still have a 13. I went to the Apple Store down in the Village and I got them to put a new battery in my old phone.

SPAENY: I begged my friend to give me his iPhone 11.

CLOSE: But even now, they try to make you go onto AI. I refuse to do that.

SPAENY: Yeah, me too.

CLOSE: I will never let AI write something for me.

SPAENY: I absolutely agree.

CLOSE: What we have are our personal thoughts and our brains and the way we personally react to situations. I’ve gotten so tired walking through the city of just seeing people living through their iPhones. They’re either almost bumping into you because they’re reading them on the sidewalk or they’re just putting them up and showing them. It’s not good for us.

SPAENY: Yeah, it’s a daily task to remind ourselves to use our minds.

CLOSE: My main thing is just to be curious, relentlessly curious.

SPAENY: That’s beautiful. Let me know how long you’re here, Glenn.

CLOSE: I’ll find you. We’ll go for a walk.

SPAENY: Glenn, thanks for doing this.

CLOSE: Oh, you’re very welcome. I love you.

SPAENY: Love you, too.