Patricia Clarkson, 65: ‘When I’m Acting, I Have No Vanity’

She’s been dubbed the “Indie Queen” of cinema, and Patricia Clarkson is at it again. The 65-year-old alabaster beauty is playing Lilly Ledbetter in Lilly, the story of the equal-pay activist who has changed the lives of millions. Clarkson has brilliantly played perfect wives (The Untouchables) and stone-cold matriarchs (Sharp Objects), grieving artists (The Station Agent) and charismatic junkies (High Art); the only thing predictable about her career is her unpredictability. “I don’t have a bucket list of roles,” she says. “Hopefully something I don’t know about yet is coming.” AARP spoke to Clarkson for the April/May issue of AARP The Magazine about Lilly and other defining moments of her life.

She wanted to play Lilly Ledbetter to honor her mother

I lost my remarkable mother last year, and it’s still hard. Like Lilly, she went to work late in life. She became a state legislator in Louisiana and the only public official who never left New Orleans during Katrina. I went down and helped her pass out food with first responders. My father was the love of my mother’s life; well, my father and the city and us … but I’m not sure which is first.

She was very into synchronized swimming

I learned it at this fancy girls’ camp that we could only attend because my mother ran the waterfront. I can still do a kip, a ballet leg and a dolphin turn.

Her first home in New York City was the YMCA. Her second was … more problematic

My parents couldn’t really afford for me to be here, so I worked as a hostess in a Greek diner while living at the Y. The room was so tiny, you had to turn sideways to enter. I lived there for three months and then I met a woman who spoke very little English, but enough to say, “We have to get the hell out.” So we moved to an apartment with the nicest super you’ve ever known. I stayed there until I went to Yale two years later. And that’s about the time he shot four people in his apartment, including his wife.