Staying Fit
“I’ve been known to play pretty-rough gritty characters for the most part,” says Dale Dickey, 60. “People remember me as the skank from Breaking Bad — wonderful small supporting roles.” Besides crushing a man under an ATM in AMC’s lauded series, Dickey ate her werewolf son in True Blood, played Patty the Daytime Hooker on My Name is Earl, and whomped Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, the film that made Lawrence a star and earned Dickey an Independent Spirit Award.
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Now she gets her first romantic lead role in Max Walker-Silverman’s A Love Song. She plays Faye, a widow living in a trailer by a remote Colorado mountain lake, awaiting a reunion with her also widowed childhood sweetheart Lito (Wes Studi, 74, The Last of the Mohicans, Dances With Wolves). The pair talk to AARP about their film, which will appeal to fans of Nomadland and is on screens now.
Faye is as tough as any character you’ve played, but she may be the sweetest character you’ve played.
Dickey: It’s a softer, gentler me than you usually see me play. I’m usually pretty fierce. Faye is fierce, but in a quiet way.