Ozark actress Julia Garner on her craft and love of fashion
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This article first appeared in Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, the leading fashion glossy on the best of style, beauty, design, travel and the arts. Go to www.harpersbazaar.com.sg and follow @harpersbazaarsg on Instagram; harpersbazaarsingapore on Facebook. The January 2022 issue is out on newsstands now.
SINGAPORE - American actress Julia Garner has a habit of doing many things concurrently.
Apart from sitting for magazine covers and apartment hunting, the 27-year-old has just wrapped filming for two Netflix series: the fourth and final season of crime series Ozark (2017 to 2022) and the highly anticipated Shonda Rhimes-produced miniseries, Inventing Anna.
In Ozark, released on Jan 21, Garner reprises her Emmy-winning role as the hot-headed riot Ruth Langmore, a member of a criminal family. She won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2019 and 2020.
Inventing Anna, a true story based on a viral New York Magazine article, is slated to premiere on Feb 11. Garner plays Anna Sorokin, the 31-year-old Russian who posed as German heiress Anna Delvey and left a trail of swindled hotels, banks and Manhattan’s wealthy elite in her wake between 2013 and 2017.
To say Garner lends a magnetism to intense, unconventional roles is an understatement. But is it intentional?
“I look at scripts and I’m, like, this isn’t complex enough. When it’s complex, there’s more stuff to do,” she says over the telephone from New York.
Our hour-long conversation is intermittently interrupted by the snoring of Biz, the English bulldog she owns with her husband Mark Foster, lead singer of indie pop band Foster The People. Garner apologises on Biz’s behalf.
Filming both roles at the same time during a pandemic, pre-vaccine, and with two complicated accents that are worlds apart - Langmore speaks in a deep Southern American drawl while Sorokin does British English with American musicality and sprinklings of German and Russian inclination - was challenging, Garner admits.
“It was a moment in time that I’ll remember forever because it was so difficult. I didn’t even have time to think about how crazy it was,” she says.
She credits her Ozark co-star and mentor, veteran actress Laura Linney, for helping her get through the intense dual filming schedules.
Linney had shared with her a piece of simple advice that she now lives by: “It’s one bite at a time, take it hour by hour.”
It was a coping mechanism Linney learnt back in the early noughties while filming the 2003 movies, Love Actually and Mystic River, at the same time, shuttling between two countries.
For Garner, preparation for the role in Inventing Anna involved a meticulous study of the magazine article on which the show is based, and reviewing the limited but valuable footage acquired by powerhouse creator and producer Rhimes - some of which were taken during Sorokin’s first few weeks in prison.
Ozark Season 4 Part 1 First Reviews: Critics Say Emmy-Winner Julia Garner Is a ‘Total Revelation’
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It’s been five years since Ozark first premiered to Netflix and the series is finally setting up its bloody endgame. The show follows the events that transpire after shady accountant Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) relocates his wife Wendy (Laura Linney) and children from Chicago to the Ozarks, in an effort to escape a money laundering scheme gone bad. While it was meant as an escape, Marty, Wendy, and the kids get folded into Marty’s criminal plans and as things progressed, one insane challenge after the next made their attempt to head back to the life they knew more and more impossible. As the show begins its final bow, a big question remains: How will the Byrde family get out of this murderous mess — or will they even survive at all?
Two-time Emmy-winner Julia Garner returns to the series, which also features Sofia Hublitz, Skylar Gaetner, Lisa Emery, Alfonso Herrera, Felix Solis, Joseph Sikora, and Jessica Frances Dukes. In similar fashion to the way AMC unleashed the end of Breaking Bad (a series Ozark gets compared to regularly), the fourth installment of the the Netflix thriller is being presented in two halves with the first seven episodes dropping on Friday, January 21 to the streamer.
With anticipation running high for the new episodes, here’s what critics are saying about Ozark season 4, part 1:
Do Jason Bateman and Laura Linney still deliver?
(Photo by Netflix)
Bateman’s a world-class straight man in comedies (“Arrested Development”), which makes him perfect for the ice-cold, quietly calculating Marty. Linney’s just good, period, so Wendy’s transformation has felt genuine. – Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
Seeing Linney unleashed is reason enough to plow through Part 1, but how her character justifies her position presents its own additional incentive. – Ben Travers, IndieWire
Bateman and Linney’s chemistry is raw and impressive as they navigate the fragility of their bond. Bateman’s masterful comedic flair offsets Marty’s deadpan delivery, their dark banter making a doomed relationship between recognizably horrible people both heartbreaking and entertaining. – Saloni Gajjar, AV Club
What about Julia Garner’s Emmy-winning performance as Ruth?
(Photo by Netflix)
Julia Garner’s performance as an ambitious local young person tied up in the Byrdes’ business stands out all the more because what’s around it leans so heavily on an outsized bleakness. – Daniel D’addario, Variety
Garner is gunning for a deserved hat-trick at the Emmys with her astounding turn in season four. The actor’s gut-wrenching performance captures Ruth’s despondency and desperation for companionship, especially now that she’s lost her lover, Ben. – Saloni Gajjar, AV Club
Despite having given multiple outstanding and award-winning performances Garner gives us an all-time best this season. Truly, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather watch more in this show than Garner – which is saying a lot with a cast as stacked as this one. – Amanda Sink, The Hollywood Outsider
Across one of the best ensemble casts on television right now, Julia Garner has been a total revelation and once again as Ozark bows out Ruth is the most captivating force throughout. – Adam Miller, metro.co.uk
What are the overarching themes this season?
(Photo by Netflix)
One of the stronger elements of the new season is the deteriorating relationship between Jonah and his mother. Much as she tries to justify her treatment of her troubled brother in Season 3, Jonah won’t have it. Their portrayal of even greater dysfunction in a family drowning in it is appropriately uncomfortable yet weirdly compelling. – Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
As the Byrdes expand from a typical upper-middle class family into a mega-wealthy political power couple, they’re becoming more than an outlier or an oddity; with their win-at-all-costs attitude, ever-deepening pockets, and lack of comeuppance for irrefutable wrongs, they represent the corruption rooted within the country itself. – Ben Travers, IndieWire
This show began in a place of vacuous amorality and, in this fourth outing, restates once more that the people at the center of the frame are very, very bad. And very, very bad things happen to and around them, at a distracting rate that allows this show to hopscotch that — this deep into its run — it’s struggling to be about much of anything. – Daniel D’addario, Variety
Just how tense will things get?
It’s all very tense, but the shocking plot turns deliver diminishing returns. – David Cheal, Financial Times
“Ozark” can feel like watching “Breaking Bad” in the NFL RedZone, the viewing option that delivers each and every touchdown on in-season Sundays. It’s chaos and gunshots without anything but the most glancing nod to a moral reckoning; it’s everything that people enjoy about high-gloss, expensive TV, without the parts that act as ballast. – Daniel D’addario, Variety
Ozark continues to take its audience on a suspenseful ride, delivering its most thrilling season yet. – Sharronda Williams, Pay or Wait
The show’s tapestry of characters and their illicit activities might not be wholly original, but it’s spun in exciting and foreboding ways. – Saloni Gajjar, AV Club
The last show to bring this heightened level of anxiety in its viewers with real-world baddies is Breaking Bad, where each episode and season filled us with a plethora of emotions. In Ozark Season 4: Part 1, the stakes are just as real and our blood continues to boil. – Amanda Sink, The Hollywood Outsider
Any final thoughts?
(Photo by Netflix)
The fourth season of Ozark confirms the growth that the series showed in the final stretch of the third and is paving the way for what promises to be an exciting finale. – Mikel Zorrilla, Espinof
Ozark is still going strong even as it nears the end, thanks to a stellar cast and sharp writing. Marty, Wendy & Ruth are some of the greatest TV characters of all time. – Grace Randolph, Beyond the Trailer
With the concluding seven episodes still under lock and key, it remains to be seen whether Bateman and co can pull of an ending as devastating as that of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. But Ozark’s long farewell is certainly off to a gripping start. – Ed Power, Daily Telegraph (UK)
Part 1 isn’t the end, so much as a chance to take stock in what’s kept us coming back to “Ozark” each season. Be it the thrills, the performances, or morbid curiosity, Mundy’s series is still searching for more meaning in its final hours. When Part 2 hits, we’ll finally hear how much “Ozark” has to say. – Ben Travers, IndieWire
Ozark returns to prove its worth in the genre by remaining a riveting and satisfying crime drama to its bitter (almost) end. – Saloni Gajjar, AV Club
The stakes are higher than ever, the Byrde family continues to get themselves in deeper, and the action picks up in the final few episodes. Linney and Garner, once again, steal the show. – Austin Burke, Austin Burke/Flick Fan Nation
The first half of the series’ victory lap does a fine job straddling the line between introducing newer elements (Herrera is near flawless and terrifying) while also looking towards the future and bringing the entire franchise full circle. The stakes have never been higher and when part two releases this summer, all bets are off. – Nate Adams, The Only Critic
93% Ozark: Season 4 (2022) Part 1 premieres on Friday, January 21, on Netflix.
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Watch Julia Garner in Inventing Anna’s official trailer
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Garner takes on a bizarre accent to play real-life socialite scammer Anna Delvey in the first show Shonda Rhimes has created since Scandal. Inventing Anna premieres on Netflix on Feb. 11.
‘Inventing Anna’ Trailer: ‘Ozark’ Star Julia Garner Plays Con Woman Who Shakes Up New York (VIDEO)
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Art Industry News: Tracey Emin Wants Her Art Out of 10 Downing Street, Where Boris Johnson Partied During Lockdown + Other Stories
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Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this Thursday, January 20.
NEED-TO-READ
Smithsonian Names Director of the National Museum of the American Indian – Chavez Lamar, a member of San Felipe Pueblo tribe from New Mexico, takes up her new role as director of the Washington, D.C., institution on February 14. The first Native woman to lead a Smithsonian museum, she succeeds Kevin Glover, who left in January 2021. Lamar has served as the museum’s acting associate director since January 2021; she was named assistant director for collections in 2014. (New York Times)
Julia Garner Visited Anna Delvey in Prison – Emmy award-winning actress Julia Garner is playing the art-world fraudster Anna Delvey in an upcoming Netflix series (watch the trailer here). She met the convicted scammer in jail to do research for her starring role in Inventing Anna, and said she found Anna quite sweet. “She was extremely charming,” Garner said. “She’s very gentle. But then her voice gets less soft-spoken when she wants something.” (Yahoo)
Tracey Emin Wants Her Art Removed From Downing Street – Tracey Emin has demanded that Number 10 Downing Street, the seat of the U.K. prime minister, take down an artwork she gifted to the government because the “current situation is shameful.” Boris Johnson is in deep trouble for hosting parties at the official residence while the country was in strict lockdown in 2020 and 2021. Emin’s neon work More Passion has been hanging in there since 2011, when David Cameron was prime minister. “I feel More Passion is the last thing this present government needs,” the artist said in an Instagram post. “It could hang in the British embassy in Cairo, or go back into storage. There are many places it could go.” The prime minister’s office has said it will speak to Emin about her request. (Evening Standard)
Teddy Roosevelt Statue Starts to Come Down – The controversial bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt, flanked by depictions of a Native American man and an African man on foot, is finally being disassembled after a long debate over its fate. It has been on view at the American Museum of Natural History since 1940 and is scheduled to leave in pieces throughout the week in a $2 million removal process. The statue will go into storage before eventually being transferred to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. (NYT)
MOVERS & SHAKERS
There’s Gonna Be a Lot of Monet at Auction – Five works by Impressionist Claude Monet could rake in £35 million ($50 million) during Sotheby’s modern and contemporary art evening sale in London in March. The works, which all come from the same American private collection, come with a financial guarantee. Sotheby’s Helena Newman said that Asian buyers in particular have reinvigorated the artists’s market. (ARTnews)
Gagosian to Open in Gstaad – The globe-engulfing gallery will open a new location—it’s 19th!—in the ski town of Gstaad, Switzerland, on February 14. The inaugural show will present never-before-seen oil paintings by Damien Hirst spanning 15 years that depict iconic subjects including Marilyn Monroe and Pablo Escobar. (Press release)
Louis Vuitton Collabs With Sotheby’s on Virgil Abloh Sneaker Drop – Louis Vuitton is selling 200 special-edition pairs of “Air Force 1s” designed by the fashion house’s late artistic director Virgil Abloh at Sotheby’s. Proceeds will benefit the Virgil Abloh™ “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund, which supports the education of promising students of Black, African American, or African descent. Bidding begins at $2,000. (Press release)
KAWS Goes White Glove – Artnet Auctions’s first white-glove sale of the year was “KAWS: Urge,” which offered the complete set of prints from the artist’s 2020 portfolio, featuring colorful variations of his CHUM character. The auction closed with a 100 percent sell-through rate by volume and a 122 percent rate by value. (Press release)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Hirshhorn and Albright-Knox Jointly Acquire an Infinity Room – The Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden are the latest institutions to take part in the growing trend of joint acquisitions. The two will share Infinity Mirrored Room—My Heart Is Dancing into the Universe (2018) by Yayoi Kusama, which they bought together for an undisclosed sum. It will first go on display at the new Albright-Knox campus in Buffalo, New York, in 2023. (Press release)
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