If you're a fan of the Netflix thriller series Ozark, you already know about Julia Garner.
She plays the rough-and-tumble Ruth Langmore in the series, but in real life, she's miles
away from the character. So what else is there to know about her? Here's the untold truth
of Julia Garner.
When it comes to shows that are popular on Netflix, Ozark is definitely among the best
and most buzzworthy. With plenty of Emmy Award nominations and wins and ample critical acclaim,
the series is a shining example of what streaming television can be.
But when Julia Garner was first cast in the drama, she didn't know what to expect. She
confessed in an interview with Porter magazine,
“I didn’t know the show was going to be successful, because sometimes you have shows
that have stars in it and a star writer and star director, and it doesn’t take off.
So I wasn’t expecting anything. But I knew Ruth was so likeable, even from the scene
I read in my audition. I knew she was my part.”
Even though she was confident she'd found a solid role as a performer, Garner still
made sure to manage her expectations when she started, as she wasn't sure if Ozark would
keep her employed for very long. Looks like she hedged her bets well on this one!
Julia Garner was born in the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City in the Bronx. The daughter
of an artist father and a therapist mother, Garner is a proud New Yorker to the core.
She revealed to The Cut in 2017 that she doesn't even have a driver's license; well, you really
don't need one in the Big Apple!
Interestingly enough, Garner said she had a difficult time speaking when she was a child,
which is what got her interested in theater. She's said she liked acting because she could
give voice to other people's words.
Garner was also super interested in films as a kid, even though some of them were awfully
scary psychological horror movies like Rosemary's Baby, or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.
She told The Cut,
"I was obsessed with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane when I was 9 years old which, normally,
a 9 year-old kid should not be watching that movie, but I did. And Rosemary’s Baby, I
watched that when I was like 10."
While Ozark has been viewed by scores of people across the world, it's not the only role that
Julia Garner has ever played. But because she tends to play quirky and unconventional
roles most of the time, many different types of audiences are familiar with her work. Before
she got mainstream recognition with Ozark, she was better known to people who liked weirder,
independent films. She told Vulture,
"The first place that I was getting recognized was in coffeehouses in Brooklyn. It was film
students and hipsters in Brooklyn referencing Electrick Children or We Are What We Are."
And both of those films are art house fare, as opposed to Hollywood blockbusters.
However, not all of Garner's shows and films are relegated to indie cinemas, as some of
her work prior to Ozark put her on the radar of more mainstream audiences. Garner also
appeared in ten episodes of The Americans, in the role of Kimberly Breland. Amusingly,
she noticed herself getting attention for this role from people in rather different
neighborhoods with more traditional tastes, saying she had to be on the Upper West Side
or near Lincoln Center before people recognized her for The Americans.
Of course, now Garner is widely recognized by fans of Ozark no matter where she is in
the city.
Julia Garner's character does a lot of terrible things in Ozark. Whether it's helping to launder
money for a brutal drug cartel or finding innovative ways to get rid of people, Ruth
Langmore is capable of acts of real savagery.
But when asked about the most difficult scene she's had to shoot for the series, Garner
had something of a surprising answer. She revealed to The New York Times,
"It was the scene when I held the mouse in Season 1. I have the worst fear of rodents.
I can't stand them."
Who knew a mouse would be scarier than confronting the Snells or running away from an ambush?
In fact, so intense is Garner's fear of rodents that she literally couldn't film the scene
without help. She admitted,
"They had to use a hand double. I couldn't breathe and I nearly got a panic attack."
She also added that she thinks she's probably the, quote, "least badass person" on earth
though we're sure you could find plenty of Ozark fans who disagree.
When Julia Garner started acting in film and television, she was only a teenager. And at
the very beginning, when she was working on her first projects, her peers at school straight-up
didn't believe that she was acting in movies.
"In high school, everyone thought I was like a pathological liar, because movies come out
like a year later."
Having so little evidence of her burgeoning acting career made for some interesting conversations
with her classmates when Garner would be absent from school for work.
,"It's like, 'You're lying, you're not in movies.' I'm like, 'I am!' And then like,
a year later, they saw me in a trailer."
Until then, though, people had trouble understanding what she was doing when she'd say she was
going to the Sundance Film Festival, famously started by actor Robert Redford. That may
be cool for cinephiles, but in some cases, her fellow students didn't even know who Robert
Redford was.
It was only when Garner appeared in movie trailers a year after her career took off
that her peers finally realized she was never lying she was just acting.
One of the things that makes Julia Garner's character on Ozark so special is her accent,
which is one you would likely hear if you ever visit the real-life Ozark region.
"Exchange your cash for chips, you know, lose a few hands at the game of your choice, and
then cash out your cut, one grand each. You dumbasses got it?”
As it turns out, that was something that Garner brought to the table herself, rather than
something that was scripted. She shared in an interview with Fashion magazine in 2018,
"I wanted the job so bad that I actually prepared with a Missouri accent. And when I got to
the audition, I could hear the other actors reading their lines, and was like, 'None of
them have the accent, I'm screwed.'"
However, by then, having an accent was an integral part in how she inhabited the role
of Ruth Langmore, so she had to go with it. As she recalled,
"I couldn't remember my lines when I wasn't doing the accent. So, I just had to do the
accent and it worked."
It didn't just work, either, as, after Garner left the audition room, the showrunners reportedly
decided to make the character much more important to the story than they'd initially intended
her to be. Well done, Julia!
According to Julia Garner, she's nothing at all like the character she plays on Ozark.
For one, she's quite gentle, and she definitely isn't leading a life of crime. She's also
excited about all things sartorial, which is something you can't miss if you see her
on the red carpet. As she's shared in interviews, she's a big fan of fashion and clothes.
That doesn't mean that Garner is obsessed with buying super high-end dresses all the
time. Rather, she instead follows her instinct when it comes to making fashion choices. She
told Porter magazine,
"I always wear what looks good on me, because I think the most important thing with fashion
is confidence. You can wear something beautiful and if you don't feel good in it, it's not
going to look great."
She added that if you feel like dynamite wearing a paper bag, chances are you'll still come
off looking pretty good.
One thing that makes Julia Garner instantly recognizable is her super curly hair, which
she wears naturally most of the time but it wasn't always like that. Mysteriously, when
she was about 12 years old, her hair suddenly started growing in curly, though it previously
wasn't. It made for an awkward transition. She lamented in an interview with The Cut,
"It looked like a rat's nest it was disgusting. I went to the hairdresser to fix it and he
had to cut all my hair super short, so that all of my hair could be curly."
Don't underestimate how strange that experience was for young Julia. Looking back on that
time, she's still a bit rattled, too. As she told The Cut,
"That was one of the weirdest experiences that I've ever had in my life."
The day after her haircut, when she returned to school, she says no one recognized her
at first not even her best friends. Instead, they were wondering who the curly-haired "new
girl" was.
On Dec. 27, 2019, Julia Garner married her boyfriend, musician Mark Foster of the band
Foster the People. But long before the big day rolled around, Garner knew exactly what
she wanted to wear. She shared in a chat with Vogue in March 2020.
"I love pants suits, and I always thought that if I were to get married in a courthouse,
I wanted to wear one. I wanted a Carrie Bradshaw moment. But of course for the party, I wanted
something more soft and feminine.”
However, Garner's busy production schedule prevented her from doing much planning, which
is how she ended up with nothing to wear ten days before her wedding day. Fortunately,
one seriously skilled designer came to Garner's rescue in what she later described as an Instagram
miracle.
"When I was on a lunch break in my trailer, I went on Instagram, and I got a DM from Danielle
Frankel asking me if I had found a dress."
Since Garner was already a fan of Frankel's work, the process was seamless, and Garner
was happy to say yes to the dress.
If you take a look at Julia Garner's acting resume, you'll notice that she doesn't play
very conventional roles. But that really doesn't bother her, as she never really aspired to
be the romantic lead or the popular cheerleader. She explained to Vulture,
"At an early age, I knew that I wasn't going to get those roles. Not that I'm ugly, but
I'm not Hollywood-standard beautiful or that simple beauty."
In particular, Garner cites her gap tooth and her wild curly hair as what sets her apart
from other actresses in Hollywood. So far, things have apparently gone just fine. She
described her experience by saying,
"I get cult members. I get pregnant Mormon girls. I get cannibals. I got a girl who was
in love with a KGB secret agent who wore weird glasses. And even now, I've got Ruth."
But it's not lost on Garner that these roles are often more complex than others, and demand
more from an actor than typical starring roles for conventional beauties.
When Julia Garner won the Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a drama series, plenty
of folks weren't surprised, as her work in Ozark has been lauded by many. But one person
who was surprised was Garner herself, who said she, quote, "full-on blacked out" when
she realized she'd won the award. She revealed in an interview with Porter magazine,
"I don't remember anything. When I walked up on stage, I took the award, I looked out
and saw so many people."
And she found the experience to be absolutely terrifying.
This was despite the fact that co-star Jason Bateman was confident that Garner was going
to win and told her so, even as she insisted that wasn't the case. She says,
"I'm still a little frazzled by it. I can't believe I was even nominated, to be honest.
It was scary-surreal."
Garner acknowledges that part of her surprise may be due to the fact that she very seldom
reads about herself, so she missed all of the buzz she'd created with her now award-winning
performance as Ruth.
"'How can I sell this? It's gold.'"
For as much as Julia Garner always knew that Ruth Langmore was a role she could knock out
of the park, she initially had a hard time stepping into Ruth's shoes. She confessed
in an interview with The Gentlewoman,
"When I was first playing Ruth, it was really tough. It almost felt like I had been hit
with a frying pan every single night."
Given what the character goes through in Ozark, that's not at all surprising.
Even though she's been playing the role for years now, she still has to contend with the
emotional toll that comes with the territory. She said in an interview with Brief Take,
"I think 'why am I so down?' But then I think 'oh! it's because I play Ruth 18 hours a day
and I feel like I'm stuck because that's the character.'"
In order to unwind from a tough day playing Ruth, Garner enjoys watching cathartic, action-packed
shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Bodyguard. No shame in that.
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