Anna Chlumsky has been a pop culture fixture since the release of My Girl in 1991. Which means that while many of us were watching her movies at sleepovers, Chlumky was, as she puts it, "becoming an object overnight." This experience was understandably traumatic, and she stepped away from Hollywood in the late '90s to study and live her life out of the spotlight.
Since returning to acting, Chlumsky has amassed six Primetime Emmy nominations for her work on Veep, and now she's back in Netflix's Inventing Anna. The story of Anna Delvey (aka Sorokin) has been captivating us since she first hit the headlines in 2018. In Inventing Anna, Chlumsky plays Vivian, an investigative journalist based on Jessica Pressler, whose New York magazine article about the "fake German heiress" helped uncover the extent of Delvey's con.
BAZAAR.com caught up with Chlumsky to talk about Inventing Anna, working with Ozark's Julia Garner, and how she dealt with finding international fame as a child.
Had you been following Anna Delvey's story before you got the role?
I had not. I was under a rock, and I didn't know anything about it, but everybody else I knew did. Not having any preconceived notions comes with its own perks. Not that the people who did have a preconceived [notion] had a handicap in any way, but I felt good. I felt good.
How did you prepare for your role of Vivian? It's such a central role to the whole show.
I mean, there were so many different parts of her life to respect and to prioritize. I always had to think about where in her pregnancy she was. Also, every pregnancy is different, so just because my pregnancies went a certain way didn't mean that hers would. So, you had to kind of track that, which was really interesting in itself. So that's priority, just on the physical level. Then, on top of that, my role is based on Jessica Pressler, who's the writer of the article and also co-producer on our show. She and I met on our table reads, and I could always check in with her and make sure she was happy with the path I was taking Vivian on.
In the very beginning, our research team made available to me copious notes of Jessica's. I got to watch interviews between her and Anna, which are awesome. Then, I also made sure to read as many of Jessica's published articles as I could because I was finding that with such a cerebral character as Vivian, the written word was giving me the most of a launchpad to build her — knowing that internal voice occurs and how she wants to express it. That was kind of how I connected the dots between Jessica, the inspiration, and what we built with Vivian.
Throughout this series, your character's opinion of Anna Delvey changes quite a lot. I wondered if you had an opinion of the real Anna now.
It changes back and forth all the time. I think that the opinion swims in that very kind of exclusive pond of criminality that is also so emblematic of the injustices of the world. That's such a murky place. It's a murky pond, and yet it's very, very real and you don't like it when you step in it. I'm extending a metaphor. But I've not met the real Anna. I really am only taking from the same exact information that our audience has. Just like an audience member, I go to all those places. You always are like, "What makes a person, and what makes a person make these choices?"
But you kind of get into that swashbuckling mode of, Wow, the derring-do of someone who's not going to be restricted by the social contract. At the same time, you go, Well, that's really harmful. Don't do that. I think that's the beauty of being able to watch it on TV in the same way as the old pirate movies or something. Some people have to deal with all of the relational turmoil that knowing someone like this figure gives them. But as an audience member, you get to do it all in your own imagination.
Obviously, you got to work really closely with Julia Garner. Are you a fan of Ozark? What it was like working with her?
I'm embarrassed to say I still haven't watched Ozark yet. I feel so bad. I love her so much. I've adored her from other work for a very, very long time. There was a movie called Electric Children that she was in when she was younger, and it was wonderful. I loved her in The Americans. I loved her in Maniac. She's a wonderful actress, and I've always known it. I was so happy to find out that she was going to be playing Anna Delvey when we were putting this together. I was so excited because I really do think she's phenomenal, and I'm right.
Do you have any standout memories from the set?
Some of my favorite days were just mucking around within "Scriberia" [the corner of the office where the team of investigative journalists is located]. I'm not entirely convinced that the crew liked it. I would joke around with Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry, but I certainly enjoyed it.
We had a great time. Every once in a while, I'll still just giggle out of nowhere. My husband will be like, "What?" I'll be like, "Oh, it's a joke that Terry Kinney told." We filmed half of this pre-pandemic and half after, so that means we all — the crew, cast — we all share the going home moment. I think everybody can kind of identify. Everybody sort of has their "Hey guys, we're going home" moment. Mine was on that set.
Like a lot of people, I grew up watching you at sleepovers, in movies, and you were such a big part of my childhood. What was it like being catapulted into stardom at that age, and does it still impact you now?
Pretty awful, honestly. There's good things. Getting to travel on someone else's dime is nice, right? Being able to save for college is instrumental.
But the part that I still grapple with, as a human being, is what you just described, is basically becoming an object overnight. Because it's during the developmental years, it's something to be aware of. Everybody's got something that defines their development. This one happens to be mine. Overall, clinically, we've done pretty well. I do love my life now. It's a great life, but therapy is necessary.
I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
Thank you. That's very kind. I'm sorry that all of the things that may have hurt you, that you struggled with, happened, too. You know what I mean? It's very kind of you to say that, and there is a sense of, "We're all in this together," when answering it honestly like that.
Since then, you have built an amazing career, and you've really come into yourself. What aspirations do you have for the future? Is there anyone you want to work with who you haven't yet?
There's plenty of people I want to work with. I've got some wild aspirations. I've got this nagging dream to direct opera someday, or there's documentaries that I want to exist in the world that I don't think anybody else will make. I'm going to have to, someday, in the latter half of my life, figure out how to do that.
I also just freaking love my job. I love acting. I miss it when I don't do it. I really appreciate you saying what you said about how it's been nice to see me build a career, because it feels good.
I'm at an interesting place where, like, all of those roles that made me want to act when I was in my early twenties — I'm past them now. It's kind of a fun moment in my life where I'm discovering all of the roles I'm going to be right for now. That's different. It's cool, and it's different. Ingénues are done.
TV is so much more exciting now that we are seeing women get roles when they're in their forties, their fifties, their sixties, which we didn't see before. But thank God. We need more shows like Inventing Anna.
We do, because it's part of it, right? It's part of it. I hope the days are gone where we aren't depicting the women that are formative in human lives because men are afraid of them. Let's do better.
WATCH INVENTING ANNA ON NETFLIX NOW
Amy Mackelden is a freelance writer, editor, and disability activist. Her bylines include Harper's BAZAAR, Nicki Swift, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Independent, Bustle, Healthline, and HelloGiggles. She co-edited The Emma Press Anthology of Illness, and previously spent all of her money on Kylie Cosmetics.
