Hari Nef and Parker Posey: Two ‘It’ Girls Whose ‘Humanity Peeks Through’

In a show-business world full of square pegs and round holes, Parker Posey and Hari Nef are 12-sided dice.

Posey, 54, has forged an unclassifiable career since her days as the “it” girl of 1990s independent cinema — mirrored in her oddball 2018 book, “You’re on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir.” She has created a series of indelible characters in Christopher Guest comedies, including “Best in Show,” but has also memorably brought her off-kilter rhythms to high-profile gigs like the flamboyant assistant district attorney Freda Black in the HBO Max mini-series “The Staircase” and the scheming Dr. Smith on the Netflix reboot of “Lost in Space.”

As for Nef, 30, she landed the recurring role of Gittel in the Amazon series “Transparent” days after graduating from Columbia University, in 2015. The first openly transgender woman to receive a worldwide modeling contract, Nef also writes for various magazines, appeared in the Off Broadway play “Des Moines” in December, and has a couple of big projects arriving later this year: Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie and the HBO series “The Idol” in which she’ll appear alongside the Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp.

In a meeting that seems almost predestined, the pair are now sharing a stage in Thomas Bradshaw’s “The Seagull/Woodstock, NY,” a New Group production in previews at the Pershing Square Signature Center. (It is scheduled to open Feb. 28 and run through March 26.) A contemporary riff on Chekhov set in the Catskills, the play renames the charismatic, brittle actress Irina Arkadina as Irene (Posey), while the moody, romantic Masha has become Sasha (Nef).

“They’re iconic in who they are and what they bring to their work,” the play’s director, Scott Elliott, said of Nef and Posey during a phone call. “They’re able to bring themselves to the parts so there’s very little separation between the actor and the role. Their humanity peeks through.”

This quality helps explain why both New York-based actresses have a similar ability to connect with a character’s pathos, while also deploying unerring comic timing: Posey’s turns in those Guest films are pitch-perfect, while Nef was praised by Ben Brantley, in his review of Jeremy O. Harris’s play “‘Daddy,’” for delivering “the production’s sharpest satirical performance.”

Naturally, there are generational differences. In a chat following a rehearsal, in January, Nef mused about taking Posey to a rave while Posey reminisced about visiting classic ballroom dance halls in Berlin. And yet they connect. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What did you know of each other before “The Seagull/Woodstock, NY”?

PARKER POSEY Hari Nef — oh, she was in “Transparent.” I remembered exactly what a performance that was and how much she lit up a scene. She changed the temperature of the room. I don’t keep up with a lot of things. I don’t have a lot of social media — I forgot my Instagram password a while ago and I tried to sign on a few times with the password I thought I remembered. But of course it was the wrong password.

HARI NEF I knew so much about your work. “Party Girl” is a favorite, but I’d also seen you on “Search Party,” the whole gamut. A friend of mine said that you in “The House of Yes” is probably one of the greatest screen performances he’s ever seen. And he doesn’t play.

POSEY When we met for the first read-through, Thomas said, “I’ve just got to tell you, ‘The House of Yes’ was a big inspiration for me and my writing.” That [script] was Wendy MacLeod’s Yale thesis. I didn’t know that playwriting can be so subversive.

NEF I was always so attracted to you and your work because you were glamorous and you were dramatic and you were cool and you were distinctive and uncompromising, but not in a way that was obvious or traditional. You are beautiful and talented, that is obvious and traditional, but you always did things your way. I knew that if I was going to make a career as an actor, much less as an actress, I would have to do things non-traditionally. I didn’t have anyone quite exactly like me to look to so I looked at your work and I looked at Tilda [Swinton] and Chloë [Sevigny].

POSEY I got lucky because at a time in the culture, you could do Off Broadway and afford your $700 a month apartment. And you could do independent movies: “It’s only 22 days, yeah, I’ll do that one.” It was kind of punk rock or like being in a band. Everyone was hanging out together and it was very organic. It was a little pocket of time that didn’t last that long.

NEF I’ve been able to spend my entire fall and winter doing Off Broadway shows because I did Fashion Week before this and that visibility brings other opportunities. You can get paid three, four, five times what I’m going to make for both these plays combined by going to one dinner and being photographed there in an outfit. I post images of the films I like on Instagram not just because I find them inspiring and beautiful — I do — but it’s me going, “I want to be in movies like this.”

POSEY You’re having the best of both worlds because to be online and have a social media presence is kind of to be your own magazine. I need to learn. But that time is a different time; it is your generation’s time right now.

NEF You’re literally from the last moment where it was possible to be cool. Looking at that capital-C definition of cool all the way back to Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, there’s talent, there’s glamour, there’s drive, there’s darkness. But there’s also a mystery and a specificity, and you lose that mystery and specificity by existing online. Because of the money thing and the rent thing, it has become essentially untenable to be cool, to be mysterious, to have that allure being an indie legend.

Do you think it’s one thing to be perceived as cool and another to be taken seriously as an actor?

NEF So much of my entry into this industry and this practice was around “Transparent.” I was riding on this flotilla of discourse about things that had nothing to do with what I could do as an actor. I thought I had to sing for my supper just for a seat at the table. Maybe I was right, to a certain extent, but it became like, “Do I really want people to know me by what I say or what I am or what my private medical history is?” No, I want to be known for what I do as an actor.

POSEY Cool is when there’s something original or unexpected, or seems to have some kind of luck around it. Which your appearing on that show was: the unexpected, something new, something fresh. And that is not orchestrated — that’s luck. I see that now. I look at life and the path of an actor as having that luck. And I think that’s very enviable.

NEF I’ve been very lucky. I remain lucky. The play I did before “Daddy” was my senior thesis in college: I played Arkadina in “The Seagull.” I had gone through what I had gone through in college and I never thought that I would get to go onstage to do Chekhov, much less play her. I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to play a role like that again for many, many years — not because of age but because of the size and the heft of the role. I haven’t played a role like Arkadina since then, but I’m back doing “The Seagull” and that is more than was promised to me at that moment in history.

Parker, what drew you to Arkadina/Irene?

POSEY What attracted me the most to this part was the narcissistic mother, and the power that a mother has over her son. And she’s a showbiz mom, someone with a lot of heart and theatricality and all that. I’m so lucky as a middle-aged woman to be playing this part. It’s interesting to observe how quick people are to villainize strong women, how fun it is to see the worst. People love to call someone a bitch. I mean, the misogyny is on fire, still.

NEF I play a lot of bitches.

Why do you think that is?

NEF Well, I’m no ingénue. I write, and a lot of the bitches I’ve played are also writers, thinkers. Smart. “Bitch” is often a fill-in for intelligent, for articulate, for opinionated, queer, not conventionally feminine or not conventionally beautiful. I think the “Barbie” stuff happened because I didn’t play bitchy and I didn’t play dumb and I didn’t play plastic in the audition.

POSEY Having been cast as a female Dr. Smith, that was such a coup, I was so grateful for that gig. If you can live in Hollywood, it’s a lot easier to get cast and be a part of that world. But I wanted to walk around and see other people.

NEF What is your relationship to the word “scene-stealer”? It’s the word that really follows me. It’s not a bad thing: It means I’m doing good work in small roles.

POSEY That is a character actor making strong choices. When you have a small role in something big, you have to fill it in a certain way, and that’s its own thing.

NEF If you’re a bold flavor — which I know I am — it’s more intuitive for people to see you as seasoning to the steak. I’d like to be the steak someday, but I know I have to earn it. So many of your iconic roles have been supporting and I’m wondering if you ever felt minimized by it.

POSEY [long pause] Your 20s are really intense and then the culture changes and you’re, like, “Where am I going to fit in? I’m going to be in ‘Blade: Trinity’ playing a vampire? Never thought I’d see the day but yeah, I want to work and that’ll be interesting.” And then it’s the 40s. It’s heartbreaking when you become aware of just how intensely male-dominated our stories are, especially when you mature as a person and as a woman.

NEF The shifts in the culture are by and large cosmetic when it comes to power and who gets the green light and who gets the sign-off for studio things. I can’t control the way I’m cast or how people see me.

POSEY But you can see and acknowledge where you are. You’re in the mix. We’re so lucky to do what we love to do. A lot of people don’t.

NEF That’s the bottom line of gratitude right now. This sounds corny but every day I’m so grateful to be here with you, to be here with everyone, to work through this winter onstage. It’s not guaranteed for anyone, much less someone like me or you.