Edie Falco would embrace superpowers, but given she tends not to plan her next acting gigs far into the future, she doesn’t expect to die trying.
“I’d like to be a female superhero. It’s so out of my realm of experience, certainly in real life and in movies. That would be a lot of fun,” Falco told a Tribeca Festival Lisboa press conference on Friday. Her most recent credits include Mayor of Kingstown and the comedy I’ll Be Right There, which reteams her with Nurse Jackie helmer Brendan Walsh.
As for Nurse Jackie, all seven seasons of the series have landed on Netflix, but no revival of the original series is yet in the works. “Of course, that would be very exciting to do that show again, but there’s a lot of steps having to happen and where we are now. And I don’t know who’s in charge,” she told the presser.
As for The Sopranos, which brought Falco her breakout role of Carmela, no reboot is in the works either, she said. And for an actress who has long played complicated female characters, Falco added that few roles throw her off track on set.
“I’ve yet to be stumped. Never have I said I can’t do that. You sort of find a way you can go and see, because you’re able to know you have to stop before it is dangerous. And I’ve been in therapy for 7,000 years,” she insisted.
So rather than shy away from complicated female roles, Falco embraces them. “I look for those. That’s what makes this exciting. To play someone with a less complicated life is less interesting,” she explained.
Complex female characters have followed Falco, even as she gets older in an entertainment business prone to shove women over a certain age bracket aside. “I’ve been very lucky that kind of since I started working, female characters are getting more interesting and complicated… I feel like I’m riding this wave of really interesting and complicated female characters,” Falco maintained.
It also helps she rarely if ever played the young ingenue early in her career. “I imagine if you’re only ever playing young, beautiful, sexy women, it’s going to get harder as you get older,” Falco said.
The actress, who is known for her political activism, also argued that there are more than just the rights of women in Hollywood in play amid the current political climate. “Difficulties for women right now is just difficulties for humans in the culture that we’re living in, certainly in America. We’re all just hanging on by our fingernails,” Falco told the Tribeca Festival Lisboa presser.
And an antidote to the times might just come if Falco was, as she also has on her bucket list, to play a politician on screen: “Maybe I can get something out of my system.”
The Tribeca Festival Lisboa runs through to Nov. 1.
