Lancashire had miniature awareness of Julia Slight one, outside of promoting for 2009’s Julie & Julia (which starred Meryl Streep in an Oscar-nominated flip). At the cease of 2019, she told her agent she wished to acquire a 300 and sixty five days off of performing for non-public reasons. Days later, he known as her, respectful of her possibility however with a pilot script that he wished her to read anyway, known as Julia. She obliged, and not using a knowing it used to be about Slight one; given her lack of familiarity, she read over a dozen pages sooner than figuring that share out. She beloved the writing, at least, and build her hiatus on hiatus, flying to Los Angeles for auditions. She hadn’t auditioned in decades—“This is no longer grandiosity; I never bought the job as a younger actor because I used to be so hopeless in auditioning,” she tells me with a laugh—and didn’t quiz to fetch the role. She introduced her youngest son along for the L.A. time out, making a piece poke out of it. “We flew home,” Lancashire says, “and I forgot about it.”
Slight did Lancashire know that the venture’s very survival had turn into dependent on her. Goldfarb and his team made extremely long lists of candidates to play Slight one (Joan Cusack used to be swiftly related however “that ended up no longer working out,” says showrunner Chris Keyser), and every single actor however one used to be dominated out. “The body language and the essence of [Child] is so masterfully conveyed by Sarah, and she moves assist and forth between the pathos and the comedy with total ease—I don’t know somebody else who may maybe well maybe maintain accomplished that,” Keyser says. “We and the community made up our minds that it used to be both going to be Sarah, or the level to wasn’t going to happen…. It used to be Sarah or nothing.”
Fortunately, Lancashire stated certain. Her “300 and sixty five days off” wasn’t meant to be—till, it roughly used to be. Three days into shooting in Boston, in March 2020, the position shut down attributable to the pandemic, and didn’t blueprint pack up yet again till September, when she filmed the pilot. Then, a COVID-19 surge delayed the relaxation of the season’s manufacturing agenda to spring. By the level Lancashire had returned to the U.S. to total Julia in mid-2021, the sector had modified: Keep a two-week stretch, she couldn’t contemplate her family contributors attributable to commute restrictions. “It’s no longer an skills I care to repeat, by means of being isolated far from family,” Lancashire says. One of many most no longer easy roles of her occupation took on an fully unique layer of narrate—though it used to be additionally rewarding. She may maybe well maybe dwell, sleep, and breathe Julia Slight one as she’d never somewhat accomplished with a personality sooner than.
“To be perfectly appropriate, I feel I used to be somewhat saved the principle time we were closed down,” Lancashire says. “I don’t dispute I used to be ready.”
A camera operator who worked on Slight one’s The French Chef told Lancashire that “Julia would lumber into the studio and…factual stand and look and obtain every thing in.” This used to be Lancashire’s level of fascination: the non-public, nonetheless Julia who thrived in perseverance. One myth, in particular, unlocked something for the actor. “I used to be in a hotel for the principle couple of weeks, and considered one of the managers came around to me and stated, ‘I drove Julia home once,’” Lancashire recalls. “She’d been in the hotel at a objective, I feel she’d been the client of honor. She’d entertained all people wonderfully. He bought the automobile ready and she climbed into the assist. I stated, ‘And what did she disclose?’ He stated, ‘She stated nothing. She exhaled very deeply, and then sat in silence for the total traipse home.’”
