June Squibb earns action-star status with Thelma, her first lead film role at 94 years old

Watch out, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Dwayne Johnson, and Michelle Rodriguez — there's a new action star in town.

The thing is, though, she's not new to Hollywood. In fact, she's been acting for more than 70 years. But with Thelma, which debuted Thursday night at the Sundance Film Festival, Oscar- and Tony-nominee June Squibb earns action-star status — and with her first leading role in a film.

In the film — the feature directorial debut of Josh Margolin, who wrote the script inspired by real-life experiences with his grandmother — Squibb's Thelma Post is the victim of a phone scam, putting thousands of dollars in the mail to help her jailed grandson...who, of course, isn't really in jail.

Independent in many ways, she spends a lot of time with her grandson (The White Lotus' Fred Hechinger, who also produces along with Squibb), hanging out and watching movies (specifically, we see Cruise running along a rooftop in Mission: Impossible — Fallout). So after realizing she's been duped, she sets out — without the help of her daughter and son-in-law (Parker Posey and Clark Gregg) but with the aid of a longtime family friend, played by Shaft legend Richard Roundtree in his final onscreen performance — to find out who did it and get her money back.

Below, Squibb and Margolin tell EW about making her an action star, why people of a certain age shouldn't be counted out, and going on a mission with Roundtree (as seen in the clip above!).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I have to tell you, someone tried pulling one of these scams on my grandparents a couple times, using me as the bait, saying I was traveling and had lost my wallet one time, and the other time said I had been arrested.

JUNE SQUIBB: They tried that on me too! But I don't have any grandchildren, so I knew it was a scam.

JOSH MARGOLIN: That is your secret weapon... [Laughs]

SQUIBB: ...not having grandchildren. [Laughs]

But that just frustrates me so much, how they prey on older people. Josh, I know this is inspired by your own grandma's real-life experience. Did she go on the same journey as Thelma does here, or did you start with the nugget of a phone scam and take it from there?

MARGOLIN: Fortunately, it was largely a nugget. She'd gotten a few of these calls and then, for some reason, one of 'em really took her by surprise and she got really panicked. It was basically the same exact scam that we do in the movie. And she somehow convinced my parents that it was happening and everybody got into this chaotic state. Luckily they were able to call my girlfriend and tell her I was in jail. And she said, "No, he's here, he's next to me." Fortunately, it was a great way to stop that in its tracks. But she was getting her money together. So it was a close call that inspired the seed of the movie, but luckily she didn't actually end up sending it.

At what point did you decide you wanted to turn that into a movie?

MARGOLIN: I think it was probably in the months following that. The event sort of shook my long-held feeling about my grandma as somebody who is just so infallible and so strong. And, obviously she still was, but it was upsetting to see her duped in that way. So the wheels started turning and I started to imagine what would've happened if she had sent it and then set out on her own to get it back, which honestly is probably what she would do if she had sent it. So it wasn't that big of a leap to be like, well, if she did that, I think she would not tell us and she would find a way to get it back. So that was sort of the early seed that then just grew into the movie and a way to write an ode to her in a way.

June, as I've been singing the praises of this film with my co-workers and friends, we've all kind of been in shock that this is your first lead role in a film, which I think is just a real crime. You've had lead roles with all your stage work and such, but were you nervous in any way about the added responsibility of being number one on the call sheet for the first time as someone in her 90s and everything that this film was going to bring with it?

SQUIBB: No, I wasn't. Because I just look at the script and I love the script and I understood the script. It wasn't that I had the ponder over it, I understood it. So no, I never thought in terms of the size of the role, but I never do. I do a lot of things that are small and a lot of things that are fairly large, even though they're supporting — but I just never think like that.

Josh, were you on a mission to get this in June's hands?

MARGOLIN: I always had imagined June for the part. Ever since I started writing it, I was imagining my grandma and I was imagining June. I've been a long-time fan, and she just felt so right for the part, a perfect mix of strength and vulnerability. So pretty early on, one of the first things I did once we had our core team assembled — my producer, Zoë Wirth and Chris Kaye — a mutual friend of ours, Beanie Feldstein, who's a close friend of my sister's from high school, knows my real grandma, had read the script, and said, "I hope you're going to send this to June." And I said, "That's exactly the plan. That's what I want to do." Beanie and June had just done The Humans together, so they had become friends, and Beanie very generously slipped it to June, June read it, and we got on the phone shortly thereafter. And then we started putting the pieces together.

June, you mentioned the script and how important that is. So much of this story is about not counting people out of the game just because of age. Well, this is not just your first lead role, but it's also an action role. There's so much that you get to do here. Mission: Impossible is a big inspiration we see in the film, and there are a lot of nods to movies of that genre throughout. Were you already a fan of those? Did you sit down to watch some to get you ready?

SQUIBB: No, but I've seen a lot. I've seen a lot of action. I have a son and he was both a sci-fi and an action film fan from a very young age, so I think I saw probably most of them that came out. [Laughs] I felt well-versed in that genre. I really did.

The motorized scooter chase...

SQUIBB: That was so much fun! [Laughs] I had a ball driving that.

MARGOLIN: June was driving that thing a lot of the time.

SQUIBB: And Richard was sitting there tall and proud behind me. [Laughs]

I love that so much. Even down to figuring out how you're going to get a firearm — and the payoff to that is so funny. Using the hearing aids and the phone app was so smart. I'm curious the things that you were really excited to play around with?

SQUIBB: Well, I loved the idea of the stunts! I was eager to do my own stunts. I drove with a scooter, and the stunt man said I was able to stop it better than his stunt people did. I could stop on a dime by the time I got through with that thing,

MARGOLIN: You could see over the first few days you got your sea legs and then very quickly you were just gunning that and stopping on a dime.

SQUIBB: And I was telling someone the other day, they were laughing about me hitting Richard with a scooter, when he's on his scooter. They were so worried about me, physically, and we had just gotten on the scooter. This was a fairly new one and they said, "Just tap his scooter. Don't try to do too much, we'll fix it." But I decided, oh, what the hell? So I powwed into him like that and they were all, "Oh! Oh! My God!" [Laughs] But they got it. They got the shot of me hitting the scooter and then I just zoomed right off.

MARGOLIN: I don't think I knew that was a decision until just now. I thought you got stuck on the throttle.

SQUIBB: No, no, no. I thought, well, let's just do this. If we're going to do it, we're going to do it.

MARGOLIN: It looked great.

You have a wonderful cast surrounding you here — Parker Posey, Clark Gregg. And I love the relationship with Fred. I know you don't have any grandsons of your own, but what did you enjoy about getting to play around in that dynamic with Fred?

SQUIBB: It was wonderful. One of the first things we shot together was the graveyard scene, which was kind of early on. But that helped a lot because it was just he and I sitting there talking. And Fred and I have become really good friends. When he comes to L.A. he comes over for lunch or dinner or something. I've seen him quite a bit since we stopped shooting.

And then, of course, you mentioned Richard, the great Richard Roundtree. You two become partners in crime — there's also an odd couple thing going on, and there's the shared history between those characters. What memories will you take with you working with him?

SQUIBB: Well, he's probably the coolest man I've ever met in my life, and I've met some cool men, I'll tell you. But he was heaven and he's so gorgeous and so kind and sweet, loving — I just could not say enough about him. It was so wonderful working with him, just he and I in a lot of those scenes together... He brought me flowers on my birthday. He didn't have to be on set, and all at once, he comes driving up in his big car and he has this huge two dozen roses for me for me birthday. He was wonderful.

MARGOLIN: He was the best.

Josh, I know you said it was a dream to get her, but then there's the reality of you looking in the camera and you've got June and Richard there... is that a pinch-me moment, especially considering it's your first film?

MARGOLIN: Absolutely. I felt really lucky to get the cast that we got and really, really excited to work with everybody. There were definitely days on set where it felt like an an embarrassment of riches. It was people who felt so right to me for the parts, too — people I really admired and people who I felt captured the essence of those roles. I knew I was in good hands. So whatever nerves there were about working with these people I've admired, I also quickly felt like I could rely on everybody — I had a lot of trust for June and Fred and Richard and Clark and Parker and the whole gang. Everybody really took ownership of it, and I felt incredibly lucky to have everyone and really grateful to have worked with all of them on this.

June, in addition to what your character's dealing with, Thelma is also still grieving a bit the loss of her husband two years earlier. I remember when my grandpa passed, my grandma would say how she just missed his presence — even if they weren't talking to each other, the shared company brought a certain kind of comfort. Tell me about getting to explore that aspect of Thelma.

SQUIBB: I think that that's one of the joys of the script, and one of the smart things in the script is that Josh lets you see what she's feeling and he takes time to sit them down and to let her say, "This is what I feel." And you don't get that in a lot of films. When you read a film, you think, well, I will bring that to it. I know this and I will bring that. But this, Josh gave it to me — it was there in the script, and that was wonderful. He really lets everybody see who this woman is, and that's so important.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

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