Mia Barron
Mia Barron is an actor.
Mia Barron's real home is the New York stage, and the awards say so plainly: a Lucille Lortel for the Lincoln Center production of The Coast Starlight, an Obie for Hurricane Diane at New York Theatre Workshop, and a second Obie plus a Drama Desk shared with the ensemble of the Off-Broadway run of The Wolves. The ensemble prize is the tell. Barron is a company actor, the kind directors cast when a scene needs someone who will make the other performers better rather than win it.
She is a maker as well as an interpreter. With the director Lars Jan she co-created a theatrical adaptation of Joan Didion's The White Album, which played to sold-out houses at BAM's Harvey Theatre as part of the Next Wave Festival. Turning Didion's prose into a stage event is a hard structural problem, and taking it on says more about her instincts than any casting notice could.
Screen work has fitted in around the theatre, which is the standard New York arrangement, and it skews small and specific: Jill Goldman in the crime picture Righteous Kill, Susan in the drama I Smile Back, Emily in Get Shorty, Emilia in Review. Her most heard performance is animated, as Molotov Cocktease and Sally Impossible on The Venture Bros., where the comedy only lands because she plays preposterous material with complete conviction. The recent independent feature Half Empty Half Full drew a New York Film Award nomination for its ensemble, which is, again, where she keeps ending up.
Movies (2)
TV (3)
Where to start with Mia Barron
The Venture Bros. is the easiest way in and the most fun, because Molotov Cocktease is a part built entirely on commitment: a ludicrous name, a ludicrous premise, played absolutely deadpan. Barron never winks at it, and that is the whole reason it works.
For the dramatic register go to I Smile Back, a hard, unglamorous film about addiction where the supporting cast has to hold the ground steady while the lead comes apart. Righteous Kill is the mainstream credit and the least interesting of the three, useful mainly to watch her hold a scene against two very loud actors.
Then the comedy. Review is the bleaker and better show, an absurdist premise pursued well past the point of comfort, and Get Shorty is the more conventional pleasure. Her stage work, where the awards are, is the part no streaming queue can hand you.