CHRISTINE BARANSKI IS REDEFINING WHAT IT MEANS TO PORTRAY FORMIDABLE WOMEN ONSCREEN

Christine Baranski wants you to know that she loves Canada. “I’m a Buffalo girl,” the actor proclaims in her grand yet amiable voice. That means she frequently crossed the border during her childhood and built “such happy memories” on camping trips to Muskoka long before it earned its cottage-country-hot-spot status. In fact, Canada even plays a starring role in her career-origin story. “I think I’m an actress because when I was in high school, we took a train up to the Stratford Festival and I was just hit with an arrow in the heart when I saw a production of Romeo and Juliet,” says Baranski, adding that she kept returning to the renowned southwestern Ontario theatre fest over the years and even got to watch the late, great Dame Maggie Smith perform.

It’s apt, then, that the last time Baranski—whose decades-long career includes iconic roles in projects like the ’90s sitcom Cybill, Emmy-nominated legal drama The Good Wife and Mamma Mia! movies—was in Canada, it was for a quick costume fitting in Toronto for her latest role, in Nine Perfect Strangers. The second season of the anthology series, which is now streaming on Prime Video Canada, sees Nicole Kidman returning to her 2021 role of Masha, an enigmatic wellness guru who claims to help (mostly wealthy) people transform their lives with microdosing. While the first season was adapted from the Liane Moriarty novel of the same name, this batch of episodes enters completely new territory. Masha’s lavish retreat has moved to the snowy Austrian Alps, and she’s ready to welcome a different group of clients, played by a cast that includes Baranski, Murray Bartlett (The White Lotus), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness), gen-Z singer-songwriter King Princess and Canadian star Annie Murphy.

Baranski plays Victoria, a beguiling woman who immediately leaps off the screen. She’s loud, boisterous and not afraid to draw attention to herself—as long as she can control it. She has attended Masha’s retreats before (usually after the dissolution of yet another marriage), but this time the visit is meant to be a bonding experience with her estranged daughter, Imogen (Murphy), in an attempt to repair their relationship. So when Victoria arrives on the scene fashionably late with a younger (and uninvited) paramour on one arm and a mysterious cane on the other, Imogen is understandably frustrated. It soon becomes clear that Victoria isn’t being forthcoming about something in her life, and that’s when this complicated mother-daughter story really kicks into high gear.

“Victoria is putting on a show—about why she’s using a cane and in the way that she sits and the way she presents herself,” says Baranski, explaining that she found the character so compelling because of the psychological place she’s in when audiences meet her. “She’s this glamorous woman with a great sense of humour. She’s irreverent, but she’s also hiding something deeply sad while longing to connect with her daughter.” Because Imogen’s and Victoria’s stories are intertwined, Baranski and Murphy’s dynamic was key to the plot’s success. Baranski had never worked with the Schitt’s Creek star before, which she says was a plus because their characters haven’t seen each other in years. The two may be estranged, but Imogen is definitely her mother’s daughter, matching her sense of fierceness and her air of self-assured sophistication. And in Murphy, Baranski found a dream scene partner. “Annie just has such an extraordinary life force and intelligence,” she says. “She’s got these piercing blue eyes, and there’s a vividness to her personality. She was so believable to me as that character and so formidable that I could see how Victoria would be intimidated by her own daughter.”

And if anyone knows something about portraying formidable women onscreen, it’s Baranksi. Whether she’s playing elite lawyer Diane Lockhart on The Good Wife or its spinoff series The Good Fight or old-money matriarch Agnes Van Rhijn on the HBO period drama The Gilded Age (which returns for season three this month), she projects a powerful, unwavering steeliness in many of her roles. While Victoria may be concealing a certain vulnerability, she’s no exception. “It takes a lot of strength to put on your makeup and put yourself together knowing that you’re literally falling apart,” says Baranski. “Victoria, like so many characters that I play, has a real moxie—a kind of fighting spirit.”

Baranski calls this spirit “push-back energy,” and it’s something she searches for in every part she plays (which, she adds, isn’t hard as it’s the type of role she tends to be offered). “It’s a fierce energy—it means you have something to push back on,” she says. “There’s a wall of resistance or [there are] obstacles you have to find the strength to push up against, so you have to look deeper within yourself. It requires that extra bit of inner strength.” It’s a quality Baranski started developing herself after she lost her dad when she was just eight years old. Everything in her life changed. Onscreen, she says, that obstacle was the corporate glass ceiling in a man’s world for Diane, while for Agnes it was having to marry a difficult man to ensure she and her sister were provided for. “I love playing these characters because I love the energy that [doing so] calls upon; I love [taking on] the obstacles, coming through to the other side and finding that I did have the strength to make it,” she adds. “I’ve often said that I’m not an actress who’d be comfortable playing the victim—you know, the long-suffering wife or the nice mom who puts up with a lot of shit. I’m the actress who’s going to walk into the room and take over.”

Since Baranski has carved out her niche playing women who push back, many people admit to being intimidated when they first meet her. In fact, her Gilded Age co-star (and the daughter of her friend and Mamma Mia! cast mate Meryl Streep) Louisa Jacobson has confessed to feeling just that while shooting the first season of the period drama. But even in just a 20-minute conversation with the actor, it’s obvious that not only is Baranski not intimidating but she goes out of her way to make sure others feel welcome and cared for in her presence. “People see this image of me, but I am not these characters,” she says with a laugh. “I just want to make my fellow actors comfortable. I’ll be as friendly and as kind as I can be. If another actor is struggling with lines, I’ll say, ‘What can I do to help you?’ or ‘Hey, we’ve all been there. Take your time; take some deep breaths. We’re in this together.’ It’s almost a professional responsibility to make your fellow players feel comfortable, even if your role is someone who’s giving them a hard time. They have to know that there’s a safety net when you’re not working and that you’re not going to be that character. You’re going to be a colleague who’s on their team.”

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