Carol Kane has been a mainstay of stage and screen for almost five decades. From The Princess Bride to Gotham to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Kane has done it all -- and shows no sign of slowing down. Now she's gracing the small screen once again as Mindy Markowitz on Amazon Prime's Hunters. Mindy is a Nazi hunter who, along with her husband Murray, serves as her team's weapons expert.
In an interview with CBR, Kane opened up about why she was attracted to the show, being a badass onscreen and going back and forth between comedy and drama.
CBR: What attracted you to this project?
Carol Kane: The writing was phenomenal. And these are my people. My grandparents came from Poland and Russia and Austria. And some of our family was lost because they were told to get out and they thought it wouldn't really happen, and so they stayed….
And I think it's a very relevant story for our current days of what's happening, in terms of there’s someone in charge [in the United States] that does whatever he wants. And it's frightening, and I think that it's important for people to see what could happen [in the] worst-case scenario.
Has a Jewish identity played into your career choices up until this point?
I did a movie a long time ago called Hester Street for which I was actually nominated for Best Actress [at the Oscars]. And that was Jews at the turn of the century coming over from Russia, and we spoke Yiddish and were trying to fit into American life. But that's the only other one I've done that was specifically… very much about the Jewish history.
Did you do any historical research for this role?
A little bit, yeah…. They were really good about sending us a lot of material to teach us about what really happened with [the secret government program that brought former Nazis to the United States] Operation Paperclip here. And for Hester Street I’d done a lot and that helped with this too. I like to do research.
I also really liked that your character was kind of a badass.
I know! Isn’t that different for me! I was very excited about that. When I first read it, I only read a scene with me and Jonah, and it was just a very emotional scene. And so I had no idea what a badass Mindy turns out to be. Mindy and [her husband] Murray.
And they make quite a pair. What was it like building that relationship with Saul [Rubinek]?
You know, it's really interesting, it was kind of automatically there for some reason. I don't know why, it just seemed to be the right thing. And we're very different people. But I think Mindy and Murray are too. But it seemed like we both had things to draw on from our past that were helpful to connect us together.
What was it like working with Al Pacino on this?
Well, it was great because he and I have a long history together because when we were young we were doing plays together at the Public Theater in Boston and then we did Dog Day Afternoon together, the Sidney Lumet film. And then there's a big gap where we didn't work together. And now there's this and… for me, it was moving to get to be together again.
What about the rest of the cast? It's such a diverse cast, but it's such an interesting cast.
Isn't it fantastic? I love it. It's so weird, the group of people, but… we’re all necessary in terms of different people doing different jobs to make this hunt work out, and a very eclectic grouping. And I have the boring… thing to say that we all just really loved each other and had a lot of fun together, which was important because the material’s pretty dark sometimes. So it was good that we enjoyed each other and hung out in each other's dressing rooms.
I had a very visceral reaction to the show and I just I can't imagine what it was like to be involved in it. Was it intense?
It's intense. Yeah, it’s intense. That's what I mean is that between takes or when we're waiting up in the dressing rooms or whatever, we keep each other amused. And… Josh and Logan and Saul, they all play instruments and sometimes they’d play their guitars and stuff when we waited to go on, and that was lovely.
So I think that, at least in the last few years, the thing you're probably most known for is Lillian on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, who is so, so different.
So different. I got lucky that the two characters could not be more different and that's such a wonderful gift for an actor to go from one extreme to the other…. For me, everything is about writing… If the script isn't there, it's just not gonna work no matter how you try. And, well, obviously [Kimmy Schmidt was created by] Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, and you don't get better than that. And so, again, it was the writing. It was so attractive and never let us down.
It seemed like with Kimmy Schmidt you were really willing to go for it too because it's such an out-there character.
Yeah, I had to go for it. Why not? You can’t go halfway. That's a little dumb. And especially Lillian can't go halfway. Because she just is one of those people that whatever she thinks or feels it comes right out of her mouth and there's no editing on the way out… She just says it and does it.
It's refreshing in a way.
Yeah, I like it.
What is it like for you to go from something like that where you're so unrestrained to something where there is a lot more restraint with the Hunters role?
Well, it’s a challenge, but that's what you want…. I think the most deadly thing for an actor is to get typecast to the point where you just keep playing the same character over and over -- they have different names, but they're basically the same. And oh my God, I think that would be deadly, because you have to keep your mind stimulated and your heart stimulated and you have to try and do something you haven't done before. Whether you succeed or fail, you have to. And if the writing is there that's your base.
Starring Logan Lerman, Jerrika Hinton, Lena Olin, Saul Rubinek, Carol Kane, Josh Radnor, Greg Austin, Tiffany Boone, Louis Ozawa, Kate Mulvaney, Dylan Baker and Al Pacino, the 10-episode first season of Hunters is now streaming on Amazon Prime.