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Kate Mara needs a phone charger – portable, preferably. Procuring one from her team, the actor walks towards me at the back of Claridge’s restaurant, the click-clack of high heels echoing off the marble floor. Introductions are made; hands are shaken.
The actor has a no-nonsense air about her that feels very New York. She grew up an hour north of the city, where she lives now with her husband, the British actor Jamie Bell, and their three children. But beneath the professionalism and the perfectly pressed all-white outfit, Mara, 43, can be candid in a way that catches you off guard – flashes of vulnerability that instantly endear you to her. “It’s 90 per cent rejection still to this day,” she says, laughing. “I’ll see something and ask, ‘Oh, how come I never got that script?’ And my agent will say, ‘We tried. They’re not interested.’”
For every “no” Mara hears, there are plenty of yeses, too. Her first big one came when, at 19, she landed the role of Heath Ledger’s daughter in Brokeback Mountain (2005). Then there was House of Cards, in which her ambitious young reporter was pushed in front of a train by Kevin Spacey. Along the way, parts in high-profile projects like 24, 127 Hours, The Martian, Iron Man 2, and Entourage made Mara a steady and recognisable screen presence. Her signature red hair, cut to shoulder-length today and parted down the middle, has helped with that.
Her latest project, Apple TV+’s Imperfect Women, was a big yes. The show stars Mara, Kerry Washington and Elisabeth Moss as the three best friends of its title, whose bond quickly unravels after one of them is murdered. Mara plays Nancy, a glamorous socialite whose dark past and impulses threaten to destroy her picture-perfect life.
As far as characters go, Nancy is a juicy one, layered like a strawberry trifle laced with arsenic. It is classic Mara; as an actor, she specialises in a tightly coiled emotional intensity. But it was equally the chance to work with Washington and Moss that appealed to her on this occasion. “Even two female leads is rare, so to have three is unheard of,” says Mara, “and then for it to be two actors who I’ve admired and who have been acting as long as I have, that’s a rare opportunity.”
The fact that they are all mums was a “very bonding thing”, adds Mara. “I haven’t had that many experiences where I’m on set and the other actors have children necessarily, especially other females. So that’s a really special thing; you don’t feel quite as alone in that pull of wanting to be at home but wanting to do a great job at work.” The all-women team of directors was a welcome surprise, too. “I’ve been acting since I was 14, and I think I worked with one female director in the first 20 years.”
Kerry Washington, Mara and Elisabeth Moss in ‘Imperfect Women’ (Apple TV+)
There are shades of Nancy in Mara – that singular drive that led her, as a teenager, to forgo a spot at the prestigious Tisch School of Performing Arts and instead move to Los Angeles by herself, with only her Boston terrier for company. “I was very confident,” says Mara. “At least in my dream. I don’t know if I necessarily thought, ‘This will definitely happen for me’ – but I knew I was going to try, no matter what. I was very motivated and would have done anything to get there. To work as hard as I possibly could.”
Back home in Bedford, a bucolic suburb also home to Martha Stewart, it was not acting but sports that loomed large in the Mara household. In an NFL crossover that sounds like the plot of a Netflix romcom, her father and his siblings own the New York Giants, while her mother’s side of the family owns the Pittsburgh Steelers. “I support both teams,” Mara says diplomatically. Her husband has come on board with the whole American football thing. “Jamie lives and breathes the New York Giants – and me and the kids, whether we like it or not, live and breathe Arsenal,” she laughs. “I feel like the English football season never ends!”
Mara was 19 when she got the part of Alma Jr opposite screen father Heath Ledger in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ (Focus Features)
Mara and her sister Rooney, best known for Carol and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, have unintentionally made a start at building their own little dynasty – not a sports one, mind you. Both have settled down with other actors: Mara with Bell, Rooney with Joaquin Phoenix. “I can’t imagine being married to someone who’s not an actor,” says Mara. “It’s such a specific experience.”
Later this year, the sisters will star in their first film together. In Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard, the siblings play identical twins whose minds are so enmeshed that they speak in unison and have the same dreams. They also love the same man. Working together was completely comfortable. “To put it plainly, it felt like home,” says Mara. “You have all this shared history to draw from. It’s impossible to make up; it’s so deep, and there’s nothing like it. I can’t imagine doing that role with somebody else.”
I wouldn’t say it was ever competitive between us – I don’t think she would say that either
Mara on auditioning for the same roles as her sister Rooney
Mara and Rooney are not twins, but they do possess some of that preternatural intuition that comes with sharing a womb. “It was funny, when we were filming, we would randomly test each other to think of a number and not tell the other one to see if we thought of the same number,” says Mara. And did they ever get it right? “All the time! So creepy.”
It’s taken decades for the sisters to work together. Truthfully, it was less about finding the right time than it was about finding the right project. “We’d been sent things over the years that weren’t right for various reasons,” says Mara. “One of the main reasons being that, you know, again, it’s rare to find a script that has two leads that are both female, and both interesting. We really did have to wait to find something that had equal opportunity.”
Mara was 22 and already a working actor by the time her sister followed her into the business. There was never any sense of rivalry, she insists. “I was just excited that she was going to be doing the same thing as me,” she says. “I wouldn’t say it was ever competitive between us – I don’t think she would say that either – but we were up for similar roles, for sure. Not all the time, but often enough.” Even then, there was never any bad blood. “I felt that we were so different in so many ways that if one of us got a role, it just wouldn’t have made sense for the other person anyway. So it wasn’t that complicated.”
Sisters Rooney and Kate pictured together in 2018 (Getty)
Speaking to Mara, it becomes clear that she was always going to be an actor – that her skill on screen is matched by a steely determination off it. Any rejection she faced, she knew, was part of the game. “That was going to be a reality no matter what; I was always most confident in knowing that was what I wanted to do the most,” she says. “It can still hurt, for sure, but my perspective has changed a lot over the years, and having kids and a family, I have things that are more important to me and that fulfil me in another way. So it definitely hurts less, matters less, but no, it can definitely still be brutal.”
Next up, Mara has her sights set on Broadway – which was, in fact, her goal all along, ever since her mum started taking her and her sister to the theatre as children. “Back then I couldn’t care less about TV or movies, but then I moved to LA and lived there for 22 years, so Broadway wasn’t a possibility,” she says. “Now that I’ve moved back to New York, I’ve realised that the dream is still alive and well. I’d love to do it just as much now as I did when I was nine.” As for who she’d like to work with, the Irish writer Martin McDonagh comes to mind. If anyone can make it happen, it’s her; I would not be surprised to see a McDonagh-Mara billing in the next few years.
‘Imperfect Women’ is available to watch now on Apple TV+