Originally, when I spoke with actress Nancy Daly, I had not yet had the chance to watch Netflix’s new thriller, The Boroughs, in which she plays the role of ‘Mother’. I had heard great things about the show online, saw a few stills of her prior to our conversation, and although she did a great job explaining the show’s plot and her preparation for the role, I still felt I was missing some context.
I promised her I would watch the show as soon as I could and I now have that context. Taking place in an retirement community where evil lurks, The Boroughs houses an all-star cast of retirees who are all going through different things in their own lives but come together for friendship and the greater good. She described it as Stranger Things for adults and though I was thoroughly entertained as the 8-episode debut season progressed, in anticipation I kept laughing to myself, thinking “WHERE IS MY GIRL!?” She did an AMAZING job!
Also, Miss Nancy made my viewing experience much more pleasurable because I got to hear her perspective prior so I was fully tapped in as if I was behind the scenes during filming. She and I discussed her preparation for the role and the 5+ hours it took to apply makeup and prosthetics, her role in Bullet Train, Alzheimer’s disease and her fight for a cure, and more. She and I have a few things in common and I enjoyed speaking with her. Go Miss Nancy, Go!
Let’s start off with Netflix’s The Boroughs. Tell me all about it.
Oh, talk about the role of a lifetime! I would say I’m working with a cast of titans. This is a show that is produced by the Duffer Brothers, who produced Stranger Things. Now, we are being called the Stranger Things for grown ups, the advanced age. Lol, I work with an incredible cast. I work with Geena Davis, Alfred Molina, Denis O’Hare, Bill Pullman, Clarke Peters, Alfre Woodard, Jena Malone, and Carlos Miranda.
I mean, all those people just lift this whole storyline even higher than it was. It takes place in a retirement community and we discover very quickly that the people within the community have adapted to this situation and are making it work for them. Geena’s character Renee Joyce is a yoga instructor, Alfre and Clark (Judy and Art Daniels) are doing their thing, and Bill Pullman (Jack Willard) is like the person who welcomes everybody in.
Then, Alfred (Sam Cooper) joins the community and really just doesn’t want to be there and by the end of the first episode, we discover that there is trouble afoot, if you will. There are strange things going on, like creatures that are appearing in the middle of the night. Things are happening and my character (Mother) is only referred to up until episode six. Until you meet her, you have this sort of impression of her like she must be a villain and this terrible human being.
She is very close to my heart Tyrone, I must tell you. Nobody would recognize me. I’m in head-to-toe prosthetics. I have contact lenses and my mouth is partly glued shut. My ear is glued shut. So, I could only communicate with feelings and barely audible sound. That was the challenge. All of us have been in this position in some way where you are at the mercy of other people and those other people are controlling you and using you for their own gains. Through decades of this happening, she has known anguish, horrific loss, despair, rage, and everything that comes to play in that situation.
I had to train very hard to do this role because I wanted to be in the best physical shape I could be in. At the beginning, I was in the makeup chair over five hours. It is very extensive and some people asked if it was awful. It wasn’t because it was a collaboration with myself and the makeup team. We were creating Mother from the base of my existence and with every piece that was attached, there she was.
I remember the very first time that I had to wear her for a costume fitting, right before I started shooting. The man who created the creature was there. As I was looking into the mirror and I saw her, I realized something and gestured him over. I said, “She used to be pretty”. They said, “Oh, yes. She was. She was beautiful.” I looked at what she had become because of having been manipulated by all these people and I knew that was another loss she had to bear.
Tyrone, I have to say it was the most physically daunting, challenging, but greatest honor of my life to play her. Throughout the storyline up until you meet her, the other band of wonderful people that are in this retirement community, all decide to rally to stand up for their own. It is a phenomenal story being performed with such greatness within all of these people. There are moments that are absolutely hilarious but then lives and humanity are at stake as well. That is why I love this genre, because everything is heightened. I am blessed to be among those masters of the craft to tell this story.
You mentioned your ear and mouth being glued. Does your character speak at all or is the acting physical only?
Well, she didn’t have any lines. She had no actual words come out of her mouth. There are sounds. You can’t really hear her in the first season except occasionally because there is a lot of sound going on around her. So, it was my job to convey through movement and emotion what she was thinking and how she was feeling. I could not eat solid foods during filming and I had some very long days, I must tell you. I could only drink water, juice, coffee, and smoothies for about 12, 16, 18, or 20 hours a day.
Tell me about the process of the makeup and prosthetics. You said it took five or more hours to apply everything. I’ve seen video footage over the years of different actors having to go through that process. How do they go about making sure that the makeup looks exactly the same every application? Or, does it vary?
You know something? You have to have makeup artists that are at the top of the game, which I was blessed to have. They know because some things take place on different days. So, if it was slightly a little bit darker one day to the next, or if the end of an episode veered into the next and are taking place within minutes of each other, my makeup had to match. They take pictures every day. They would take pictures as they applied the makeup, you know? “Last chance to go to the bathroom because we are putting on the hump” became a great big joke.
Lol, I had fake legs and fake arms so it was this whole thing. There were different pieces of her face and her neck. Everything had to be attached but they took all of these pictures, which is almost like a montage of me, right in the makeup trailer so they could keep track of it and because they are such experts and have been doing it for so long, they knew from one day to the next what matched. It is very, intrinsic, detailed work, which is why it takes as long as it does.
Also, I had fake teeth and contact lenses and as time went on, they got more into the rhythm of the process of putting all this stuff up and we eventually got down to four hours of application time. I will say they gave me a compliment. They kept saying to the producers, “She is so Zen. She made our lives so much easier.” I would just sit there and let them do their magic. We had music playing in the background and I would always request Motown because that is my favorite music in the entire world. It just is. It always shall be. I was able to get through it because I trained for it. I would hike 4 to 5 miles every day for like five days a week and I lifted weights and did yoga so that I would be in the greatest shape as I could to sustain that.
That is a specific role, different from the norm. What made you go for this role in particular versus any other?
What happened was the audition went out and they asked all the actresses to do a monologue from Still Alice. I only knew vaguely but I hadn’t seen a picture of her. I knew she was going to be in head-to-toe prosthetics, but I had no idea what she was going to look like. So, I did the monologue and the showrunners asked to meet a few actresses in person. That was their concern. They were like, “Do you think you can handle this?” I was able to say, “You all, I’m an athlete. This is what I do.”
I also pointed out I was a SAG-AFTRA captain and if I can be out there jumping in front of cars for five hours, I promise you I can sit in a makeup chair, lol. I made it very clear that I was in good shape. You can’t plan something like that. It has to happen organically. So, the day that I was offered the role, I was actually on set filming Ballard.
Do you want to hear something interesting? Sure, yes. My little sister is 13 years younger than me and till this day, I introduce her to movies she hasn’t seen yet. About a month and a half ago, she came over and we watched, “Bullet Train” together.
(Gasps) Oh my God! You saw me! You saw me shushing Brad Pitt! That was great! Very nice man!
It is just a crazy coincidence that we are speaking today.
I love that you got to see me shush Brad Pitt and be that sort of very annoyed woman and then you get to see me covered in head-to-toe prosthetics. I don’t know how old your little sister is, but this is a great show. If she likes, Stranger Things, she might like this. But if she is too young for Stranger Things, she may not want to. I’m honored. Yes, ma’am. She actually turned 28 not too long ago. Oh, lol! I thought she was like 14! Oh, well that’s wonderful. I think she would enjoy it. I think she would. It is a beautiful story.
I lead teams around the country for Walk to End Alzheimer’s because I’ve lost five members of my family to the effects of dementia or Alzheimer’s. In the show, Ed Begley Jr. plays a man (Edward) who is losing his memory. It is not Alzheimer’s or dementia. It was diagnosed as something else, but it just breaks your heart to see him ask his wife, “Where is Joey?” and Joey is his son who has died. Then, in the courtyard, there is an elderly gentleman that is seated. Alfred (Sam Cooper) sits next to him and the man says, “I’m waiting for the 515 bus.” and you know that every day he is going to be there waiting for the 515 bus that will never arrive.
So, I love that there is such a dichotomy between doing Bullet Train and now doing The Boroughs. I’m glad you asked why I wanted to do it. It resonates so deeply with me because of my background in losing so many members of my family. With Mother, I completely empathize with that sense of loss, anguish, helplessness, and rage completely. It is a story that needs to be told and I am honored that I get to play her. She becomes a hero by making sacrifices that are for other people.
We have a few things in common. You mentioned Alzheimer’s. My great-grandmother had dementia and I recall seeing her going through some of the stages of it. I learned a lot during that time period and I realized that a lot of times she didn’t know where she was and she was always talking about going home and pointing across the street. Tell me about Actors and Artists Unite to End Alzheimer’s.
We began in 2011 and had four teams. Each one was in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C. (my hometown), and Miami. My union, SAG-AFTRA, and Actors Equity were so thrilled that we were doing this so for the first two years with those four teams, broadwayworld.com would post articles about this. In the comments, people were saying they were walking in Nashville, Montana, Chicago, etc. and asking if we had teams there. So in 2013, we became a national team and that was amazing to me because I would get these emails saying, “We’ve got a team in Georgia, Texas, Oregon, Massachusetts, etc.” People would join us around the country and as their captain, I would spend every Saturday and Sunday out there at like 5:30 a.m. in California because that’s what a captain does. You walk with your team.
Then, when the pandemic hit that first year, the walks did not take place because we couldn’t have thousands of people gathering so after that, we kept going as long as we could but I think for a lot of people, once they lose their loved one, they need to take a step back. I understood that but for me, I made a promise to my dad. I lost my mom in 2012 to Alzheimer’s and the greatest heartbreak of my life is that I had no idea that I would lose my dad to this same disease seven years later. I lost my aunt (my mother’s sister) to the same disease as well in 2015. So, I go out there every single year and I walk and I walk, but there is some part of my heart that keeps saying, “I’m too late.” I’m too late because we didn’t find a cure in time to save my aunt or my dad. We are no longer a national team but we still have teams around the country and I say to them, “We walk now so that when we find a cure, then we dance.”
I promise you, Tyrone, I am not going to leave this earth until we find a cure. I will be out there walking every single year. I know how hard it is, having lived through it myself. There was one night my mom slipped out of the house and went to our neighbor’s house next door. It was 1:30 in the morning, she was banging on the door and said to them, “Can you take me to London? I need to go to London.” They had to call my dad to come and guide her home because way back before my mother became ill, they would take trips to England. They had wonderful friends in England. So in her mind, she had to go to London, even though it was 1:30 a.m.
I don’t know if this happened to you with your great-grandma, but I will never forget this moment: It was July 4th, 2010, I had came home, and my mom was still with us. She was still at home and kind of fragile. She would try to cook and we would have to go behind her and try to fix things so that she wouldn’t start a fire in the kitchen. I was helping out the whole weekend I was there and as my brother and sister were getting ready to drive me to the airport and I was about to leave, my mom came up to me and she said, “It was so lovely to have you help us. You were so helpful. We’re going to write your parents and tell them how wonderful you were.” She had no idea I was her daughter.
So, there is enough of us out there that keep doing this walk so eventually we get to do the dance. I think everybody knows what it’s like to have lost a loved one. You lose them a hundred times before they actually die. You lose them every time they look at you and don’t know you.
To keep up with Nancy and all of the wonderful things she is involved in, visit her on Instagram @nancydalyactor.
Words + Interview By Tyrone Davis
Photo courtesy of Nancy Daly
