There is something foundational about Carol Kane. She was part of the fabric of late 20th Century arts and entertainment, whether it be in films like "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Princess Bride" or on television in her Emmy-winning performance on "Taxi" as wife to Andy Kaufman's Latke. In transitioning into the 21st century, not only did her strengths become more amplified -- her trademark quirkiness adding dynamism to movies such as "The Pacifier" and shows like "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" -- but her range continues to become more pronounced. In the last decade alone she's taken part in a western from Jacques Audiard ("The Sisters Brothers"), a zombie comedy from Jim Jarmusch ("The Dead Don't Die"), and will soon be seen in Darren Aronofsky's '90s-set crime thriller "Caught Stealing" as a character she recently told IndieWire "only spoke Yiddish."
The role garnering her the most attention nowadays, however, is her recent turn as music teacher Carla Kessler in Nathan Silver's religious dramedy "Between the Temples." The film centers around a grieving cantor (Jason Schwartzman) helping his former educator study for her Bat Mitzvah, but to define the plot so plainly does a disservice to the true idiosyncratic nature of the piece. Heavily improvised and incorporating a jarring sound design and editing pattern, Silver's jumbled exploration of pain and connection is as discomforting as it is life-affirming and for Kane, the experience of making the film was very similar.
"It was kind of guerrilla-filming, you know, it was fast and it was loose," Kane told IndieWire. "The scenes were sort of scripted the night before or two days before, we went with the script and then we veered off a great deal from the script and improvised with Nathan's support and the support of our DP who just got into the scenes with us because it was improvised."
Despite having to keep on her toes while shooting, now that the film is out there, Kane's performance is earning widespread acclaim. She's already received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress and is nominated at the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards in the category of Best Supporting Performance. Many are hoping she'll earn an Oscar nod as well, a feat that would set the record for the longest stretch of time between nominations, a record currently held by Robert De Niro for his "Godfather Part II" Best Actor nomination, later win, in 1975 and his Best Supporting Actor nomination for "Killers of the Flower Moon" in 2024.
Kane's first and only nomination was for Best Actress in 1976 for her stunning portrayal of Jewish immigrant Gitl in "Hester Street" from the late Joan Micklin Silver. If she were to be nominated, she would best De Niro's record by only 14 days, but still, a win's a win and Kane's just grateful to be considered. Speaking to the actress over Zoom, we discussed her memories of being nominated for "Hester Street," as well as how it feels to still be receiving recognition at this stage in her career, especially for a film like "Between the Temples."
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
IndieWire: What a treat this is, how are you doing?
Carol Kane: I'm a little bit in shock because of all this attention on this movie suddenly. I'm pretty shocked in the best possible way. I'm of an age where it's a little bit surprising to get this kind of attention.
The last time you were in awards conversation like this was when you were Oscar nominated for "Hester Street" in 1975. You were just starting out, right? Do you remember anything about that period in your life?
Kane: I remember everything about it and then it was a great privilege, but it was also very disorienting to have that kind of focus at that age. I wasn't ready for it, but it was so gratifying.
What are your feelings towards awards now?
Kane: Well, I'm so grateful to have gotten the New York Film Critics Award because as my mom says, New York film critics have to be tough cause they're from New York. I guess that's true. So I feel very honored. And the Independent Spirit Awards because I love independent film and have [been a part of them] since I was quite young. I'm so grateful for it in our lives. But I don't -- I have to lecture myself a bit to not count on that meaning that there'll be anything else because you never know. It's just so random and you never know. I'd be grateful if there was something else. But on the other hand, I'm pretty grateful for what has happened so far. People are seeing the movie and that means a lot to me because I think this movie is so unique and so special and really deserves to be seen and enjoyed.
I don't know if you noticed this about the New York Film Critics Awards, but three of the four acting categories were roles related to the Jewish-American experience.
Kane: Is that right? What are the other ones?
Adrien Brody for the "The Brutalist" and Kieran Culkin for "A Real Pain."
Kane: That's very interesting.
It's clearly something in the zeitgeist right now. How did you find yourself connecting to the subject? Were you thinking at all about your experience playing Gitl in "Hester Street?"
Kane: Here's the thing, which is -- I'm ashamed in some ways to say it -- but I don't have a lot of experience about being an American Jew. I am an American Jew. My grandparents came from Russia and Austria and I'm very proud of them and their insane courage, but I wasn't raised in the faith. I barely went to temple. Although my father, Michael Kane, designed a wing of the temple that Ray Silver's father was the rabbi at, Ray Silver being the person who produced "Hester Street." So he designed this wing, but we never were religious. We had the fun celebrations like Hanukkah, but we didn't do anything past that. So these movies were an incredible gift for a million reasons, but one of the reasons is because they educated me about my faith and my people in different periods of time in our history.
Especially "Hester Street." The courage of people to be coming over on a boat to a new world and knowing nothing, not speaking any English -- it was so incredibly brave and they were such fighters, but all this has been my education about my roots. Not who I am, but my roots, you know, and even recently I was blessed to do a one day part in Darren Aronofsky's new movie ["Caught Stealing"] and I spoke only Yiddish and I must say it was much harder to learn in my seventies than it was in my twenties. It was a shock. So I keep learning more about my traditions and faith through this work that I've been given. It's really a surprising, profound gift.
I can imagine. In relation to "Between the Temples," where do you feel Carol and Carla meet and where do they diverge?
Kane: That's interesting. A lot of it is improvised. Based on a structure and suggested dialogue, a lot of it is improvised, so a lot of it comes out of our own hearts and minds and mouths and that's what Nathan Silver, the director, wants. Where we diverge maybe is that, I think Carla has an extraordinary amount of hope and positivity and I love that and it's inspiring to me, but I struggle with that because I struggle with depression and fear and all those other things. And I don't feel that that is a big part of Carla. What do you think?
I hear what you're saying. She doesn't really spend time in those feelings.
Kane: No, because I feel that she has spent a good deal of her life trying to please other people, her husband and her parents and her son, who we meet in the movie, and who just didn't want to support her and what she was trying to do. I think she spent a lot of time in that role, a service, as you say, to others who are not necessarily aware of her or supportive of her dreams. And now they're basically gone and she's on her own, she's absolutely determined to birth this promise that she's made to herself, to have this Bat Mitzvah.
A mitzvah is a good deed, so the act of securing yourself in the faith is, in and of itself, a good deed -- a service to the faith.
Kane: You know, it's based on the fact that Nathan Silver's mother. He did a documentary about her, which is so brilliant, called "Cutting My Mother." Have you seen it?
No, I haven't.
Kane: He did nine features and he put his mother, Cindy, in every one. And then the last one, he cut her out and she would not forgive him. She was so upset. And so he did a documentary about her and it's called "Cutting My Mother." And in doing that documentary, he accidentally discovered, following her around, that she was studying for a Bat Mitzvah in her 60s at the temple. He didn't know that and she didn't go through it like Carla does, but the germ of my character came from Nathan's mother. And then for me, a lot of the substance of my character came from my mother, Joy Kane, who is a musician who moved to Paris when she was 55 years old and started her life anew as a musician in very humble circumstances and became considered a master teacher in Europe.
You grew up in Paris for a time, didn't you?
Kane: Well first, my sister, my father and I, and my mother went when I was eight years old. My sister and I went to a school where no one spoke any English. We spent like three months coming home crying and then three months and one day later we spoke French because when you're little, you just absorb it like that, right? That was when we were very little and then when my mom moved back, I visited her quite a bit and that was much later in my life.
That's very special, getting to experience different cultures throughout your life.
Kane: Yeah, very lucky. And I got to learn French.
Would you say that's something that informed your desire to act, getting to inhabit these different lives and worlds?
Kane: You're just incredibly perceptive. It's true because I did not have a happy childhood. There was lots of trouble in my family. They were breaking up very early in my life and my mom took me to a play and maybe it's a cliche, but I just fell in love with the idea of going up there and being someone other than myself. Just having someone else's dream and inhabiting that. And that was the beginning of it because that's a lot of freedom. To sort of cozy up in someone else's skin and someone else's dreams -- what a privilege.
In cozying up to Carla, what was your favorite piece to shoot?
Kane: A lot of things, but I have to go back to just the beginning where my adult self, Carla, meets Little Benny as an adult in the bar. And that's where we begin. We form a strange bond, perhaps impacted by the fact that I knew him since he was little. So I knew who he was meant to be and that he is oppressed and not being who he is meant to be and that maybe some of my joy can help him grow. Also, my mom is a music teacher and I taught him the belly breathing and all that on the table and that's what my mom teaches. But the scene in the bar where I first scrape him off the floor and meet him is I think maybe my favorite in some ways.
What was your reaction to seeing the film for the first time?
Kane: I think I saw it the first time with an audience and I was really thrilled. It was kind of guerilla filming, you know, it was fast and it was loose. The scenes were sort of scripted the night before or two days before, we went with the script and then we veered off a great deal from the script and improvised with Nathan's support and the support of our DP who just got into the scenes with us because it was improvised. He had to follow what he didn't even know was gonna happen. And so Sean Price Williams, that's a unique talent. I was pretty impressed by what they had made of this very crazy stew of improvisation and structure and all these great characters who each have a pretty big goal in their minds. I think the editor [John Magary] was extraordinary.
I could imagine the Shabbat dinner scene feeling like you were on skates the whole time.
Kane: Yes. It's interesting, they play that telephone game, which is what leads up to Ben confessing that he loves me. And that was Jason Schwartzman's idea right in the middle of shooting. And it's just such a significant, incredible moment that ties us all together. We shot three different versions over two days, everybody fighting for their own character, and then, apparently after working with the editor, the editor said to Nathan, "I figured it out. It's gonna be like a three act play. We're gonna have all three versions in there," which is just pure genius.
Do you feel Carla taught you anything new?
Kane: I think this kind of strength and determination to go for her dream even though it was probably "too late" and perhaps embarrassing and unsupported, but she knew it was time to do it and she knew it's time to do it with Ben who she loves so much. So that bravery, and simplicity, that I'm just gonna partner up with this guy and we're in no way perfect together, but we're going to depend on each other and trust each other. That happened [making the film] with me and Jason and in the film with Carla and Ben. I feel in some ways as though I've always known Jason and I trust him implicitly. He's a great human being. And Nathan too and Sean.