June Squibb on Scarlett Johansson, Eleanor the Great and Her Career

“If I’m called ‘icon’ one more time, I’m going to scream,” laughs June Squibb from her Los Angeles home.

It’s been a big year for the 95-year-old actress. Thelma, Squibb’s first leading feature film role, became one of the biggest success stories at the specialty box office last year, earning over $12 million at the global box office and becoming the highest-grossing movie ever for distributor Magnolia over its two-decade history. She also voices a character in Inside Out 2, which became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It’s the kind of run that anyone, let alone someone in their seventh decade in entertainment, dreams of.

While flattered by the attention that comes with being Hollywood’s favorite nonagenarian, Squibb finds the fawning a little ridiculous at times: “A 70-year-old will say, ‘I want to be you when I grow up!’” After all, Squibb is just doing the same job she’s always been doing, from off-Broadway shows and cabarets to her work with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne.

Nonetheless, the hits keep coming for Squibb as she jets off to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of her latest movie, Eleanor the Great, which also happens to be the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. “When I called June to tell her, ‘Oh my God, June, we’re going to Cannes,’ she said, ‘Well, that’s marvelous,’ ” recalls Johansson. “And then she was like, ‘Well, I was there about 10 years ago [for Payne’s Nebraska], so I know the drill.’ I just said, ‘June, you’re the best.’ ”

In the film, which will be released by Sony Picture Classics after the fest, Squibb plays the eponymous title character, a woman who, after the death of her best friend and roommate, moves from Florida back to her native New York to be closer to her daughter and attempts to build a new life for herself.

For Squibb, playing a character returning to New York City after many years away was not a big leap. “I lived there for 65 years,” says the actress, who broke out in New York stage productions like the 1959 musical Gypsy. “I’ve been in California for about 20. But, I certainly knew everything there was to know about New York.” Filming took place all over the city, from Brooklyn and Queens to the Meatpacking District and the East River. Squibb, a consummate West Sider, was surprised by how the city had changed. “[Brooklyn] has been gentrified like crazy. That was interesting to me, because my memory of Brooklyn is that Brooklyn Heights was the only place anyone ever went.”

Because Eleanor tells a story that deals heavily with themes of Jewish heritage, in addition to subjects like grief and aging, Squibb had to memorize more than her lines. “I learned the bat mitzvah Torah readings and actually did it on camera,” she says. “My assistant and I were living in an apartment together, and I woke up one morning saying, ‘Oh my God, in my dreams, I was doing the Torah!’ ”

As for being directed by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Squibb says she and Johansson connected immediately. “I just felt I knew who this person was. She’s very — what is the word? It’s not matter of fact. She is herself. She’s not making you look at somebody that she wants you to see. It’s just her. And that’s what was so great in her direction.”

Working with a fellow actress as her director was a new experience for Squibb, who adds that Johansson anticipated the notes and space she needed in order to get the scene just right: “Now, not many directors can do that, even if they know a little bit about acting. They couldn’t do what she did. She knew immediately where I was or where I was going, and how long it might take.”

As for returning to the Cannes red carpet for the second time, one of Squibb’s most vivid memories is getting an assist from Nebraska director Payne and her co-star Will Forte.

“I still remember going up those stairs,” says Squibb of the Palais’ famous steep red steps that deliver audiences and talent into the Grand Auditorium Lumière. “I was in my 80s at the time. Will Forte took one arm, and Alexander Payne took the other arm, and they dragged me up those stairs. They made sure I made it up the stairs.”

It was well worth the climb, as Nebraska debuted to a rapturous 10-minute standing ovation. “I can still remember, by the end of it, I grabbed Alexander around the waist and was crying in his chest,” recalls Squibb, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in the film.

Squibb has no plans to rest on her laurels, or retire for that matter. As of late, she has been inundated with scripts. Hollywood, long obsessed with youth and the stories that surround it, has embraced projects centered on older adults. “People are really interested in aging now that we’ve got an aging population,” she says. “I think people understand 90-year-olds. We just have so many more. I have friends that are 100! People want to see aging. They want to know: What do I have to expect?”

But not all of the material is the right fit.

“One script was written for a 70-year-old. And I have to laugh, because I thought, at 90, I can’t do some of the things that I could do when I was 70. They wanted me to ride a horse!” She chuckles and thinks for a moment before considering, “Now, I’m not even saying I couldn’t [ride a horse]. I used to ride, so I don’t know, maybe if they got me on I could stay on.”

And if Squibb does happen to do it, please — don’t call her an icon.