DID SOMEBODY SAY ‘SPECIAL SKILLS NEEDED’?

thing you can do is dwell on it. “Either ask for another take, or trust that they got what they needed and that you’re not the expert,” she says. Either way, it’s not the end of the world, and the day will end exactly the same as the one before it: “And then, in a few hours, no matter what, you’ll be home,” Plimpton says.

She doubles down on citing the importance of laughter on set, even for projects that are immensely weighty and unfunny, as “Mass” is. The film is a chamber drama centered on four parents coping with the aftermath of a tragedy; it’s best to head into the movie unaware of its additional conceits, allowing each layer to peel away as the plot unfolds. Ann Dowd, Reed Birney, and Jason Isaacs star alongside Plimpton, and the film is set for the most part in a single dour room in a church. Given its heavy material, it is tough to believe that outside of “action” and “cut,” the atmosphere on the set was jovial.

“We did a lot of laughing on the set, an enormous amount of laughing. I like to go right into it and just put everything out on the table,” Plimpton says. “It makes it much easier to do it that way than to feel like I’ve got to work up to something.” She also insists that, even though she’s playing a character who’s carrying immense grief and pain, she didn’t have to premeditate about how to get there. She only needed to show up willing to play.

“It’s really all there in the script. And there really wasn’t much other delving or other work, for me anyway, except to just be in it and just go in there and do what the scripts asked me to do.” Her scene partners, of course, were also hugely helpful, and the group got exceptionally close in a short amount of time.

“We would get together in our hotel rooms and have cheeses and wines and go through the script and talk it through. We shared so much,” she says. “We developed a trust that would make it possible for us to be in there. And we all realized that we would make lifelong friends, having gone through this particular movie, this kind of story, together. Ann says it all the time: ‘You’ll never be rid of me.’ I mean, they’re part of my life now forever.”

The film itself, with its single setting and emphasis on long sequences of dialogue, evokes a play, which also helped the quartet of actors—all of whom are stage veterans— wade through the muck. Plimpton learned a lot from taking part in such a specific working experience. But regardless of the medium, genre, whom she’s working with, or any other variables, she insists that each one teaches her something new.

Though she might not immediately know what that something is, she knows it will eventually make its way into her perfectly imperfect approach to acting. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Look, there’s a reason that certain Indigenous tribes will weave a mistake into every rug,” she says. “There’s no such thing as perfection. And seeking it will just give you an ulcer.”