Few actors are as chameleonic as Jennifer Jason Leigh, who’s been knocking audiences dead for decades in projects as diverse as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, The Hudsucker Proxy, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, and The Hateful Eight. And though Hollywood often tends to dismiss women in their fifties, we are currently experiencing a golden era of J. J. L. In recent months, she brought humanity to the part of a not-very-successful killer in 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return; led a group of female scientists in February’s remarkable Annihilation; warped poor Benedict Cumberbatch for life as his alcoholic mother in Showtime’s Patrick Melrose.

Far more upbeat than any of this is Netflix’s Atypical, which recently debuted its second season and was just renewed for a third. Here, Leigh stars as Elsa, a somewhat overprotective mom to Sam (Keir Gilchrist), a high-school student with autism. Michael Rapaport co-stars as her husband, Doug, and Amy Okuda as Sam’s therapist, while Brigette Lundy-Paine has a habit of stealing every scene as Sam’s younger sister, Casey.

Leigh brings a similar positive energy to our phone conversation, responding good-naturedly to even my dumbest questions as we chat about Atypical, binge-watching, working with everyone from Robert Altman to Robert Pattinson, and whether she ever plans to get back in the director’s chair. (The last feature she helmed was 2001’s The Anniversary Party.) As it turns out, no one says “yeah!” quite like Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Vanity Fair: I was up ’til 3 A.M. finishing Season 2 of Atypical. It totally took over my head for the last few days. Have you experienced this modern trend? Have you gotten on the binge bandwagon?

Jennifer Jason Leigh: Yes, and it is frustrating when you really get into a show and it isn’t available to binge. We’ve become so accustomed to that now! Something on Showtime or HBO, you have to wait a week? It used to be so ordinary, but now? You just have to be behind the times a little to binge it later.

Which shows have gotten under your skin?

Succession, I really liked, but I came to it late. And then I caught up and then I had to wait and it was so difficult. It’s really dark but really funny. Fleabag is another one I watched all at once.

There are so many talented people working on Atypical, so let’s talk about the most memorable scene partner you have: that adorable teeny kitten, Monkey.

Right, right. Monkey. Such a good name for a cat.

Are you a cat person or a dog person?

I am a dog person. But that cat was so cute, it was impossible not to like that cat. I’ve had enough instances of cats bringing me hunted trophies to put me off cats for life. One time I nearly walked on an eviscerated rat. I once woke up with a severed head on the pillow next to me. It really makes an impression when you are 12.

It’s been a good time to be a Jennifer Jason Leigh fan. You’re doing lots of cool stuff, like your death scene in Twin Peaks last summer—you got riddled with bullets. Was that the biggest action scene you’ve had?

Hmm. That doesn’t stand out as being particularly difficult, honestly. The Hateful Eight was a much rougher and bloodier and trickier shoot. Of course, it was also the best time in our lives.

What was so great about making that movie?

We never wanted that shoot to end. Everybody felt so fortunate to be there, and Quentin [Tarantino] had so much love for everyone. When you are a kid and you imagine what being an actor is like as a grown-up, this is what you imagine.

They say in his heyday, Robert Altman made shoots a group effort, where everyone would come to watch the dailies and it would turn into big parties. Did you experience that with him on Short Cuts and Kansas City, or did that taper off by the mid-1990s?

It was almost a requirement! The dailies—especially on Short Cuts—they were long. They’d be like three hours, but it was great. Everybody came. There was great food, there was wine. Then we’d sit down in the theater and watch all the work we had done before. That doesn’t happen anymore. Most directors don’t do it. They get their dailies on a Web site and then they watch them in an isolated universe. You lose the feeling of community.

I really love the film you co-wrote and co-directed with Alan Cumming in 2001, The Anniversary Party. Do you think you’ll direct another movie or do you feel like you got everything out of you with that one?

No, I do want to direct something again. Alan and I are actually talking about doing something. Different things came up in life. I didn’t end up doing something on my own. I was in plays, I had a baby, and that became my sole focus. And I was lucky enough that it could become my sole focus.

But a new project with you and Alan would also probably be character-based, dialogue-heavy. Is that where your interests lie?

It depends what I do. If I do something with Alan, it might be similar. If I do something on my own, I love sci-fi, so I have some ideas. But first I need to write it. I’ve been offered other people’s work to direct, but I don’t feel as comfortable with that.

What are some of your favorite sci-fi movies and books and shows?

I love all of Philip K. Dick. And Black Mirror, I really enjoy that. And all of David Cronenberg’s movies.

Tell me you are a Star Trek fan.

I never really got into Star Trek, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Maybe if I re-discovered it now. But as a child, it’s funny—we were friends with Leonard Nimoy. He would come to our house a lot. But even as a child it wasn’t my thing; I was into The Partridge Family.

In 1995, you starred in Georgia, which your mother wrote, as Sadie, a would-be rock star with personal demons. And there’s the big scene where your successful sister gets you onstage and you do Van Morrison’s “Take Me Back.”

She’s so, so raw. She’s been handed this incredible opportunity and she drives it to hell. She can’t do anything small. She’s always got to be running into that brick wall as fast and as hard as she can, over and over again.

My mom found the song, and thought it would be perfect. Sadie has no sense of self so everything is—[makes sound that somehow connotes “big”]. I memorized every pause. Every exaggeration. You could imagine how long it took to nail down the cadence. Obviously, I don’t have a voice like Van Morrison’s, or anywhere near it. But neither did Sadie.

It was one take. We shot it three times and that was it. And it was all shot live, the music was live. We had to fight for that, it was expensive.

It’s a great scene, because you don’t know how to feel about it. You love the character and you are proud of her for doing what she believed in, but you are also like, uh, was that good?

It’s a train wreck!

You mention it was shot live. I had friends living in Seattle at the time and they were there, actually. I think they got paid $50 or whatever to hang out in the theater all day and listen to you interpret Van Morrison.

Whoa. I have never heard from anyone who was actually there! It’s like when you do a play, you don’t know if it actually happened because you have no way of seeing it. It’s so mysterious. You only have your experience of doing it, and that’s yours alone. Then someone says, “I saw you in that play”; it makes it real.

Well, I saw you in a play, at Studio 54 as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. I think people forget just how unique that production was.

It was such an experience. I was in it for eight months. Maybe more? It was really unique, and we all knew it. I started when Natasha Richardson left the role and it was still at the Kit Kat Klub, which was a tiny club. Then we moved to Studio 54, which was much bigger. Everyone was so young and we’d all go out afterward. When I was a child, my mother took me to New York every year to see the musicals. Doing that musical is what you imagine as a child what doing a Broadway show was like. So I had two experiences like that.

You have worked with so many great performers over the years, so I want to hit you with a few that maybe people forgot. I’ll throw a name and we’ll see what bounces back. Before he was famous, you actually got murdered by Daniel Craig in Road to Perdition.

He was great! He is a lovely guy. I remember it was freezing in Chicago and we were there for a really long time. And he was very special, you could feel it. Charming, charismatic, good actor, nothing fake-y about him.

When he was later selected as 007, you were like, “Oh, of course!”

I thought, now that’s a brilliant idea.

In Rush, the villain was played by the late Gregg Allman. In his autobiography, he wrote that he was nervous every day on set, very self-conscious, and a little bit miserable.

Huh. I thought he was great. I didn’t know he was nervous. Sometimes people may say, “Bear with me, I’m a little nervous,” but he seemed completely natural.

More recently, you were in the Safdie brothers’ Good Time, a really unusual film in which you play Robert Pattinson’s needy girlfriend.

I thought Robert Pattinson was brilliant. I love that movie. I came in for two nights. It was that short. The Safdies sent me a journal about the character, how she met everyone, the relationship with the mother, the whole history, all these specific details. It was so helpful because you are coming in, essentially improvising for two nights then flying home.

And he was fantastic. He was in character the whole time, but he was also nice and funny. The accent was flawless. I believed he was that guy.

So he was in character, as in twitchy and looking over his shoulder?

No, he wasn’t twitchy or odd. It was more he never broke the accent. I just felt that he was always that guy. It’s hard to explain. There just wasn’t a huge change between action and after action, it was seamless. Then I saw him after the film at a red carpet, and he was a totally different person.

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