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D’Arcy Carden stopped by to talk with Kyle Meredith about the new season of Loot, where she plays the mysteriously glamorous, possibly unhinged, definitely-not-Italian Luciana. The actress — already beloved from The Good Place, A League of Their Own, Barry, and this year’s Sketch — breaks loose in Loot with a character who’s equal parts charm offensive and chaos engine. Carden tells Meredith that stepping into the role meant juggling multiple accents, improvising on the fly, and throwing herself fully into one of the show’s wildest guest arcs yet. Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Carden says the comedy of Luciana was “all on the page,” but the writers encouraged her to push the character’s extremes: “It was like the gift of a lifetime. I just kept thanking them.” That “gift” included playing two versions of the same character: an over-the-top Italian persona and a surprise reveal of her real Delaware roots — an accent Carden admits was way harder. “Italian? We’ve all kind of tried that. But Delaware? That wasn’t in my mouth at all,” she laughs. She also breaks down working with director Carrie Brownstein (of Sleater-Kinney) on Luciana’s slo-mo entrance: “Carrie described exactly what she wanted — the light, the shake, the kiss — and she was just giddy behind the monitor.” Yes, there are outtakes of her kissing Maya Rudolph for an absurdly long time: “We both opened our eyes at one point like… what are we doing?”
Beyond the accents, Carden digs into the thrill of improvising lines like, “When’s the first time you six-nine?” and how fun it was to reveal the character’s increasingly off-kilter edges. She also shares her deep love for music, from stopping Lenny Kravitz in his tracks to collaborating with the Katie and Allison Crutchfield of Waxahatchee/Snowcaps for a birthday concert at Largo. “My dream is to be a backup singer,” she tells Meredith, lighting up as she describes a night that also included Courtney Barnett, Jeff Tweedy, Aidy Bryant, Will Forte, and more.
Listen to Darcy Carden talk about Loot, accents, Waxahatchee birthdays, and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.
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