What can you tell us about the Yorks? They experienced an enormous tragedy 20 years earlier. At the same time, they discovered the chamber. Irene suffered a great deal, and she had been looking for meaning in her life. She’s convinced the chamber had something to do with what happened to them. What drives Irene? She’s a woman who’s looking at the stars, at the universe, and contemplating how one thing might have impacted the other. For 20 years, she’s been driven by this need to understand why they were the ones who found this chamber. She’s waiting for a sign. In addition to being a sci-fi story, Night Sky is also a love story. The Yorks are in their 70s and still very much in love. They’re so in love with one another. He’s so in love with her that he wants to let her see this through. There were a lot of things that drew me to Night Sky, and that was a major thing, that it was about these two older people in the twilight of their lives and how an everyday ordinary couple can be living in such extraordinary circumstances, but they still take their vitamins, eat their meals and go for rides. They have a simple life, and they want to keep it that way. I just adore Irene and Franklin. How do they meld as a couple? Irene feels strongly that they were chosen, they were supposed to find the chamber. Franklin not so much; he’s just an easygoing guy. She’s got her head in the clouds and he has his feet on the ground. He works in his wood shop, he putters around, and they live their life, but she has really suffered in every way—philosophically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and she’s trying to fill that hole that was left from this traumatic loss that they suffered. They don’t want to be in the headlines, they just want to wait for the moment. They want to wait for some sign. She’s waiting for a sign. Is there a takeaway from Night Sky, a message for audiences? Or would you call it pure entertainment? The important thing for me was that I found meaning in it for Irene. I talked to the writers; we worked closely together. They were just so wonderful. They’re young and they’re enthusiastic and they’re talented, they’re very collaborative. I knew that I wanted Irene to be looking, searching for something more. It was about the universe; it wasn’t about space aliens. I think the trajectory of this for Irene is she believes one thing when it begins, and she’s committed to that fully, but as the show progresses and you live with them for a while, you see that because of the things she experiences, she has epiphanies and realizations about some of the things that she believed that don’t pan out. And so, there’s a real growth for her character and for their relationship. I really hoped that this could have great meaning for her and for Franklin in that it can mean something; that the story, when it comes to fruition, it means something. It might not mean what she thought it meant, but she’s been waiting and sitting on that for so many decades that finally moving forward and having these new experiences, it’s a little bit like living in a pandemic. You always want to entertain, and there are things that are very funny, there’s things that are very deep and meaningful, there are things that are very sad and tragic. I just took it every day, an episode at a time. Interesting about television: You’ll finish an episode, and you’ll feel so good about it, and then another one appears next day. I had certainly lost all my social skills during the pandemic, and so it was a real leap of faith for me to head out to do something when I hadn’t even seen my best friends for months and months and months. So it was challenging all the way around, and it was exhilarating. And it’s sometimes terrifying. But you know, it was good. I felt like it woke me up. Now I’m resting. You’ve starred in Carrie and Castle Rock, both based on works by Stephen King. I love Stephen King. He really gave me an opportunity. I worked on his very first book, not just his first movie. That meant a great deal to me. Do you think Carrie struck a nerve because all of us at some time or another feel like outsiders? Yes. And I think in Irene York’s case, she thinks she has all the answers until she realizes that she doesn’t. We don’t have to have all the answers as human beings, we just have to take each day at a time. They’re an ordinary couple in an extraordinary situation. Talk about the decision to not live in Hollywood, but to raise your family in Virginia and still have a successful career. I think people are doing that more now than ever because of the way the world has transpired with the internet and all of those things, where it’s never too far away. At a certain point we felt like we loved California, we loved Hollywood, we still are out there a great deal working and we know people out there. We have solid lives out there. It’s hard to raise children wherever you are, but I think that if you’re a celebrity… I just wanted my kids to be able to grow up and have experiences, not be under the watchful eye of the world. To have some privacy, to grow up and play in the creek, and ride their pony, and have a childhood similar to what I had. We have no regrets. Is living away from Hollywood also beneficial because you’re exposed to a wide array of people? Does that help you create characters? Yes, yes, yes. I think sometimes we get spoiled. I’ve lived in this community for, oh, 45 years, maybe a little longer, and I have the dearest friends. I’ve been here so long that I’m just a part of the community. That was what I wanted. What my husband and I both wanted to give our children was a sense of community and of belonging. Besides, you know when you live in a smaller community people keep an eye on your kids when you can’t. You watch your Ps and Qs, because there are people watching. You met your husband, Jack Fisk, on the set of Badlands, and you’ve worked together on several films. How has that relationship and his perception of art affected the decisions you make on other projects as well? It affects me in every way. He made me feel like an artist because that’s his background. I learned more from him than I’ve learned from anybody else about filmmaking, about living the art life. Life is art, and I learned about doing research from him. I worked with him on films that he was doing. I would just help out if he needed somebody to pick up props or whatever. It made me understand that it’s not just the actors that make the film, it’s everybody. We’re all a cog in the wheel, and when you’re working together on a collaborative project, there’s nothing more exciting and nothing more exhilarating. I think maybe it made me choose my projects carefully because I know I can’t do everything. But when I read a script and no matter how weird it is, like Carrie or Night Sky, if there’s something in it that speaks to me, something that is an emotion that I felt or an itch that humanity needs me to scratch, I’m drawn to that. I’m also drawn to the people who are working on the projects. So much of it is chemistry between the people that you’re working with. I just adored the showrunners, HoldenMiller and DanielConnolly, on Night Sky. They were collaborative. I kind of surprised myself when I left the safety of my farm after two years of the pandemic and went to Chicago and did this project. And I’m just thrilled that I did. You never know how something’s going to turn out. But if there’s a seed of an idea that has a possibility of taking hold and growing, it’s hard to resist if you respect and admire the people that are involved with it. They were fabulous to work with and they took me along for the ride, and I’m grateful. Next, 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Sissy Spacek
