THERUTH ISOUTTHERE
OZARK STAR JULIA ON SADNESS AT HIT SHOW
OZARK’s stand out star Julia Garner is feeling emotional about the series coming to an end and admits she had no idea her character would become such a major part of the show. The 28-year-old who plays gritty Ruth Langmore says viewers are in for a treat as they watch her character hell bent on revenge. Julia’s career has skyrocketed since she started on Ozark five years ago and has won two Emmy’s for her part. It is Netflix’s fourth highest streaming show. But the Bronx native admitted she tempered her expectations about Ozark, which also stars Jason Bateman as Marty Byrde and Laura Linney as his wife Wendy, being such a huge hit. She said: “If you remember, I wasn’t even in the pilot episode! I remember just loving her as a character from the moment she was pitched to me.
“I wanted to play her so bad and I’m so thrilled that people seem to have been taken by her, especially with all the other great characters in the show.
“Playing Ruth has been so much fun. I’m going to miss her but I’m grateful that I have had so much time with her.”
Fans of the show saw Ruth murderous at the end of the first part of season four and much of the final episodes are sure to focus on her mission to get her ‘justice’
Julia said: “I don’t want to give anything away but I’m really excited for everyone to see some big moments for her leading up to the end of this season.
“We get to really explore Ruth’s mental state and her need for revenge. It’s a really great end to the story and to Ruth’s story.
“I feel pretty emotional about it but in some ways it still hasn’t
Garner’s career has skyrocketed since starring as gritty Ruth in the Netflix smash crime drama. Here she talks about how the part has impacted her life
sunk in yet. Maybe it will now the end is coming out for everyone to see, I don’t know. It feels like a big moment.
“It has done since we started shooting this last season. Ozark and filming in Atlanta has been a big part of my life. It feel like I have grown up on this show. I’ve met some amazing people and I have made friends for life.”
Her nailing of a southern accent only adds to her character’s gravitas, which cannot be easy for a native New Yorker. But Ruth’s accent is something that Julia worked hard on before she got the part.
She said: “I wanted the job so bad that I actually prepared with a Missouri accent. I couldn’t remember my lines when I wasn’t doing the accent so I just had to do the accent!
“I have been doing that accent since a year before Ozark, for a movie called Tomato Red so it’s very much part of me now.” Julia, married to singer Mark Foster, landed her first film role in Martha Marcy May Marlene aged just 17 and she went on to appear in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, We Are What We Are, The Assistant, The Americans, and Dirty John.
It was Ozark that made her known to more mainstream audiences and she took the lead role in Shonda Rimes’ series Inventing Anna where she plays Anna Delvey who pretended to be a German heiress and scammed New York’s high society.
But she only actually took acting classes as a way to combat her shyness.
She said: “With this job, you just have to got on with it. I am shy but I also love my work, I love acting and the people I get to work with. That balances it out.”
Co-star Jason is a producer and has directed several episodes of the award-winning series which is set in the Lake of the Ozarks and revolves around his character Marty and wife Wendy who move their family there to launder money for a Mexican drug cartel.
But directing is not for Julia. She laughed: “Not right now.
“It’s very tough but I would never say never.
“Jason is amazing. The fact that he can direct and act at the same time is still incredible to me. Not many people can do that. He really is an actor’s director but the most wonderful thing about Jason is that he is extremely generous.
“That’s what makes him a good actor and a good director.
“I have learned so much from him.”
Ozark is on Netflix from today.