“I used to be more singularly focused on the very next thing,” says GraceAndFrankie star MsJuneDiane. “And now I’m thinking about it more holistically.”
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Provided by The Jane Club June Diane Raphael has built a whole career on deadpan, biting one-liners — sometimes softened by a teasing delivery, sometimes not. The dry, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor is a through-line in her acting roles, which skew blunt and driven: See Grace and Frankie’s business-y daughter, Brianna; Big Mouth’s cartoon popular girl Devin; and The Long Shot’s acerbic campaign manager, Maggie, as examples.
If we are talking about people who are doing the most, then Raphael is certainly one of them. “I used to be more singularly focused on the very next thing,” she says. “And now I’m thinking about it more holistically.”I do think I’m an ambitious person, but I don’t connect to that word as much as I used to.
For a lot of people, the pandemic has changed the way they think about career, success, and work versus personal life. Have you felt the pandemic shift your priorities? You have played pretty ambitious characters — the adjective this magazine has previously used to describe these roles is alpha. Is there something about that mind-set that appeals to you or you really connect with?