Leslie Bibb
Leslie Bibb wears a Norma Kamali top, Harley Davidson pants, and Christian Louboutin shoes.
By J.L. SIRISUK
The candy-hued world of Palm Beach. Sun-soaked bodies lounging elegantly by the pool. A convergence of women in colorful designer silhouettes, dripping in jewels. Beehives and bronzed skin. Welcome to the world of Palm Royale, which recently debuted on Apple TV+. The series stars Kristin Wiig, Alison Janney, Laura Dern, and the mesmerizing Leslie Bibb. “I just fell in love with Dinah. There was such a vulnerability there, and a deep sorrow,” Bibb shares of portraying Dinah Donahue, a tantalizing but vulnerable member of Palm Beach’s 1960s high society. She inhabits the character with her signature charm while evoking the nuanced dimensions of a woman pushing through life in a society where appearance, status, and marriage are the main ingredients of female social currency. Throughout her career, Bibb has been fascinated by the evolution of building a character through its multiple layers. From her role as Brooke McQueen, a popular high school cheerleader in Ryan Murphy’s 90s series Popular, to her scene stealing role as Carley Bobby in Talladega Nights, and performances in Iron Man, and About My Father alongside Robert DeNiro, Bibb has applied a fearless approach to her work. We recently spoke to Bibb in New York, catching her before traveling to Thailand to commence production on the third season of The White Lotus. Bibb is warm, thoughtful, and sincere - we talked about initial political aspirations, watching The Tracey Ullman Show, and what the role of Dinah means to her.
J.L. SIRISUK: Thank you so much for taking this time. I know you’re super busy.
LESLIE BIBB: It’s my last day in New York.
SIRISUK: You’re flying out tomorrow?
BIBB: Yeah.
SIRISUK: I used to watch you on Popular when it first came out. I feel like I’ve witnessed your whole career evolve.
BIBB: I guess every career would feel like an evolution. There’s something about Palm Royale - just starting with Brook McQueen and landing here with Dinah Donahue - it’s kind of fun.
SIRISUK: Did you grow up in Virginia, and did you have your sights set on a creative path?
BIBB: No, I didn’t. I grew up in a little country town and the biggest town that had a movie theater in it was a 45-minute drive. I spent a lot of time with horses and I was definitely a creative kid. My mom worked in politics. I moved to Richmond and it’s a really big, beautiful college town, and there’s art there. But still, art wasn’t something - like being an actor, it didn’t make sense to me. Everything for me was to get into the University of Virginia and then I thought, “Oh, I’ll go to law school and then I’ll go into politics.” I won this modeling contest when I was 16. It’s what brought me to New York. My mom was never like like, “Let’s fly to New York and go see theater for the weekend.” That just wasn’t our reality. That seemed like a lot of money, to go to New York. If we had vacations, we had a friend with a house in Key Largo and we stayed in their house. That was an exotic vacation, but New York, it didn’t even cross my mind. I won this contest and went to New York to take photos, and I remember driving, coming across the Williamsburg Bridge. We were coming up Houston and I remember my head out the window, looking up and having this feeling. It felt like Oz, and something deep in me was like, “Yes, yes, yes.” It definitely lit some other stuff in me.
SIRISUK: There’s magic here.
BIBB: Right. I just felt it, which is what’s interesting. There are people I meet and they don’t see that magic. They’re like, “Oh, it’s this and that.” I just knew it was amazing, and then I spent a week and a half here during my spring break, and then that summer was in New York a little bit, and then I went to Japan. My mom was like, “I’m working. You have to go by yourself.” But just then I remember my world felt like I had been covered up and didn’t realize I’d been covered up, and it felt like somebody was pulling pieces of fabric off and the veil was getting thinner and thinner. My senior year of high school, I would work once a week in New York. I’d take the train up, do my job, come back to high school, which is very strange. I was a really good kid and had a good head on my shoulders. I spent that summer in New York between high school and college. I got into UVA and it became very apparent to me that I wasn’t happy, I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I could do an elective and my mom was like, “There’s a theater class.” I didn’t take it. I took Astronomy.
SIRISUK: And what led you to acting?
BIBB: I had an experience at UVA that was pretty profound. I just said, “I don’t really fit in here.” What I felt everyone was doing just didn’t ring true, didn’t resonate with me. I took a year’s leave of absence and my mom was like, “Great. Go!” She was very cool about that stuff because she knew I had a job in New York and modeling pays very well. So I moved to New York and got a commercial within the first six months of being there and it was for Lee Jeans. The whole premise was, “Lee Jeans will make you look like a model, just don’t think like one.” It was all improv and a very famous director was directing it. There was a guy model and a girl, and I got the girl part. I didn’t know what improv was, but from that commercial, people started calling me in for movies, and I started going in for soap operas. I had the wherewithal to go, “I need to take a class.” I clearly had some instincts, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I like structure, I love learning something new. It’s like my favorite thing when I get a script – I love the breaking down, the homework of that.
So I found my way to a summer program at William Esper Studio, then got accepted into their two year program. I got very lucky. I had a commercial agent because I had a modeling agent. Back then it was beauty commercials or commercials where you talked, so the models only went out for the beauty commercials. Suddenly, they’re like “we’re going to put you in with stuff where you can talk.” Which is so condescending, but as cordial as it was. I started booking those commercials and something was starting to happen. I would get commercials and then get very close on some TV or movie stuff. I was like, “I want to be an actor.” That’s why I went to Esper, and I go back sometimes. I try to take a class of some sort, I worked on a Hamlet soliloquy, which was really fun. I love when you get a job and then suddenly you get to learn something or a new skill, or you start to inhabit something.
SIRISUK: It’s fascinating, the things you can learn about yourself through characters, unexpected things. Has there ever been one character in particular that you kind of missed when the shooting was over?
BIBB: Who do I miss? I try not to because I try to go forward once it’s done. You go on to the next and then you don’t see the finished product for like a year. Like Palm Royale, we did a year and a half ago. There are characters that I do love. I love Carley Bobby. I loved inhabiting her. The beauty of working with Adam McKay and Will Ferrell – the net they put under you, they just hold you so safely to do whatever you want creatively, so I think I crave that experience again artistically.
SIRISUK: How did the role of Dinah come to you?
BIBB: I love her. I love her so much. I auditioned for it, so it wasn’t like somebody said, “We want Leslie Bibb.” There’s a bar scene in the pilot that I have with Kristen [Wigg] and that was the audition scene. I remember reading that scene and it was heartbreaking and funny, and I thought, “I know who she is.” I immediately got struck when I got the job. Dinah feels like somebody who has imposter syndrome, which I can relate to. I was fascinated with women back then not having careers. I’m a lot of things, but my career is something that really defines me and I’m very proud of.
I love theater and music and reading books and just any part of the arts I find exhilarating. I get to have my career and do what I love and I feel very lucky for that. She [Dinah]was so clear about how it all works and the matter-of-factness of what she says about aging, being a woman, what that is and what that is for her. What will give her solace? There was something so heartbreaking. And then this love affair that she wants to have. I just think that Dinah wants somebody to see her and I don’t think she’s ever felt seen. You know, I look at Dinah and I go, “Well, if that’s her way of seeing the world, that must be how her mother saw the world.” It felt very interesting to me that she didn’t have children because a lot of women back then did. It felt like a choice to me that she didn’t have any, that also felt fearless to me. She’s catty and bratty and can be bitchy, but I suddenly thought the relationship between she and Maxine felt like something from All About Eve. I have older sisters, so sister relationships are interesting to me. I’ve always been fascinated with Lee Radziwill and the relationship between Lee and Jackie Kennedy, what it must be like to have this sister who was like our Princess Diana. I didn’t read a book about Lee Radziwill, but I would just scour photos of them together. There’s something about that relationship I found very easy to daydream about. I was fascinated with these women. We’ve come so far, and it wasn’t that long ago women couldn’t open a bank account if they didn’t have a man. In 1969. Did you know that?
SIRISUK: I didn’t know it was in 1969. No, that’s not very long ago.
BIBB: In episode two or three, we’re trading pills or whatever, and so I did a deep dive on those pills. I was like, “What are these pills like? What are the reds? What are the blues? What are the greens?” You could then find what the ads for those pills were, and they were so funny because they were really like, “For the woman who complains about having children, and can’t.” That’s what was really interesting. The mask of like, “I’m okay. I’m okay.” Underneath, I knew they were not okay.
SIRISUK: Just trying to take pills to numb themselves.
BIBB: Abe Sylvia wrote me that great monologue in the bar, and her perspective of being aged out and the only currency I have is to marry well. To know that as much as she would want to have great love, it is not in the cards for her. That honesty mixed with her pulling her mask down to tell Maxine, “this is the truth.” I just fell in love with Dinah. There was such a vulnerability there, and a deep sorrow. Then there was this fierce lioness there. She’s really smart and I think she’s just holding on by a thread, so the slippery slope she’s walking was really fascinating. I just fell in love and I wanted to play with the mask and having what’s simmering underneath.
SIRISUK: How was it to be on a set full of legends?
BIBB: To be on set with Kristen[Wiig] is like a masterclass in itself. I literally left her a message yesterday. I started crying, I just love her so much. I think she’s so good in the show and any nice things that people are saying about me, I know is because she was my scene partner and I rose to her level. Every actress should want to be in a scene with her. She makes you better, and then to be in scenes with Allison Janney who I’m also obsessed with as an actress, I just think she’s incredible. I found myself a lot of times in these scenes with these people that I admire so much. It raises you, you become better because you’re working with greatness, you’re working with actors who have ideas, who are operating on all cylinders, who are fearless, and that breeds excellence in you. To get to see Carol Burnett work - I grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show. It ran on TBS when I was living in the country when I was like six or seven years old. That was informing my comedy, and then I watched The Tracey Ullman Show and that really informed me.
SIRISUK: I also grew up watching The Tracey Ullman Show.
BIBB: I didn’t know the imprint they had on me until Talladega Nights. Hell, I didn’t realize the things that were informing me creatively. I really didn’t understand how deeply I was going to feel until Carol [Burnett] walked into the trailer and I fell to the ground. I literally just fell down to my knees and I was like, “Oh, my God.” It was like I flashed back and I was living in Virginia and I could see the television. I could see where I was sitting in front of it, watching it by myself, because my sisters were older than I was. What an impact that person had on me, and again The Tracey Ullman Show. It’s like visiting an old friend, watching those things because they really kept me company as a child.
SIRISUK: I know you have amazing things coming up including The White Lotus. What are you looking forward to?
BIBB: I’m just excited to see what comes next. You can’t forecast this stuff. I think it’s luck in preparation. That’s most of this business, you know - I got lucky. It’s not always the best actor gets the job or whatever, but the winds have been in my sail recently and I’ve gotten to work. If I look back at my career, I’ve never had this one thing that changed anything. It’s going to be like, this show comes out and then you get your next job, and then that show comes out and then you get your next job. It’s a journey. It’s a long, long path and I feel really grateful that the road is still stretched out.
