Just under two months ago, Hollywood mainstay Julianne Nicholson received her IndieWire Performance Honor, another mark in a year that is finally shining the spotlight on the journeyman actress. Sure, we’ve always been aware of her talent — she even earned some awards recognition as part of the ensembles for “August: Osage County” and “I, Tonya,” as well as a Supporting Actress Emmy nomination for “Mare of Eastown.” But it’s 2025 now, and Julianne Nicholson is a full-fledged television star.
First came “Paradise,” in which she got to portray the villainess Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond. Then came her recurring stint on “Hacks,” where she stretched her comedic muscle as a dancing mom TikTok influencer, appropriately named Dance Mom. Last month, Nicholson scored both her second and third Emmy noms for the projects, in the Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and Guest Actress in a Comedy Series categories, respectively.
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“I know it’s greedy, but it took me 30 years to get here, so I thought, let’s just start stacking them up,” Nicholson said in an interview on Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast.
The star — who has been appearing on film and television since 1997, was particularly enthusiastic about how the “Hacks” role allowed her to showcase an entirely new side of her abilities. “I was so excited… I kept saying to myself, ‘Guys, I’m actually really funny too!’”
She gave full credit to showrunners Jen Statsky, Paul W. Downs, and Lucia Aniello for created the unique, chaotic energy that was Dance Mom. “I’m so grateful to those three — Jen, Paul, and Lucia — for having the imagination to see me in that role and allowing me to inhabit her. That was such a blast. It’s so fun to go to work and be silly. And to get to be in my body, to do physical comedy — that’s not often asked of me either.”
The more serious part of “Paradise,” by contrast, is a similar project — in tone, at least — to Nicholson’s typical output, but she feels that its creator Dan Fogelman (who so respects Nicholson he penned an ode to her for IndieWire) knows how to sprinkle in that special seasoning that makes for compulsively binge-worthy TV. “I think Dan Fogelman is a brilliant writer, and he just has this knack for knowing, you know, just getting to the heart of the thing… Even though the world around it might seem broad at times, or like we’ve seen before, I feel like he knows what a lot of people want to watch, while also knowing just how to put his finger right on the nerve that touches people,” she said.
At her IndieWire Honors in June, Nicholson addressed her diverse resume and eclectic taste in projects, likening it to the website’s own journalism goals, saying “I believe in trying to find roles that defy stereotypes, that try to show life as it really is, not as we wish it were. I’m from Boston, but my formative years were in New York, and I’ve always cared for the underdog — for the scrappy, the perverse, the weird, the unorthodox — and I think by and large, IndieWire does, too.”
