Memorizing your lines seems like such a foundational part of an actor\u2019s job that there wouldn\u2019t be much to say about it. Yet when a group of performers recently got onto the topic during The Envelope\u2019s Emmy Limited Series \/ TV Movie Roundtable, it turned out everyone had their own way of doing it. And all were eager for tips and tricks, whether it be an app, a line-drilling coach (\u201cCan I have that number?\u201d), writing down the first letter of each word or even writing a monologue backward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to share tools, guys,\u201d said Camila Morrone, who plays a bride-to-be who learns her fianc\u00e9\u2019s family dark secrets in the horror thriller \u201cSomething Very Bad Is Going to Happen.\u201d<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s funny that we all have such different methods.\u201d<\/p>\n Joining Morrone were Jamie Bell, who stars in \u201cHalf Man,\u201d<\/a> about the extremely dysfunctional, toxic relationship between two stepbrothers; Linda Cardellini, who appears in \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d<\/a> as a dissatisfied woman caught in a dangerous love triangle; Michael Pe\u00f1a, who plays a detective assigned to the case of a missing child while his own boundaries are tested in \u201cAll Her Fault\u201d<\/a>; Andrew Rannells, who is a man coming to terms with his own life while helping to plan a funeral in \u201cMiss You, Love You\u201d<\/a>; and Constance Zimmer, who channels the mother of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in \u201cLove Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.\u201d<\/a> Read on for more excerpts from our conversation.<\/p>\n The Envelope’s 2026 Emmy Limited Series \/ TV Movie Roundtable: Constance Zimmer, left, Michael Pe\u00f1a, Linda Cardellini, Andrew Rannells, Camila Morrone and Jamie Bell.<\/p>\n How do you watch TV? A home theater screening room or a tablet on the go?<\/b><\/p>\n Morrone:<\/b> When I see people on a plane watching on their phone, I\u2019m like, \u201cDo you know how many people worked on that?\u201d<\/p>\n Zimmer: <\/b>I can barely watch one on an iPad because I still feel guilty about not getting the full effect.<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> I can\u2019t watch on my phone or an iPad. It starts to hurt my eyes. And I like to binge. I don\u2019t like one at a time. I like to save it up, and I like a binge. I don\u2019t have the patience.<\/p>\n Morrone:<\/b> Oh, I love one at a time. I want to wait till Sunday night, order my favorite food, maybe have a friend come over … Guess our theories of what\u2019s going to happen. I did that with \u201cWhite Lotus\u201d this year, and I was looking forward to every Sunday at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n Bell:<\/b> I catch usually about 10 minutes of whatever my wife has fallen asleep to. And then I\u2019ll get into that, and then I\u2019ll watch a lot more episodes while she\u2019s asleep. And then she\u2019ll wake up, and we\u2019ll be completely out of sync in terms of what we\u2019re watching.<\/p>\n Camila Morrone.<\/p>\n Jamie, \u201cHalf-Man\u201d is such an emotionally intense show, and it seems like that would be a really hard head space to exist in. Are there things that you do for yourself to maintain your own sanity?<\/b><\/p>\n Bell:<\/b> Me and Richard [Gadd], who wrote the show, are big soccer fans. So I brought a soccer ball to set a lot, and just whatever space we\u2019re in, we just kick a ball to each other every now and then. So, a lot of that wasn\u2019t even us really speaking to each other, but just passing a ball backwards and forwards, which was quite a nice way of just taking our minds off of whatever scene we were doing and still enjoy the space with each other and do something that was physical that didn\u2019t really require us jumping [around] too much.<\/p>\n Camila, \u201cSomething Very Bad Is Going to Happen\u201d is also a very intense show. It\u2019s not so much a scream queen kind of horror; it\u2019s this foreboding horror. Was that a difficult space for you to exist in?<\/b><\/p>\n Morrone:<\/b> I think there\u2019s an underappreciation for horror performances. I think some of the most incredible performances, especially by women, have been done in the horror genre. And I think it\u2019s a really specific thing to do because if you\u2019re playing only one level of horror throughout an eight-episode series, I think it\u2019s incredibly boring. And I think I had this notion of like, \u201cGod, I don\u2019t want to do these jump scares,\u201d and kind of the cliches of what we imagine horror is like. But horror can be really deep and really internal, and I think there\u2019s a lot of ways in which horror and fear manifest. And I think it was interesting to try and find levels to it and to have the audience come with you, but not dramatize or exaggerate an emotion.<\/p>\n Michael, in \u201cAll Her Fault\u201d you are playing someone who could be a much more conventional detective character, but reveals more layers. Was there a moment in your career when you realized, whether it was going for certain roles or not<\/i> going for certain roles, where you wanted to break out of feeling like a sidekick character or more stereotyped characters? Was there a moment where you made an effort to start going for a different kind of role?<\/b><\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a:<\/b> Back when I started acting, the breakdowns for actors, it was like \u201cCaucasian only,\u201d \u201cCaucasian only,\u201d \u201cCaucasian only,\u201d and we weren\u2019t allowed to audition for those. And it was only until the 14th part that it said, \u201cOpen to other ethnicities.\u201d So there\u2019s like a thousand of us going for the 14th place. Ten years of that, you kind of think, \u201cI guess I\u2019m meant to be a supporting character.\u201d But then my mom, right before she died, what she said is, \u201cIf you\u2019re going to do that, just make it real. What\u2019s the best you can do with that part?\u201d I said, \u201cMake it a three-dimensional character.\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cJust do that.\u201d And she\u2019s like, \u201cNobody remembers your bank account.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh, these are two good pieces of advice, Moms,\u201d and so that\u2019s what I did. And with \u201cCrash,\u201d he was a gangster and I was like, \u201cScrew it. I\u2019m just going to do the work and try it out, and all the stuff that I was learning in acting class, I\u2019m going to apply it to this particular role.\u201d And I was happy with the work, so then I kept doing that.<\/p>\n Michael Pe\u00f1a.<\/p>\n For the rest of you, was there a moment where you had to make a decision about the kind of career that you wanted for yourself and the kind of roles you were going to go up for? <\/b><\/p>\n Zimmer: <\/b>Sorry. It just makes me laugh because we have no control, as actors, over where they believe that we belong. I wish that we could say, \u201cI\u2019d like to try this now,\u201d but it\u2019s basically where they believe they would like us. And then you get put into an area, or a path, or a box, and you can\u2019t get out until somebody else decides, \u201cHold on. We\u2019re going to give you that shot to try this, even though it\u2019s not necessarily what you normally do or are known for.\u201d Then it takes that for everybody to go, \u201cOh, you can do this, too?\u201d And it\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s my job.\u201d My job is to do a lot of things, not just one role, or one type of role.<\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> You\u2019d like to think that you\u2019re more in control of those decisions, but sometimes things just happen.<\/p>\n Constance, as Ann Messina, Carolyn Bessette\u2019s mother in \u201cLove Story,\u201d you have this speech that you give at their wedding dinner. It\u2019s such an incredible scene, and I\u2019m wondering, what was it like for you when you first read that in the script?<\/b><\/p>\n Zimmer:<\/b> That monologue was actually my audition.<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a:<\/b> Oh, I love when that happens like that.<\/p>\n Zimmer:<\/b> So I knew it very well, getting on the set with it. I think that I only saw two scripts out of nine episodes, and they were just the ones I was in. And I remember my team saying, \u201cThis might be it. We don\u2019t know if there\u2019s anything else that you\u2019re going to do on the show.\u201d And I said, \u201cIf this is the only thing I do, it\u2019ll be worth it,\u201d because it was so layered and it was so well-written by Connor Hines and Juli Weiner, I was kind of like, \u201cThis is all that matters anyway.\u201d So, to be able to feel like I could pour the entire character into one moment in time, it allowed me to try and give her as much as possible because I was like, \u201cThis might be it.\u201d So when I read it, I was like, \u201cOh, OK. That\u2019s like those five-page monologues that you don\u2019t get very often to do for one character in one episode.\u201d<\/p>\n Linda, your character on \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d has this habit of saying, \u201cNo way, Jos\u00e9,\u201d and it\u2019s oddly catchy. And she also is always asking people to speak up. Is it difficult to take what seems, on the page, maybe like tics or weird habits and make them feel natural?<\/b><\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> That was the great challenge of it, and it\u2019s the beauty of [Steven Conrad\u2019s] writing. Like we repeat \u201cJamba Juice,\u201d or \u201cQuality Inn,\u201d or \u201cGarden Suites,\u201d all these little phrases, or \u201cSnag it.\u201d It\u2019s so fun to find a way to make that seem like it is natural to you. I remember I had a long monologue audition, and in there I talk about, \u201cNo way, Jos\u00e9.\u201d I wasn\u2019t sure what the tone was \u2014 it\u2019s such a specific tone when you watch the show, and it\u2019s very Steve Conrad. And I didn\u2019t know what it was before I met him and before you could see the show in action. So getting through that and chewing through that in my audition, doing these versions of \u201cNo way, Jos\u00e9\u201d that I thought felt really, really natural to me, I was like, \u201cThis is how I would say it. This is how I\u2019m going to do it. If my sense of humor matches his sense of humor, if our tones match, then I\u2019ll get this role. And if they don\u2019t, then somebody else will do it beautifully in that other way, whatever that is.\u201d Luckily that was like a marriage of tone and thought, and then those things start to come naturally. And then you want to say them more often than they\u2019re written. There\u2019s not a lot of improv in the show, but we would all just joke around and say it to each other.<\/p>\n Linda Cardellini.<\/p>\n Andrew, so much of \u201cMiss You, Love You\u201d is just you and Allison Janney together \u2014<\/b><\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> Just sitting in a house. Just talking.<\/p>\n What was the rehearsal process like? How did the two of you prepare for these very long dialogue scenes?<\/b><\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> We rehearsed it like a play, which was really fun, and I\u2019ve never really … I mean, we did that, I guess, with \u201cBoys in the Band\u201d a little bit. We had done it on Broadway and then we all kind of still knew it from when we actually filmed it. But Allison and I rehearsed it like a play, and we would just run lines like little theater nerds. It was exciting because I\u2019ve never \u2014 to get on set and to be able to say, like, \u201cWe can do the first 25 pages just because we\u2019ve already memorized it.\u201d And we did for Danny Moder, the [director of photography]; we did our little play for the crew one day. Which was really fun because you don\u2019t normally get to work like that. It\u2019s like in little segments. And [writer-director] Jim Rash just let us run it in a way that felt really satisfying to get to do. Because sometimes when you just do little pieces of things you\u2019re like, \u201cI can\u2019t quite get the arc of this, and I don\u2019t really know.\u201d You\u2019re doing inserts, and you\u2019re like, \u201cThis doesn\u2019t feel like acting.\u201d<\/p>\n Zimmer:<\/b> And you\u2019re doing it out of order, so you\u2019re like, \u201cWait, I\u2019m playing the end before I\u2019ve even played the beginning, but I don\u2019t even know what my beginning is.\u201d<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> It becomes detective work.<\/p>\n Rannells: <\/b>Shout-out to Allison Janney. It turns out she\u2019s good at acting.<\/p>\n Linda, what was it like working with an intimacy coordinator in shooting what certainly look like they could have been very awkward scenes in \u201cDTF\u201d?<\/b><\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> I like an intimacy coordinator. I think it\u2019s wonderful. I think they\u2019re there if you would like to use them. Everybody I\u2019ve ever worked with in that capacity has been so helpful and considerate, and I think it\u2019s just a nice resource to have. And we had a great one on \u201cDTF.\u201d … One of the first scenes I ever shot was me where I have to, we call it \u201cweight placement,\u201d on Jason\u2019s face. And we were scheduled to shoot that much later, but it came up the \u2014<\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> That was your first day?<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> That was our first scene together, really placing your weight on somebody in a way where you just don\u2019t want to hurt somebody\u2019s face. I mean, you don\u2019t want to suffocate somebody. There\u2019s a lot of things that could happen. But it was handled so beautifully. And Jason, of course, is so wonderful, and we had such a great time doing the scenes because we just would laugh \u2014 they\u2019re funny. The scenes, more than even being sexual, are so awkward and bizarre and filled with these strange little kinks that it becomes funny, in a way, although you treat it with dead seriousness. But Steve Conrad had a beautiful economy about what he was shooting, and he would storyboard. It was never just like, \u201cOh, be intimate and go for it, and we\u2019ll see what we use.\u201d It was, \u201cThis is the part of your body we\u2019re going to use right here. This will be the shot. It\u2019s this frame. We\u2019re not going to do any more than that.\u201d So you never felt like you were in the Wild West doing this passionate thing that felt uncomfortable. … Because, of course, going into something like that, reading the script, you\u2019re thinking, \u201cIt\u2019s a little nerve-racking. How am I going to do these things?\u201d It was much easier than I could have ever imagined.<\/p>\n Constance Zimmer.<\/p>\n Constance, your character in \u201cLove Story,\u201d she embodies the other side of the glamour and the fame and the story that we all think we know. And in a lot of ways I can\u2019t help but connect it to your character from \u201cUnReal\u201d in that it creates this really interesting perspective on fame. These roles, do they make you think about that, as well? Do you start to consider your own relationship to fame and your character\u2019s relationship to fame?<\/b><\/p>\n Zimmer:<\/b> Ann, [and] working on \u201cLove Story\u201d in general, really brought the price of fame to the forefront and how it can tear people apart and down and away from who they were before they became famous. And I think, in this particular story, Carolyn never set out to be famous. That was like the last thing she wanted. The scenes with me and Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Carolyn Bessette, were very much about, \u201cHow do I remind you that everything is going to change, and you are going to change?\u201d So it made the mama bear really show up. And sadly, it\u2019s hard to do the research about all of that and see how much media was to blame. I hate to say it, and it\u2019s tough, especially for a woman: They really tore her apart. It definitely makes you look at things and go, \u201cWow, it\u2019s so interesting what we all give up.\u201d This is our craft. We do this as actors, yet when we step outside of our craft and our roles, we are judged on such a harsh level. We\u2019re here for the work and to make and show these characters so that maybe you can see a little bit of yourself, or maybe it can help you with grief, or laughter, or whatever. But then, outside of our work, we are judged almost worse about how we\u2019re aging, how we\u2019re not aging, what we look like, what we don\u2019t look like. It\u2019s the hardest part, I think, of what we do.<\/p>\n Would the rest of you agree with that, that in some ways, it\u2019s not the work that you\u2019re doing, but it\u2019s this other job that exists outside of your work, the fame aspect of it? Does that become a bigger challenge than you expect?<\/b><\/p>\n Rannells: <\/b>So much of the promotion of things that you work on now hinges on your participation in like, \u201cPost this picture\u201d or \u201cDo this video\u201d or \u201cDo this thing.\u201d And that\u2019s stuff that you just don\u2019t think about when you say, \u201cI want to be an actor.\u201d You don\u2019t think about, \u201cDo I have to do a collab with the network?\u201d I don\u2019t want to do that. That\u2019s not part of my job, but it is part of your job. That is part of it now. So that\u2019s a tricky aspect of it that I didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n Morrone:<\/b> The other side of that coin is that there\u2019s independent films that I\u2019ve done, that nobody would have ever seen had I not been the poster child on social media, being like, \u201cI love this film. Please, watch this film. This is how to watch this film.\u201d So, then again, it can also be a really beneficial platform. And it\u2019s such a complicated relationship because, I mean, I grew up with social media. I don\u2019t ever remember not having a form of social media. And I wish I could be like the cool actors who aren\u2019t on it. They\u2019re much more mysterious.<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a:<\/b> Jamie\u2019s not on it.<\/p>\n Bell:<\/b> I mean, it\u2019s not a conscious choice. I\u2019m just not on it.<\/p>\n Jamie Bell.<\/p>\n Jamie, both you and Linda have been acting since you were quite young and, in some ways, have grown up on camera. How do you know what of yourself to hold onto, what you allow the public to see? Is that something you , at some point in your career, had to make a decision about how much of yourself you were going to give away?<\/b><\/p>\n Bell:<\/b> I\u2019m quite a boring person. I\u2019m a dad. When I\u2019m not working, I\u2019m just dad and school running and that kind of thing. And also, I enjoy working. So most of my time is spent either trying to get the next job, or thinking about the next job, or just really working hard on that because I enjoy that. So I really don\u2019t think about any of that other stuff. And I\u2019ve been quite fortunate in that no one is particularly interested in banging down that door anyway …which I\u2019m quite relieved about, honestly, because I feel like I get to work in a space where I\u2019m just coming and playing the part, and I\u2019m going home. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever done is since I was like 12 or 13 years old, and I still enjoy that. I still enjoy that thrill of going to work and playing the character. And I have incredibly high expectations of myself and all those things. I self-flagellate a lot on the way home, like, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you do it like that?\u201d I stress myself out about that kind of stuff, but I still go back the next day going like, \u201cGod, maybe I\u2019ll get it today.\u201d And that excitement still exists. And I think mostly that\u2019s because I don\u2019t have this other side of stuff that is distracting me from anything.<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> When I first started, I wondered if I would ever make a living at it. And to be able to have had it as my job and to have a job that I love and, like you said, show up and just be excited to do the work and be excited to be around other people who do the similar work or behind the camera… It\u2019s such a beautiful community that I feel very grateful that I\u2019ve been able to grow up doing what I love. I mean, I wouldn\u2019t have guessed that it could have lasted this long. And people always said, like, \u201cOh, when you get to a certain age, it gets terrible for women.\u201d And I still feel like I\u2019m still learning and growing and doing new things, stuff I\u2019ve never done before. So I just try to turn down my worry and just be so grateful in the moment, which is not always easy for me because I can live with a lot of anxiety. But thinking about it and listening to everybody here right now, I just am very grateful to have a seat at the table, literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n I\u2019d imagine for all of you that you\u2019re probably never quite sure what roles you do that are going to be the ones that hit in a certain way. Do you ever know what movies are going to land with audiences?<\/b><\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a:<\/b> I think I\u2019ve done OK in that department where if I read something and it really moves me, I just want to be a part of it. I mean, they had their own success, in a way. \u201cEastbound & Down\u201d was so funny. When I read the character, I was like, \u201cOh, this is a really cool character.\u201d And now the meme… There\u2019s a fart meme<\/a>. Man, I swear to God, we shot that 15 years ago, and literally I do a fart noise, and I say, \u201cHow long have you been with her?\u201d It sucks now because I\u2019m like, \u201cThat\u2019s all they know me for. Not \u2018Crash,\u2019 not \u2018World Trade Center,\u2019 not all the movies that were nominated, this and that.\u201d It\u2019s the fart noise.<\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> Is that going to be your In Memoriam thing?<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a:<\/b> Can you imagine? Let\u2019s watch a clip here of Michael \u2014<\/p>\n Andrew Rannells.<\/p>\n As we talk about these past projects you\u2019ve been a part of, it just leads to the question of how the business of being an actor, the nature of this as a job, has changed for you over the years.<\/b><\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> When I started, and I started in the ensemble of \u201cHairspray\u201d on Broadway, I never expected that I would ever get a job on television. That just seemed very far away. So the fact that I get to do it and that I have a tiny bit of control over what I get to do is a real gift because it was very unexpected. My first TV job, I was a headless stripper on \u201cSex and the City.\u201d<\/p>\n Morrone:<\/b> What episode?<\/p>\n Rannells:<\/b> It wasn\u2019t a Halloween episode. They just didn\u2019t shoot my face. But I remember filming it and being like, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine this will ever happen again, that I\u2019ll be on a set, or doing a TV show,\u201d So it\u2019s still sort of a surprise anytime I get a job that I\u2019m like, \u201cSomeone\u2019s going to pay me to do that, to make faces.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems like everyone in Hollywood right now is talking about artificial intelligence. For all of you, is that something that you are thinking about for yourself? Have you experimented with it at all? <\/b><\/p>\n Morrone: <\/b>I really want to believe that people will always choose us and real emotion, and that the audience is really smart and they want to see real humans and real life experiences and raw emotion. And I pray that that\u2019s the case. I have a lot of hope in humanity, in that case.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what it means for us in the near future. I know that we have to protect ourselves. I actually was working with Patricia Arquette, she directed me in a film called \u201cGonzo Girl.\u201d And she is so hyper-aware of all of this and looking into all her contracts. So was Jamie Lee Curtis. I got the opportunity to talk to her about AI. And they were so knowledgeable and like, \u201cGo back and look at everything that you\u2019ve done the last 10 years, and review everything, and make sure that they can\u2019t use your likeness in the future.\u201d I mean, it\u2019s something that we really do have to be aware of.<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a:<\/b> I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s going to be a threat because it\u2019s working off of a database and whatever has been uploaded onto that particular AI. So, just for s\u2014 and giggles, I was like, let me see if it can write some jokes. So, I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat would Pe\u00f1a say in this one?\u201d I was like, \u201cLame.\u201d All the jokes sucked, and they were recycled jokes. And I was like, \u201cOK, cool. That gives me hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Zimmer:<\/b> Was there a fart joke in there, though?<\/p>\n The Envelope June 11, 2026 issue featuring The Limited Series\/TV Movie Roundtable actors<\/p>\n Get exclusive awards season news, in-depth interviews and columnist Glenn Whipp\u2019s must-read analysis straight to your inbox.<\/a><\/p>\n This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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