The first thing Linda Cardellini does upon entering Dante, the loungey lunch spot at the Beverly Hills Maybourne Hotel, is apologize for the noise.
“I didn’t know it would be such a DJ scene in here,” she confesses, nodding to the guy in a camp-collared short-sleeve shirt pumping out synth beats by the bar counter.
There is, admittedly, more of a hip cabana party vibe than one might expect for Saturday afternoon tea in mid-September. The actress, 51, speaks with the waiter about possibly moving to a quieter table on the patio outside. Only, there’s a heat wave. So sitting outside at Dante is hell.
It’s best to keep to the comforts of AC and chalk up the pounding bass as the unconventional soundtrack to a conversation about murder and mayhem — i.e., her upcoming role on Peacock’s Crystal Lake (Oct. 15), the Friday the 13th prequel series in which she plays Pam Voorhees, an icon of horror and the mother of future machete-wielding serial killer Jason.
Cardellini looks, to put it simply, cool among such posh patrons. She wears a simple gray T-shirt and jeans with her hair pulled back, attire she swears is for a makeup trial later in the day in preparation for the Emmys the following Monday.
Six days prior to this luncheon, at the Creative Arts Emmys, she accepted her first-ever award from the Television Academy, sfor her supporting role in HBO’s limited series DTF St. Louis as a complicated small-town wife caught up in a love triangle with her swinger husband (David Harbour) and a local weatherman (Jason Bateman).
The afterglow of that moment, when she rocked a strapless yellow Monique Lhuillier gown on the Peacock Theatre stage amid a swell of emotions, hasn’t yet worn off. She likens the experience to her first TV appearance: winning a traditional cherry-finish fireplace on The Price Is Right back in 1994. Both that and her victorious Emmy night felt “like being on a roller coaster.”
DTF St. Louis, and the recognition Cardellini received with it, are the latest capstones in her thriving Hollywood career, which was defined early on by the comedies Freaks and Geeks and the Scooby-Doos. But Crystal Lake showrunner Brad Caleb Kane says he was inspired to cast her as Mamma Voorhees after her complex performance in Dead to Me, which is arguably where this Cardel-aissance really began.
While writing the scripts, Kane kept replaying reels in his head of Cardellini as Judy Hale, who pretends to be grieving a deceased spouse in order to bond with Jen (Christina Applegate), the wife of the man she accidentally killed with her car.
“The person who was linking the Venn diagram between Dead to Me and Friday the 13th was very obviously Linda Cardellini,” he says.
Looking back, the star sees that role as a professional turning point.
“That was a way that people hadn’t really seen me,” she says of Judy. “She has a heart of gold, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The Netflix series also became a springboard for Dead to Me creator Liz Feldman, who — adhering to Cardellini’s request to write her “a badass bitch” part — crafted her the role of Margo Starling in follow-up series No Good Deed (2024).
Crystal Lake, however, remains a surprise job to Cardellini. She’ll be the first to acknowledge she’s not exactly known for horror, despite a handful of roles in that space. That didn’t bother Kane.
“We went on a three-decade journey with her,” he explains. “She’s worked consistently and she’s put in varied work, from comedy to drama to camp, the Scooby-Doo movies, all of it. You realize she truly can do it all, but in such a humble way. Her humility is her talent, and that just made me want her more.”
