Parker Posey is opening up about the challenges she faced when making the jump from indie films to studio movies earlier in her career.
The White Lotus star made a recent appearance on the Smartless podcast, hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, where she was asked for her reaction to being labeled the “indie queen” in the ’90s, thanks to her iconic roles in Party Girl, Flirt, Dazed and Confused and The Daytrippers. However, Posey admitted that it actually hindered her from getting roles in major studio projects.
“I felt like I was called a name, in a way,” she explained. “My path was more like, ‘Oh, [The Daytrippers director] Greg Mottola did a reading of his movie that he was trying to get financed,’ and then I introduced him to Liev Schreiber who was in Party Girl, and then we do The Daytrippers a year later. It was such a community back then. I felt like right when I got exposed, and the whole indie movement got exposed, it also got co-opted by the studio system, and then it became this other thing. All of a sudden, I wasn’t viable to get a movie financed, and it was such a head trip because I would have to audition for Hollywood movies when I’d carried the lead in independent movies that were shot in 23 days.”
Looking back, Posey believes she was “gaslit” into thinking she wasn’t on the same playing field as other notable Hollywood names. Posey has previously spoken about losing out on big roles to Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock, such as 1994’s Speed, which ultimately saw Bullock land the role of Annie, because she was “too indie.”
“[I would say], ‘I can promise I can memorize these lines in the script, and we’ll have a blast, trust me!’” She added. “So I had, like, a good 20 years of that after, and then working with great auteurs and doing these [films], not getting paid a lot, but being able to work and fulfill my creativity.”
Earlier this year, Posey reentered the zeitgeist thanks to her standout role as Victoria Ratliff in Mike White’s The White Lotus. While recently receiving the Legend Tribute at the 2025 Gotham TV Awards, she praised the show creator, saying, “Thank you, Mike White, for writing this character for me, for believing in a middle-aged woman and believing in a legend.”