When Julia Garner begins honing in on a character, she gains inspiration by observing people who don’t realize they’re being watched. “One of my favorite things to do is just to sit on a park bench and see how everybody’s walking and what their energy is like,” Garner explained in an interview with Daily Actor. “My mom and I have this game we play called ‘What’s their problem?’ It’s so dark, but you make up problems and scenarios for the people that are walking past you.”
That exercise, she explained, has helped her shape the body language of the characters she portrays, such as the gait she developed for Ruth Langmore in “Ozark.” Calling it an “angry little walk,” she told Daily Actor that it can bring to mind an image of “a little bully on the playground” at times. “I just loved that.”
Garner went to even further extremes to play notorious con artist Anna Delvey in Netflix’s “Inventing Anna,” adding subtle prosthetics and other accouterments. “Everything’s fake,” Garner told Entertainment Weekly. “I have the wig, butt padding, like, four cutlets — two on each boob.” She completed the look with a set of fake teeth, which, as she shared, “made my face rounder.” She continued, “[Anna] has much more of a baby doll face.”
