What do Colin Farrell, Kate Winslet, Ruth Wilson, and now Emma Stone have in common? Their mother! That is, their on-screen mother, Deirdre O’Connell—who, though not a mother herself, has made a remarkable career out of playing one. She’s been Winslet’s in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Wilson’s in The Affair, but her breakout came in 2019 with a haunting, Tony-winning performance in Broadway’s Dana H., a one-woman show in which she lip-synched to recordings of the playwright Lucas Hnath’s mother, a woman kidnapped by a psychiatric patient. She just picked up an Emmy nomination for her performance as Farrell’s mother in 2024’s The Penguin, and will next appear as Stone’s mom in Eddington—a new Western dark comedy, set during the coronavirus pandemic, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler. Here, the matriarch herself shares her key components to the good life. —Carolina de Armas
Airline: I must admit, I like any with those sleeping pods. You feel like you’re in an odd little egg that has everything you need to sustain life. It’s hard to go back to real life once you’ve been in one.
Airport: I like a small, quiet one.
Alibi: I so admire people who say they don’t answer e-mails on certain days of the week. It’s like an alibi that you set up in advance. But I never have the balls to do it.
App: Art Set—it’s a painting app for computer illiterates.
Bag: A knapsack that weighs nothing and keeps everything organized. (It doesn’t actually exist.)
Bedtime: One A.M.
Bike: Any bike with a big, soft seat.
Birthday: I always ignore it, and that seems to go pretty well. Every year I think I’ll do something, and then I ignore it again. Eventually, I’ll just be, well, dead.
Boyfriend/girlfriend: Dreamy-looking, kind, tough, and loves me a lot.
Breakfast, weekday: Coffee and Wasa Crispbread crackers with butter and peanut butter.
Breakfast, weekend: Eggs Benedict.
Car: I never really loved a car. I think I learned to drive too late in life. They just feel like strange, dangerous metal boxes to me.
