How ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Lured Director Marielle Heller Back to Acting

Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit tells the thrilling (fictional) story of young chess prodigy Beth Harmon, played by Anya Taylor-Joy. After the horrible death of her mother, young Beth spends her days in a bleak Kentucky orphanage until fate rescues her as a teen. Beth is adopted by the Wheatleys, a well-to-do suburban couple on the verge of breakdown. Soon, Beth and her new mother, Alma (Marielle Heller), find themselves in a codependent relationship unlike any other mother-daughter relationship on TV. The two share addictions, heartaches, and, ultimately, an odd sort of love.

Marielle Heller started her career as an actor, but is best known for her incandescent work as a director. In the last decade alone, she’s directed such critically-acclaimed films as The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and the recently released What The Constitution Means to Me. As Alma, Heller not only gets to return to her first love, but she also gets to tear into one of the juiciest roles in all of The Queen’s Gambit. Alma is both childish and maternal, tragic, and yet also full of glee.

Decider spoke with Marielle Heller about her work in The Queen’s Gambit earlier this month. She explained how The Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank lured her to the series, why she loved Alma’s time in Mexico, and what part of the Netflix series concerned the director part of her brain…

DECIDER: You’re an amazing director, but I know you started off as an actor. I was curious why this was the project to pull you back, or how the opportunity came for you to come back to acting now.

MARIELLE HELLER: So Scott [Frank] and I are friends. I’ve known him for a long time. I did a very small part in his movie A Walk Among the Tombstones. When I did that, he was like, “Oh, I’m gonna get you to act for me. You’re going to do a big part for me someday.” He tried to get me to be in Godless, but I was making Can You Ever Forgive Me?. This was really a timing thing.

And I love acting. I mean, it’s my first love. Really, I haven’t acted in 10 years because directing has become the thing that I’ve dedicated my life to and I’ve found so much joy with. But always, deep in the back of my mind, I thought, “I’d love to act again one day.” Starting from the time I was eight, I wanted to be an actor. At this moment, when he came to me last summer and said, “Can you come to Berlin and do this crazy thing?” I was about to turn 40. He was like, “Oh yeah, I might have you cut off all your hair.” I was sort of like, “You know what? Screw it. Why not? I don’t have anything lined up for the next couple of months. This sounds fun and crazy, and probably not the smartest career choice. But it sounds like a real challenge. It sounds like the more fun choice to make in this moment.”

So I just said yes. It turned out to just be such a joy. I had the best time.

I love Alma. She’s so loving, but she’s a flawed stage mom at times. 

Yes! [Laughs]

I was curious how you interpreted her relationship with Beth. It was tender, but also sometimes a little problematic.

I love Alma too, and I love their relationship. In so many ways, I think only a flawed relationship could exist for either of them. There couldn’t be a perfect relationship. Alma is such a…she’s had such a tough life. She finds Beth at this moment where it’s sort of her last gasp of having a family, or being a mother. There’s something so desperate and sad about her, as a housewife who’s been locked in her house in an unhappy marriage.

She really does need Beth. She needs to care for someone, but she doesn’t know how to care for somebody. She’s never truly done it. There’s a selfishness to her that goes along with her true desire to care for Beth. In some ways, I think Beth needs somebody who’s as complex as her to be her match. The two of them find each other at the exact right moment for each of them. I find it so sweet. [Laughs]

I also thought that the week in Mexico was kind of bittersweet for Alma, and I was almost like — I know it ended sadly for her, but I was happy she got to live. 

Oh yeah!

How do you feel about that for Alma?

Oh, I just had so much fun with that. I think I was rooting for Alma in the same way that probably the audience will be. My wonderful hair and makeup artist Lizzie and I would talk about how much we love Alma, and how much we hoped she would find love. Things like that. For her to have, yeah, a little rollicking romance for a moment, even if it doesn’t last — you’re so happy for her!

Obviously it’s a show about chess. How good of a chess player are you in real life?

I don’t know how to play chess at all. One of the things I was the most nervous about with the show, when we were filming it — because obviously I think about things like directing, even though I shouldn’t be, because it’s not my job on this one — I was like, “How is the audience going to feel about the chess in this? Are they going to be able to follow it if they don’t play chess?”

I just think Scott figured out a way to visually connect chess, that you’re so emotionally invested in it. Even if you don’t play chess. It’s kind of amazing. I, watching the show, was blown away by the fact that I felt like I was understanding and following the chess, and invested in an emotional level, even if I don’t know the game.

Watch The Queen's Gambit on Netflix