The Tragic Truth About Parker Posey's Life

Throughout her time as an actor, Parker Posey has worked on a ton of big and small projects alongside very famous faces. However, she's the first to admit that her career hasn't always been the stuff of dreams. In fact, between struggling to find work and worrying that she might need to step away from the biz for good, some of what Posey has been through is downright tragic. 

Of course, one must start at the very beginning — and in Posey's case, that was prior to her acting career. Though she'd always wanted to be a performer, she'd originally thought she might become a dancer. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out. Luckily, her parents were super supportive of her following her dreams. Speaking to The New Yorker in 2022, she recounted her dad's response to her saying she wanted to study ballet at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and specifically to join their summer program. "My dad said, 'Oh, well I'll get my friend to fly you on his airplane' ... So he flew me up to NCSA, which took like three hours, and I just loved it, to be around young, creative people," she gushed. 

Sadly, though Posey auditioned to stay at the school the program wrapped, she didn't make it. However, that's not to say she has any regrets. On the contrary, she told The New Yorker, "Anyone who's in their teens and they want to be an actor and they're serious about it — I'm like, 'Go to a performance-art program now, early on,' because there's a lot of energy during that time." What's more, even though her audition wasn't successful, she did walk away with some great advice. The dean of the school urged her to go into acting instead — "I was a big ham," Posey recalled — and that, she did.

In addition to the dean's suggestion, a modern dance teacher from the North Carolina School of the Arts gave Parker Posey another piece of advice. "She said, 'Well, make sure you audition for SUNY Purchase, because these schools accept different types of actors,'" Posey recounted to The New Yorker. She made good on the advice and got in. Granted, that doesn't mean she had an easy ride. 

Speaking to The New York Times in the wake of her joining the "White Lotus" cast, Posey revealed that she'd spent a whole lot of her college experience on academic probation. Like most institutions, SUNY Purchase takes academic probation pretty seriously. According to their website, students who find themselves in that position face the possibility of being dismissed from the university for a year, as well as running the risk of losing both federal and state financial aid. They're also required to put any of their extracurriculars on pause until they can get their grades back up. 

Evidently, Posey managed to stay in school without being dismissed. However, that didn't mean she chose to stay in school. Just weeks prior to what should have marked her graduation, the actor left SUNY Purchase for a role she'd just gotten. The project in question? "As the World Turns." Speaking to The New Yorker, she explained that she'd been hired in a massive rush because the soap opera needed someone her height. "I got cast on a Monday and started working on Wednesday, she said. "And I started on April Fool's Day." Luckily for Posey, that wasn't entirely prophetic, and she went on to get many more roles. "You could really be in the mix in New York at that time," she told Vogue. "I could do the soap opera during the day and theater at night." However, that's not to say those roles were always particularly lucrative. 

After Parker Posey's eight-episode stint in "As the World Turns," she went on to have a ton of gigs. In fact, her IMDb profile notes that she featured in seven films and one TV show in 1993 alone. Posey continued on that trajectory for several more years, and ended up doing so many independent films that she ended up being dubbed, "Queen of the Indies." A flattering nickname, no doubt, especially since Posey loved the projects she was working on. However, as the outlet who gave her the name — that'd be Time — pointed out, Posey had the fame but no fortune. 

Among some of the concerning issues raised by Time was the fact that Posey wasn't just doing films that gave her meager paychecks (one of those being a $75 daily rate), but there were also times she paid in. For instance, there was a time when her own credit card was used for the project's rental cars. 

Evidently, several people expressed concern over Posey's predicament when they found out she was poorer than many may have thought. However, when asked about it by Time, she made it clear that she wasn't bothered about it. "I get a phone call, I get a script, I do the movie. That's where the fun is," she said.

In addition to Parker Posey's stance on being happy to make less money, if it meant she enjoyed the projects she did, she also told Time that she was a-okay not being picked for higher-paying gigs. "It's not my business to overexpose myself. It's my business to work," she'd told the outlet. 

Sadly, a few years on she wasn't quite as nonchalant about that. In fact, she told The New Yorker that her past roles had counted against her in a big way — and not because she was hoping to become a lead in a major blockbuster. Noting that she was more than happy to go for smaller roles in Hollywood movies, she shared that even that had been a stretch. Recounting the time she asked her agent about it, she shared that they'd eventually come out and told her, "Well, the studio says you're 'too much of an indie queen.'" Not ideal. 

Unfortunately, Posey's long indie filmography was only part of the problem. Speaking to Vulture, she admitted that once upon a time, she had actually gotten offers for studio projects, but had turned them down. "We would pass on things that a casting director would have, this Hollywood movie or something, and we'd be like, 'It's a studio movie, I really should take it, but I can't because I really need a break because I just did two indie movies back to back.' Then you go like, 'Oh no, is now the casting director never going to cast me again because I said 'No'? These are things that I didn't really think of back then. I just did what I felt like doing," she admitted. Sure enough, Hollywood stopped trying to cast her — and understandably, she has some regrets about it. 

In yet another blow for Parker Posey, she's also spoken about not getting as much work in independent films, either. In an interview with Daily Beast, she pointed out that indie films weren't made the same way anymore, and that ended up having a very negative impact on her. "How movies are financed, it's a new world market now ... The independent film way of working is something that was in my bones. It's like being a part of a punk band but no one's singing punk rock anymore," she told the outlet (via ThePlaylist). 

With Hollywood jobs nearly nonexistent and even indie work drying up, she started questioning if acting was really an option anymore. In fact, she'd already started thinking about new ways to make money. To Daily Beast, she explained that she'd considered converting her home into a wedding venue. Luckily, by the time of the interview things had started looking up, and she had been cast by the controversial Woody Allen in both "Irrational Man" and "Cafe Society" (then still an unnamed project). With that in mind, it seems Posey didn't go the wedding venue route. Even so, she still sold her Lower Fifth Avenue apartment.  

Selling up wasn't the only step she took, though. Speaking to The Guardian a few years later, Posey was promoting her first book, "You're on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir." And, as she told the outlet, writing it in the first place had been a way for her to make money. "I wrote a book because I had to do something else. I didn't think I would work again," she admitted. Granted, there were other reasons for that, too.

Other than feeling as though she no longer belonged in the indie scene, another major reason why Parker Posey was worried about finding work going forward was because of cancel culture. In fact, she even called out her interview from The Guardian when he asked her about working with Woody Allen when so many other stars had turned their backs to him. "I'm an actor. I don't feel like I should be asked these questions and to be political in a way that the media expects," she said. Posey added that her book "You're on an Airplane" had specifically avoided anything that could be viewed as an attack on anyone. "I've written something that isn't mean and I try my best to protect myself and now I don't feel protected because you asked this question," she'd told her interviewer. 

Sadly, that hasn't shielded Posey completely. In addition to the #MeToo era criticism she'd already received after gushing over her time spent with Allen, many will likely also have seen the clip of her and Blake Lively's interview with Kjersti Flaa that resurfaced in August 2024. Yep, the same scandal that Blake Lively wishes we would forget involved Posey, and while most of the fallout has revolved around Lively's hostile reaction to Flaa congratulating her on her pregnancy, many were equally critical of Posey. "Parker's eye roll was disgusting," wrote one. "Yes. Parker is not innocent here," complained another. 

Of course, not everyone believed Posey was at fault. Many actually stood up for her in the comments section, with a number of people musing that she seemed to be trying to soften the tension. "Parker did nothing but try to be a buffer ... Parker was trying to keep the peace," one said. It seems that Posey's fans are in her corner.

Back to Parker Posey's book, it bears mentioning that in the years since "You're on an Airplane" was published, she's spoken about a detail she didn't share in it. As she told Interview, though her dad was a prankster and always keen to make people laugh, he was also tougher on her and her brother (bet you didn't know Posey has a twin) than she let on. "I handled his narcissism with enough humor to make him a character he'd approve of. I didn't divulge how hard he was on us," she said. 

In her Interview profile, Posey revealed that much of her dad's toughness stemmed from the fact that he'd been in the Vietnam War for the first few years of their lives. Though he used comedy as a way to deal with his lingering PTSD, she said, "He could be domineering and emotionally absent." All that said, she said he'd been thrilled with his portrayal in her book. What's more, she also said that her dad living to read it (he passed away a few months after it was published) was a blessing. 

Between an at-times tough childhood, career lows, and even brushes with public criticism, the truth is Posey has dealt with plenty of hardships. Nevertheless, even when she's considered walking away from the industry, she's continued to show up and keep us laughing when she does, and for that, she certainly deserves her flowers.