Julianne Nicholson on Hideous Men, John Krasinski, and the Eccentric Jeff Goldblum

It's interesting, because at the beginning of the scene, you're emotional and he's impassive -- but by the end of it, the roles have reversed totally.

Yeah, and that's a thing that as an actor, I probably wouldn't have thought about, and yet, there it is. I think it's pretty cool.

Didn't he step in to play that role at the last minute?

He was dragged kicking and screaming into that role. I'm such a fan of his, though, so I was really excited to play opposite him in that way also. I mean, I wanted him to do it the whole time, so when it came to be, I was really happy.

It's got to have been a very jarring thing to hear about David Foster Wallace's passing after you shot the film. The movie was based on his book, and you'd lived with his words for so long.

It was very sad. I mean, it's tragic when somebody takes their life. Just the purity of somebody feeling...I don't know how to describe it. I don't know how somebody feels to do something like that. The loss of his future words, it's a shame, because I think he had such a unique voice and such a brilliant mind. It's a shame to not be able to read any more from him. Never mind his personal life and his family and all that...

On another topic, what happened over at Law & Order: Criminal Intent? So many people left at once.

I know! I don't know, I think it must be like...I mean, I left because I had a baby, and Dick Wolf -- who's always been incredibly gracious to me -- has said, "When you feel like you need to leave, you can come to me and we can talk about it." I was pregnant with my second child and felt like I really couldn't bear the idea of being away from [my family] as much as that show requires. I knew that I was going to be done with that show in May, but the rest of what's happening? I have no idea. Since I've been out of the loop, they don't tell the actors anything. [Laughs]

Did you come to that realization about your family after trying to balance motherhood and your job with your first child?

It's hard, yeah. The great thing about Law & Order, or at least Criminal Intent, is that I did every other episode. I worked very hard for eight days, then I had eight days off. For those eight days, though, I was gone eighteen hours a day, and that's a lot of hours to be away from your little one. It was tricky, but you do it. We did it, I do it, and I'm sure I'll do it again. I'm an actress and I want to act, and I'm a mom and I want to be with my kids, and it's trying to find a way to do both. It's really fucking hard!

Jeff Goldblum certainly played eccentric as your Criminal Intent partner -- he'd break into a piano solo during an interrogation, or leave an investigation to catch a screening of Breakfast with Tiffany's. Is it wiritten that way, or is that just Goldblum imprinting himself on the part?

I think it's a little bit of both. I say this with love -- please put that in -- but Jeff is about as weird as you think he is. [Laughs] He's fantastic, and I've always been a gigantic fan of his. I think he's so fun to watch, and he's always so into whatever he does. I'm telling you, he's the most professional person I've ever worked with -- I don't think I ever showed up on set when he wasn't already there and already knew every one of his lines and had six different ways he could do it. You meet him and you get a sense of who he is pretty immediately, so I think he's also written for in that way.

You know, a lot of actors complain about how fast the shooting schedule of TV is compared to film, but between Brief Interviews and your upcoming indie In Praise of Shadows with James Franco, I feel like your film work is even more run-and-gun than the normal TV schedule.

I know! I'm waiting for the day when I have a big fat movie where we shoot a two-page scene that day, maybe. I want to do a scene over the course of ten days! I'm looking forward to that job, but that has not been my experience this far.

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