There are two people Jennifer Jason Leigh had in mind when it came to crafting her delectable, scenery-chewing matriarch in the new installment of Noah Hawley’s Fargo: William F. Buckley, the flamboyant conservative commentator, and her own mother, the late Emmy-nominated screenwriter Barbara Turner. “When I veered more toward Buckley, it could get a little more grand,” she tells Vanity Fair of her performance. “When I would veer toward my mother, I could bring it in.”

One can see a bit more of the latter, perhaps, in Leigh’s tender and commanding work in the series’s penultimate episode, “The Useless Hand,” which premiered Tuesday night. Up until this point, Leigh’s powerful Lorraine Lyon—with her exquisitely expensive wardrobe, haughty mid-Atlantic accent, and Cheshire cat grin—had been skeptically investigating the disappearance of her daughter-in-law, Dot (Juno Temple). But as the reality of Dot’s mysterious past and her abusive former partner, Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), become clear, Lorraine realizes she needs to take action to hold her family together. And so she does, making a few simple phone calls that set the stage for an epic clash between law enforcement and Tillman’s criminal-militia enterprise. The result feels like classic Fargo, and a culmination of the show’s bold statements on the state of the country.

Leigh is having the time of her life in this part, owning every room she walks into just as Lorraine does. But what’s most impressive about her turn is the way, in an episode like this, she subtly gives this larger-than-life figure some new dimension. It’s a trademark of the Oscar-nominated actor, who’s been known for taking on big, complicated roles, from the ’90s independent scene to her resurgence in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, and imbuing them with a tough, hard-earned humanity. In an exclusive breakdown with Vanity Fair, Leigh reveals what led her to this moment—both in Fargo, and her career.

Vanity Fair: Let’s jump right into episode nine, and how it advances Lorraine’s arc. There’s a real shift in terms of her relationship to Dot and her place in the story. You don’t know at the beginning of the show whether you’re meeting a villain.

Jennifer Jason Leigh: Nor did I know when I first read it, because I only read the first three episodes.

Did you talk it through after that, though?

In talking to [Hawley] at the beginning, he did tell me that she would have this tremendous arc, but when I first read, we were just given three episodes—you don’t know what her place is or where. The thing about Fargo is you can never trust your take on a character. They’re always going to end up surprising you in some profound way.

Can you talk a little bit about discovering the journey she goes on over the course of the season, and how that informed getting to this point?

There’s a way that she plays with people like they’re mice and she’s a cat. She doesn’t like who her son married. She feels he married beneath him, and she has very little interest in Dot. She thinks she has her number—at first, it seems like it was a kidnapping, and [Dot] might be in on it. Then when she discovers the Roy Tillman of it all—first of all, she also doesn’t like someone telling her what’s what. That doesn’t go over well. [Laughs] If Roy Tillman wants ownership of Dot, well, that’s entering [Lorraine’s] world, and that’s moving the pieces around on her board game.

So I don’t even know that it’s much of a liking of Dot. There’s certainly a new appreciation for Dot, and a realization that she didn’t quite have her pegged. But then when she sees who Roy Tillman actually is and what he has put this woman through, it does bring out a whole other side. I think basically, Lorraine’s a really decent person. She has a great thing with words, which I really don’t have at this moment or probably ever.

You tend to make big choices as an actor, and this is certainly no exception. I’m curious how you initially conceptualized Lorraine and came up with the walk, the voice.

She has very clear ideas about things. Like, you can tell that Christmas card thing is something she does every year. [Laughs] I spent a lot of time talking with Noah. I did want to know how he visualized her or how he heard her voice. We always seemed to end up talking about William F. Buckley. Can you hear that a little bit now?

Yes, absolutely.

He’s got that disdain when he talks to people. His chin is always raised. He literally is doing what Roy Tillman says Lorraine is doing, which is looking down her nose at people. There’s something very comfortable about it. If anything, he might slide down his chair or something, incredibly relaxed in his disdain, because he also enjoys people. Even though she’s very, very quick to judge and nearly always right—I do say nearly—she also likes people in her own way. She’s amused by them. She does feel like she’s the smartest person in the room, and she usually is. There aren’t many people she trusts because she just understands human nature. She has too much money, and she is not afraid of conflict. There’s so much about her that’s very, very different from me. She enjoys belittling people; she enjoys putting people down. That’s her humor. My mom was very much like that. My mom was very, very funny, but very deadpan. My mom could be intimidating. Between my mother and William F. Buckley, she’s somewhere in there. [Laughs]

It was an intimidating role to play, because she is so intimidating. That’s not necessarily a place I’m comfortable in, but I enjoyed finding it. I wished I had more of that in my own personality.

The other thing your performance reminded me of was The Hudsucker Proxy. I’m not sure if that was in your mind at all, and the tempo of the speaking is certainly different, but coming from the world of Coens back into this world—

Right, that’s funny. I didn’t actually think of it at all. Although there are parts of it that are very mid-Atlantic, which is that sound. So, that does make sense. I mean, this [season] has a lot of nods to the film, but they each stand on their own. They really do. It’s been so many years now that you don’t necessarily compare to its namesake.

I’m interested in you saying this role intimidated you, only because I associate you with pretty big, often imposing characters. Is it a feeling you get often?

Yeah. I mean, with Lorraine, it’s even more because Lorraine has so much. She’s not only calculating and verbal and funny and smart. She’s also incredibly rich and she does own any room. There’s a certain quiet in that. The people that I know that have or exude a lot of power, a lot of times there’s just a kind of inner quiet. They don’t beg for your attention. They have your attention simply by being there. I talk very fast in my life, but Lorraine does not. It’s almost like she’s put through a slow motion.

She savors every syllable.

You will wait for her. She expects people to just wait for her and to be patient because they have to be. I feel like I learned a lot from that.

In those choices that you were talking about, was there ever a feeling of “How big do I want to go?” How did you strike the balance of having a lot of fun with it, which you very clearly do, and keeping it grounded?

That’s what’s scary the whole time, but there’s also fun in that. I was worried it could have been way too broad. Is this working? Is this not working? The tone of Fargo is precarious, and he knows how to straddle that in such a fine way. It’s over the top yet grounded, as you said. When I veered more toward Buckley, it could get a little more grand. When I would veer toward my mother, I could bring it in. It was just figuring it out.

I think that the tone you’re talking about reflects your ’90s, early 2000s independent movies: a little more slippery, veering between comedy and not so much comedy. I think that’s what television has increasingly done lately.

Yeah, TV’s great now. When I was coming up, TV was a stepping stone to film. Everyone wanted to make movies. Those were where the great parts were. Now a lot of the best writing is TV. You just want the great role. There’s not really a difference of where it’s going to end up or what it’s specifically for initially, because everything’s going to end up on Netflix or Apple or Max—it’s all going to end up there. You just hope that people can see it and they’re not watching it on their phones, but even if they are, they seem to be getting it. Do you watch things on your phone?

I do not ever watch things on my phone.

Good for you. Yeah, I don’t either.

Did you consciously break into TV? You seemed to start getting plum roles there after Hateful Eight.

Yes, because there were so many shows that I really enjoyed watching! I also had a young son, and it seemed like a good life. I always love movies, but there isn’t really a distinction. I mean, I still go to the movies. I’m trying to think of the last movie that I saw, which I’m not sure of what it was.

No Oscar season catch-up for you?

I have a projector and an Apple TV, so I project things on the wall. It’s cozy. It’s here. It’s the new world.

From an acting standpoint, is there a difference for you in being able to stay with a character over a longer period of time?

It’s really fun, actually. You don’t know what’s going to be thrown at you and what you’re going to have to deal with. You’ll read an episode, you have no idea what’s coming. I enjoy that. It keeps everything really alive. Sometimes you have to figure out a way to make it work, and other times you see like, “Oh, this was the plan all along. That’s why they had these little hints earlier.” I didn’t know about it, but one would know about it in retrospect…. Even on Atypical, you don’t know where it was going or what was going to happen. Without spoiling anything, how do you feel about where we leave Lorraine in the show? How did you sum up her arc in your mind?

I think it was pretty satisfying, because in the beginning of the show, she’s putting her family on display while in her mind criticizing all of them. There’s not one person that is spared in that initial scene. By the end, she really does have a family. It has a different tactile meaning for her. She’ll never lose her sense of humor. She’ll never stop judging people, but there’s certainly more of an appreciation and immediacy and a love. It’s not like there’s not a gun keeping her separated from that. She’s just holding the family together.

You’ve said that this is a business that tends to look at the last two or three things you’ve done, and that’s it. What place do you feel like you’re in now, coming off a show like Fargo?

I feel fortunate, first of all, to have been able to be in Fargo and also have such a great role— but also now that it’s coming out right after the strike, because there’s hope to get another job. As an actor, you just don’t know when you’re going to work again. It’s weird! I have faith that I’m going to work again. I’m not anxious about it, but we did have a very long strike. Like you said that I said, you’re only remembered for the last three roles. So, I’m glad I have a role out now to refresh people’s memories. I think that’s a good thing.

This interview has been edited and condensed.