Jennifer Beals, who stars as Margo Taft in Amazon’s nine-episode adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon, tackles Us Weekly’s request for 25 things you don’t know about her. Catch her in The Last Tycoon, debuting Friday, July 28 exclusively on Prime Video.
1. I love puzzles. When I was shooting The Book of Eli, my entire dining room table was occupied by a puzzle. Even though I was wrapped, I couldn’t leave until I had finished.
2. I was an usher at the Steppenwolf Theatre in high school. The actors, the staging, the visceral commitment blew my mind wide open.
3. I can’t put on mascara without having one hand behind my back.
4. I am unable to leave the house without making my bed. The rest of the house can be in utter chaos, but if the bed is unmade, it’s worse than nails on a chalkboard.
5. When I was in high school, I dated a lead singer in a rock band who stole my mascara on a regular basis. I finally bought him his own.
6. I aspire to play the banjo.
7. My pas de chat looks like I’m at a hoedown. I’ve given up any fantasy of doing ballet.
8. I am terrified of sharks, but I don’t let that stop me from swimming.
9. I love doing escape rooms and trying to solve the puzzle with the clock counting down.
10. I’m not good at doing escape rooms.
11. I used to do triathlons until I realized what I loved was the open-water swimming. I spent a summer swimming across lakes in Canada.
12. I am passionate about environmental health issues. I serve on the board of the Center for Environmental Health as well as the board of Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center.
13. My first dog’s name was Little Mutt. He was a sweetheart but very protective.
14. Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, the New Year’s Eve tradition was that people would shoot guns at midnight. The next day my brothers and I would search through the snow for the bullet shells.
15. I once waited in line for Adrienne Rich to sign my copy of Diving Into the Wreck.
16. I find four-leaf clovers. Earlier this month, I passed a restaurant where there was a wedding. I saw two four-leaf clovers, plucked them and gave them to the bride.
17. I love learning even fragments of new languages. It’s like a gateway into another way of being or thinking.
18. When I was little, I had lots of animals including a mouse named Samantha who slept in my bed.
19. I long to go to Ladakh.
20. When I was young, I had a second family, almost. Page Hannah was my friend, and her mom, Sue, and stepfather, Jerry, were incredibly kind to me.
21. The summer after my father died I went to Cheley Colorado Camp. The experience of being embedded in the Rockies changed my life.
22. I can’t do the breaststroke kick. I actually go backward.
23. One of my favorite places to camp is Iceland.
24. I love New Mexico the way you loved your college boyfriend. Truly, madly, deeply.
25. Serving as a surrogate spokesperson for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Chicago was one of the greatest honors in my life.
