'They don't necessarily see you as a box-office draw.' There are exceptions – she is impressed by the work actors such as Viola Davis, who is 55, and Frances McDormand, who is 63, are doing. These are not roles with which the film industry is awash, 'particularly for women my age', she says. Photograph: FOX via Getty Imagesįor the past 15 years Perkins's most interesting work has been on television – she was the nightmare neighbour Celia Hodes in Weeds, the boozy busybody Jackie O'Neill in Sharp Objects and a mother trying to prove her son's innocence in Truth Be Told. The Moodys: L-R: Jay Baruchel, Elizabeth Perkins, Denis Leary, Chelsea Frei and Francois Arnaud in season two. “But it still doesn’t help the parents when the kids move back.” When I look at how hard my kids have to work to earn a living compared with when I was their age, it’s much harder for them.” The stigma of moving back home, she says, “is outdated”. “It’s interesting, because, in my generation, you were considered a loser if you moved back in with your parents,” says Perkins, who is 60. Perkins’s daughter and three stepsons – all in their 20s – have not returned home, but lots of her friends’ kids have, due to the pandemic. It is a dynamic familiar to many families. 'It really explored that dichotomy of: you love them to death, but, man, they get on your nerves,' says Perkins.

In the new season all three children are living at the family home, with predictably messy consequences. Perkins plays Ann Moody, their mother Denis Leary plays her husband. This is the timely theme of Perkins's show The Moodys, the first season of which, in 2019, saw three grownup children return home to Chicago for Christmas. After a couple of weeks you're, like, 'Will they ever leave?'' 'The thing is, you miss them so much, then they'll come back for a holiday and within a week there's dirty dishes everywhere, there's wet towels on the floor, they've eaten all the food. Veering from horror to joy and back again, Elizabeth Perkins is contemplating what it would be like if her adult children moved home.

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