One of the consistently great actors in American film, Joan Allen takes a tough supporting role in Room. As Grandma Nancy, she has to play a woman who welcomes a five-year-old grandson she never knew she had into her home, along with a daughter she believed was dead. The three-time Oscar nominee spoke to the Straight from Toronto.

What are you trying to convey about Grandma Nancy? She’s traumatized too, isn’t she?

I thought about the kind of help Nancy tried to get after the abduction. Did she become an activist? Some people respond differently. Some parents get lost. I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and I knew this one family, a high-school boy was killed in a car accident, and his mother became a hopeless alcoholic. She could never, ever face it or get over it. And that happens. I think Nancy managed to keep her life. I think she’s a survivor.

The line between hurting or helping your kids—where is it?

I am a parent, and you can do as much as you can, you can do the best you can, but to me it’s such a crapshoot. You have a child, and it’s the biggest gamble in the world. There are outside forces that you just have no control over. This is at its most extreme in Room, you know, where Nancy’s daughter was just on a corner and a guy happened to say whatever. But I do love the scene where she says, “Mum, if you hadn’t told me to be so nice all the time…”

Have you seen Room with an audience?

I was at Telluride last weekend and I saw the finished product with an audience there, and oh, wow, it was great. It was really, really extraordinary, people standing, clapping, crying. People have been very moved by it. It’s a huge testament to Brie [Larson], Jake [Tremblay], and Lenny [Abrahamson]. And I know I’m in there, but they worked together so closely.

Don’t sell yourself short!

Brie had to go through a lot of stuff. She’s very disciplined. My hat’s off to her. Jake did a beautiful job, but his character is more okay with the way things are. It was Brie that had to go to hell and back. The depths she went to? That wasn’t easy.