Zosia Mamet. Frederic J. Brown / AFP
Zosia Mamet is weighing on nepo baby discourse.
The Girls star says she faced challenges getting her big break in Hollywood, though she concedes that being the daughter of filmmaker David Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse helped her get her foot in the door.
“I was actually met with more of a challenge. Because people knew I was coming in with a famous name, it meant that I was walking into the room with baggage,” Mamet, 36, told The Guardian in an interview published on Wednesday, July 24.
According to the outlet, Mamet recalled “one casting director telling her she had ‘her mother’s lips’ and an audition where a producer had formerly had a bad experience working with her father.”
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Mamet continued, “It’s not like you’re born to a famous family and the red carpet rolls out for you and your career is made. Because also at the end of the day, if you’re not walking in and up to the challenge, if you don’t have the talent or the ability to back it up, a name can only get you so far.”
However, the actress, best known for playing Shosanna Shapiro on HBO’s Girls, admits that having famous relatives helped her in some ways. One of her early film roles was the 2004 action thriller Spartan, directed by her father.
Zosia and David Mamet. Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic
“Did it potentially open some doors for me? Sure. I can’t argue that. I think the biggest thing that I felt it did was that growing up surrounded by the industry meant I was going in with open eyes,” she said.
Mamet’s father was criticized earlier this year after claiming that his daughter was not a nepo baby and had earned her career by “merit.” He told an audience at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April, “’Nobody ever gave my kids a job because of who they were related to.”
Mamet admits she gets “annoyed at the things my dad says.”
“My husband is always like: ‘Why do you let it affect you?’ I’m like, ‘Because he’s my father!’ I don’t know how to turn that switch off. But I have tried to,” she said. “I guess it’s sort of my version of counting to 10 when he says s–t like that — I’m just like: ‘OK, take a breath, count to 10, and let it go.’”
