Halley Feiffer, an "American Abroad"

Halley Feiffer ’07 is profiled in the New York Sun this week for her role in the Second Stage Theatre’s current production of the play “Some Americans Abroad”:

The play displays the fraught dynamics among a group of college English professors, including Tom Cavanagh’s insecure department chair and Anthony Rapp’s guileless assistant professor, as they lead a student trip to London. Mr. Cavanagh’s Anglophile envies Ms. Feiffer’s Joanne, a former pupil, her life as an expatriate. But Joanne, all bubbly earnestness on the surface, struggles to mask the fact that, as Ms. Feiffer says, “[her] life in England is very lonely and somewhat pathetic.”

Though Ms. Feiffer’s role is secondary, it’s also “pivotal,” Mr. Edelstein said. “[Joanne] has a particular rhythm and self-consciousness that are extremely hard to direct,” he said. “All the other parts in the play, you can kind of find them — this one, you either have it or you don’t.”

Ms. Feiffer, who graduated from Wesleyan University last year, had it.

…In 2005, Ms. Feiffer landed a breakout role in Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and the Whale,” in which she played the openhearted girlfriend of Jesse Eisenberg’s pretentious protagonist… Mr. Baumbach would cast Ms. Feiffer again, this time as a flirtatious babysitter, in his 2007 film “Margot at the Wedding.” “Halley has a surprising candidness as an actor,” Mr. Baumbach said in an e-mail message. “She’s totally without affect and whatever she’s playing, it feels very close to the bone.”

Ms. Feiffer also writes plays and was a winner of the 2004 Young Playwrights Festival. But finding time for writing is getting challenging as her acting gathers momentum.

Ms. Feiffer will next team up with “Napoleon Dynamite” director Jared Hess for the comedy “Gentlemen Broncos.” The actress relished that film’s recent shoot: “I said to [co-star] Michael Angarano: ‘I feel like we’re part of this kooky, hilarious religion,’ because we all believed in the movie so much.”

Feiffer filmed her key supporting roles in The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding while still going to school at Wesleyan. She’s got a busy IMDb profile as well, expect to see more of her in the future.

New York Sun: Halley Feiffer’s Indie Success on Stage and Screen

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