She has been acting since 1987, and over a nearly four-decade career, Juliette Lewis is known for playing a crazed murderer (Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers), a pastor’s daughter on the run from vampires (Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn) and a teen fending off a violent rapist (Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear). She’s also been a rock star in real life as the lead singer of Juliette Lewis and the Licks.

Now the 51-year-old actress is heading back to Park City to support two Sundance Film Festival selections that, even for her, are bold, head-turning roles: In art house auteur Amanda Kramer’s By Design she plays a chair — yes, a chair — and in Mark Anthony Green’s Opus she stars as a spicy journalist who joins a group to meet a pop icon at his compound when he mysteriously reappears after a three-decade absence.

The films mark a return to form for Lewis (her words) after working at a rapid clip since her heyday coming up during the 1990s. Most recently, she spent two seasons on Showtime’s Emmy-nominated survival series Yellowjackets, but Lewis has longed for “a return to my heart-and-soul cinema.” Eager to break from the “coddled, elitist” actor thing, Lewis once again is chasing the types of projects that embody “the most wild, genre-bending creativity” of her early roles. Offscreen, and after some high-profile relationships (she once dated Brad Pitt), Lewis has settled into a new career niche and well-earned perspective of peace: “I just see the humanity in everybody.”

Are you ready for Park City?

I am so ready for Park City. I have a ski day planned with my sister, but that aside, I’m there to promote two movies I’m really tickled about. I don’t know if you know this little history, but I was there with Gena Rowlands and director Mira Nair for this movie we did called Hysterical Blindness that Uma Thurman produced and also starred in.

Gena died just last fall. What do you remember about spending time with such a legend?

A lot of us younger actress people know her from A Woman Under the Influence, and there’s such savagery and emotionality in that performance, but she had such gentleness and grace. I remember that big smile. She was just very kind. The majority of her scenes were with Uma, but we sat together and enjoyed watching Hysterical Blindness. You’ll see from our photos together that she is such a beauty. She’s different from other icons who might have a complex, prickly personality brewing. That’s not Gena Rowlands.

I want to get to other Sundance memories, but we have to focus on these two movies you have in the festival this year. By Design has one of the most unique loglines in the lineup. How long did it take you to say yes after reading the script?

This is all Amanda Kramer, the brilliant, one-of-a-kind filmmaker. Cole Escola posted the trailer [on Instagram] for the movie they did with Amanda [2022’s Please Baby Please], and I commented, “Why am I not in this movie?” Unbeknownst to me, she’s with my management, so we had a general meeting. I just wanted to do and be a part of anything she creates. She’s one of those filmmakers who, when you get involved, you enter her world in the universe. She paints, and you know it will be strange and so unique. It was such a pleasure shooting this movie.

I feel like Sundance is always such a great home for these kinds of big swings …

I came up in the ’90s, and I feel that what I’m really grasping for and trying to carve out is, for me, a return to my heart-and-soul cinema. Even though they’re known as the auteurs of American cinema — Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Robert Rodriguez, Kathryn Bigelow — the way we made movies together was not the coddled, elitist actor approach. We were in it together. I was sort of losing a bit of that connectivity and collaboration when I did a few TV shows, which were all very special, but it’s a different way. This is a return to form for me — with more microbudgets.

Opus is another film with an intriguing plot: A young writer, played by Ayo Edebiri, is invited to a remote compound of a legendary pop star who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago. Who do you play?

I play one of the journalists. She’s a pop art journalist and not the most respectable kind. Gosh, it was so fun. I love my character — she’s very sassy. That’s such a silly word. She’s a blend of Wendy Williams and Megyn Kelly.

As somebody who has been famous for so long and has worked seamlessly across all these different genres, did the themes of the movie resonate with you in terms of the cult fame or stardom?

Mark Anthony, the writer and director who is also an editor at GQ, he wrote a brilliant script in that it’s not that nice to the artist either, who gets to orbit in that rarefied air. That’s the thing I rebelled against. I call it the pedestal culture because it permanently others you. For me, when I was very young, that had a not-positive effect on me. But this other side, the journalist side, and the whole relationship of feeding some of your personal life to sell something? I know it from going on talk shows and doing pre-interviews, trying to figure out which anecdotes from your life you’re willing to share or make funny sort of entertainment fodder. There are other things you keep more closely guarded, but it’s an interesting dynamic and dance.

What is your relationship to journalists?

I can only speak from my point of view now, and being in midlife, I just see the humanity in everybody. When we do these junkets, I see that someone’s coming to the table having gotten a babysitter or having a breakup. I see that they’re just doing a job. Even if I get asked about Brad Pitt when I was 18 — that’s when we dated — I don’t hold grudges. I know they had a list of questions that maybe their boss gave them. When I was a kid and very introverted, I didn’t understand that. I just didn’t see myself in the writing. Sometimes I would cry reading an article. The weird thing is it wasn’t mean. It was making me something other than what I was, and that would make me feel sad.

Now that you’ve had some time to simmer, any favorite memories of Sundance?

I’m just excited to see what it is today. It’s always had this sparkle with the white snow all around, and running from place to place to see movies. It’s this wonderland of discovery and new talent. I want to say that By Design is my heart and soul. It’s the first time I do dance in a film, and I got to do it with our wonderful choreographer. I can’t wait to see it. That’s the first film I’m promoting, and the second half of my trip is with my Opus team. I’m in it to win it. 

This story appeared in the Jan. 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.