Linda Cardellini has spent decades proving she’s one of Hollywood’s most versatile performers. Throughout a career spanning comedy, drama, and mystery, she has consistently transformed herself, making each character feel entirely distinct.
Whether portraying the warm-hearted and endlessly forgiving Judy Hale in Dead to Me or delivering quietly devastating performances in films like Brokeback Mountain and Green Book, Cardellini has built a reputation on range rather than typecasting.
That ability to disappear into a character reaches new heights in creator Steven Conrad’s critically acclaimed HBO limited series DTF St. Louis. As Carol Love-Smernitch, Cardellini delivers perhaps her most intriguing and enigmatic performance to date.
Carol is a woman navigating middle-aged malaise, financial strain, family pressures, and complicated relationships. Yet for much of the series, viewers are left wondering who she truly is and whether her motives are good or bad.
“She’s very opaque, and then it cracks open as things go on. I loved that about reading her because I originally assumed, ‘Okay, I know who this character is. I see where they’re going with this.’ And then I realized I was completely wrong,” explained Cardellini in an interview. “I think Steve has such a beautiful touch in how he subverts your expectations and makes the characters more than you believed they were.”
Is Carol a victim of circumstance? A calculating manipulator? A devoted mother making impossible choices? Cardellini plays her with such layered ambiguity that the answer remains elusive until the final moments of the series.
Cardellini stars alongside David Harbour, who plays Floyd Smernitch, Carol’s husband, who works as an ASL interpreter, and Jason Bateman, who portrays Clark Forrest, Floyd’s best friend and a local television weatherman who becomes romantically involved with Carol.
They become entangled in a complicated love triangle that culminates in Floyd’s death, which serves as the central mystery driving the story forward.
Harbour developed the series alongside Conrad, who wrote and directed all seven episodes. Both Harbour and Bateman served as executive producers.
Though it just premiered on March 1, the show has already had critical success, and most recently, DTF St. Louis earned two Gotham Television Awards, winning Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Limited or Anthology Series for Harbour.
While Cardellini did not take home an individual award, there has been a lot of buzz around her exceptional performance. The acclaim surrounding the series serves as a testament to both Conrad’s flawless writing and the strength of its phenomenal ensemble cast.
What makes Cardellini’s performance particularly remarkable is the way she continually shifts the audience’s perception of Carol. Early in the series, Carol comes across as a master manipulator, especially during interactions with detectives Jodie (Joy Sunday) and Homer (Richard Jenkins). Even seemingly small moments feel calculated, such as when she repeatedly asks them to speak louder during questioning, even though they’re speaking clearly.
The audience’s suspicions deepen as details of the love triangle emerge. Carol appears to be planning for a life insurance payout shortly before Floyd’s death. Financial strain is evident throughout the series, forcing her to supplement her corporate role at Purina by umpiring Little League games.
And the affair isn’t by chance; Carol carefully studies Clark’s routine, learning that he visits Jamba Juice daily for his Go-Getter smoothie. She orchestrates a chance encounter that ultimately sparks their relationship.
Yet beneath those seemingly manipulative actions lies something more complicated: Carol is a loving mother devoted to her troubled son Richard, played by Arlan Ruf. Her commitment to him informs many of her decisions and becomes one of the keys to understanding her true motivations.
Cardellini points out that Carol isn’t interested in people-pleasing. “One of my favorite things about her is that you believe that she’s this person who’s doing something two-faced and secretive, and then you realize that’s not true at all, that all along her husband knew, and that this could have even been his idea.”
She points to a moment when Floyd tells Carol he’s excited to introduce her to Clark. “When you look back on the show, you realize, ‘Oh, wait a minute, was he setting that up for her because of what they were going through in their relationship?’ Steve and I talked about Floyd, and he was like, ‘He’s known all along.’ I think that’s really powerful because you think that she’s having an affair and she’s not.”
That perspective fundamentally changes how viewers interpret Carol. What initially appears to be deception slowly reveals itself as something far more nuanced. Carol’s actions may seem self-serving at first glance, but many of them stem from her desire to improve her son’s life.
Cardellini herself sees Carol as a deeply misunderstood character. “I think she is somebody who doesn’t suffer fools. She’s been through enough in life. She has the people in her life that she gives everything to, and she doesn’t have much left for anybody else.”
She points directly to Richard’s struggles at school as a reason for many of Carol’s actions. “She’s trying to get him somewhere that makes him happier, where he can have friends. She just wants him to have the best. I think when you really take her apart, you find somebody that’s very lovable.”
As viewers begin to believe they understand the characters, Conrad continually introduces new information that forces them to reevaluate every assumption.
One of the most surprising revelations involves Carol’s relationship with Floyd and Clark. When asked whether Carol genuinely loves both men, Cardellini offered her own interpretation. “I have my beliefs about how she feels. She truly loved Floyd. Unfortunately, though, the intimacy is lost. I think they both are on a mission to get that intimacy back with each other.”
Cardellini finds the reaction to her character fascinating. “The irony is how harshly Carol has been viewed. Clark was being sneaky, but meanwhile, people don’t like Carol. I think that’s an interesting exercise in what you assume, what you believe, and who you judge most harshly.”
Each of Conrad’s characters has questionable motives and actions. “I love the way that the suspicion turns on everybody, including my son,” noted Cardellini. “I think it’s really beautifully crafted. Steve had such a beautiful story, and this tapestry in his mind of who these people were and how you would find out who they were.”
Carol presented a unique acting challenge that naturally invites comparisons to another fan-favorite role: Judy Hale from Dead to Me. In comparing the two characters, Cardellini emphasized that both demanded careful balancing acts.
“Judy was a task because you obviously love Jen (Christina Applegate’s character) and feel for her. And then to have somebody come in who is lying nonstop to somebody who is in the midst of grief…finding her heart, and finding her vulnerability was a beautiful challenge so that you would care about Judy, too, and not just think of her as this grifting manipulator.”
Cardellini compared Judy’s people-pleasing nature to Carol’s closely guarded personality. “That was a fun challenge for me, because as a person, everything I think is written all over my face. It just always has been. So I tell on myself a lot. Carol is very hard to get to know, which was a challenge for me. Not that many characters come across one way and turn out to be something else. That was wonderfully fun for me and very different.”
Carol ultimately became one of Cardellini’s favorite roles to date. “She’s definitely way up there for me.”
Interestingly, some of the show’s most memorable details are also among its strangest. Conrad fills the series with quirky recurring elements that initially seem insignificant before becoming surprisingly meaningful. One example is Clark’s distinctive ergonomic recumbent bicycle.
“The bike is so silly when you first see it,” said Cardellini, laughing. “The first image of Jason coming down the road becomes such an important piece of the story, with everybody at some point possessing or riding that bike. It fits the character so well, too. It really tells us who Clark Forrest is. Seeing Jason on that bike for the first time with those tight pants was hilarious, and yet, it’s treated deadly seriously.”
The same applies to the characters’ preferred Jamba Juice drinks. As for Carol’s Watermelon Breeze and Clark’s Go-Getter, Cardellini said, “Who knew that the names of those drinks would be imbued with such meaning? That’s really where you hear Carol lie. I think it’s really interesting to take these everyday things and make them pivotal to the story. It’s very Steve Conrad and very wonderful.”
Even Carol’s confrontational interactions with detectives carry deeper significance. Cardellini believes her insistence that investigators speak louder is about reclaiming power.
“Carol has a strained relationship with law enforcement. When she was young, she was arrested for what you later find out was something sad and necessary, and probably embarrassing for her at the time,” observed Cardellini. “They could have let a kid who was stealing toilet paper go, and instead they arrested her, processed her, and gave her a record that had to be sealed.”
In conclusion, Cardellini emphasized that Carol is going through her own midlife crisis. “She’s thinking, ‘Is this all that it’ll ever be? How do I get to where I need to be? What are my options?’ And she has to make sure her kid is okay.”
Through a layered and deeply nuanced performance, Cardellini transforms what could have been a straightforward femme fatale into a fiercely compelling protagonist. Her flawless turn as Carol Love-Smernitch is a testament to the skill, range, and emotional precision she brings to every role.
