Lily Rabe thrives on drama and surprises in both her wardrobe and her work. “I don’t ever like to stay in a comfort zone,” she tells Alexa. “That’s what keeps it all exciting.”
Her go-to designers for red carpet looks and events? “Rodarte. Erdem — a total fave,” she shares during our New York City one-on-one. “I love Honor. Bora Aksu. Oh, and Bode.”
And for everyday? “I definitely have a Mayle obsession for my personal life.”
At 44, Rabe is known for moving seamlessly between stage and screen, and classic and contemporary stories. “I have a sort of insatiable appetite for work,” she says. “Right now, I’d say I do feel very sated.”
No wonder. This is a big theater season for her. On Aug. 23, she wrapped her run opposite Raúl Esparza in “The Winter’s Tale,” her fifth show in the Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in the Park series.
On Sept. 29 at the Hudson Theatre, Rabe is back on Broadway. She plays Brooke, a troubled writer whose memoir detonates a well-to-do family’s long-buried dark history, in “Other Desert Cities,” officially opening Oct. 18. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ed Harris play her parents, Allison Janney her aunt and Joe Keery her brother.
The collective star power makes director John Benjamin Hickey’s new production of Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play a Mohave hot ticket.
Rabe sat down for her first read-through with the cast on Aug. 25, but getting together with her playmates for an earlier photo shoot was enough to make an impression. “I’m in love with all of them,” Rabe says.
She’s worked with Harris before, but the revival marks her first acting collaboration with the rest of the cast. In June at the Tony Awards, she shared a stage and presented the Best Play honors with Louis-Dreyfus, an 11-time Emmy winner.
“I’ll watch her in anything. I wish she were our president,” says Rabe, alluding to Louis-Dreyfus’ role in the politically pungent “Veep.” “Although I’m glad she’s not, because I wouldn’t be able to do this play with her.”
Then again, Rabe, along with her two brothers, knows all about real-life remarkable relatives. She’s the daughter of the late Oscar-nominated actress Jill Clayburgh (“An Unmarried Woman,” “Starting Over”), who died in November 2010, and the 86-year-old Tony-winning playwright David Rabe (“Sticks and Bones”).
Creativity is in her DNA. “My dad is a really smart guy,” says Rabe. “He did not have a fancy upbringing at all. But he had a love of language and determination.”
And so does she. Her mom’s legacy? Rabe pauses, as if flashing back to younger days in New York City, where she was born, before moving to Westchester and then the Connecticut countryside.
“She was such an incredible mother,” says Rabe. “She was so curious. She was always leaning in and leaning forward. She had no regrets.”
What her mother did have was a striking sense of style. “She had great clothes, and she looked beautiful in them,” says Rabe. “I remember running around in a costume from a Bertolucci movie. I always loved dressing up.”
Rabe’s grown-up passion for fashion runs deep. During an Alexa photo shoot at the historic 1850s Captain Barnes mansion on Staten Island, the sight of clothes by Prada, Chloé, Dior and others turned her into a kid in a couture store.
“We all felt like we were in New Orleans,” she says, adding that the experience was “singular.”
She feels that way about NYC. After 12 years of either being based in Los Angeles or bicoastal, Rabe is back in Manhattan full time with longtime partner and frequent co-star Hamish Linklater (“Widow’s Bay,” “Midnight Mass”) and their four kids — ages 4, 6, 9 and 19.
“It’s my favorite city in the world,” she says. “I’m close to the theater again, whether that means doing plays or going to see them.”
She didn’t expect to be away from the stage so long. It’s been 11 years since Rabe’s last star turn at the Delacorte Theater. Her last Broadway show, “Seminar,” ended its run 14 years ago. At the opening night celebration for “The Winter’s Tale,” Linklater slipped Rabe a note that spoke volumes about her return to the stage and NYC: “Happy homecoming.”
She met him through her mom in 2006, when he and Clayburgh acted in an off-Broadway play. Flash forward two decades: they’re a family of six. “We love parenting together,” Rabe adds, even if they are in “a constant state of doing a circus juggle. We’re super scrappy about it.”
With their three young kids and a college student from his previous relationship, that’s required. “We’re not parents who don’t say no,” she says, “but we don’t have hard-and-fast rules.”
The couple got close 16 years ago, a breakout time for Rabe. While studying theater at Northwestern University, she’d made her screen and stage debuts in 2001 and 2002, respectively, alongside her mom. She notched three roles between 2005 and 2009 on Broadway, including her debut as the shy Annelle in “Steel Magnolias.”
Then, in 2010, director Daniel Sullivan cast her as Portia opposite Al Pacino in “The Merchant of Venice.” Linklater played her love interest. The show earned strong reviews in Central Park, transferred to Broadway, earned her a Best Actress Tony nomination and helped open doors wider to stage and screen roles.
Since then, TV and film work has kept her busy — and in good company — alongside Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and others in Ryan Murphy’s spooky anthology series, “American Horror Story.” A sampling of Rabe’s characters includes a few ghosts, a witch and famous aviator Amelia Earhart.
“It was a tremendous gift in my life,” Rabe says. “The thing that I loved most about it is that it was like being in a repertory company.”
Her newest film is “Capsized,” a comedy drama with Rhys Ifans about a dysfunctional family.
Rabe’s screen work isn’t just in front of the camera. In 2023, she co-directed “Downtown Owl,” a comedy set in a fictional small town in North Dakota. Harris played a local resident, and Rabe portrayed a teacher who’s new to the neighborhood.
“Ed can do anything,” she says. “I feel something very familial with him.”
That plays out in “Other Desert Cities,” a dramedy that goes inside the lives of the politically conservative Wyeths of Palm Springs, Calif. It’s a story stacked with complexity, curveballs and whip-smart language. She appreciates its take on how our nearest and dearest can be the hardest puzzles to crack.
“Often the greatest mysteries of our life are from what’s closest to us — and that’s our families,” says Rabe. “I find that to be a harrowing idea. And compelling. And exhilarating.”
A week into rehearsals, Rabe’s sense of connection has grown deeper with her castmates, she says in a follow-up chat. “I feel it with every single one of them in ways I can’t explain. You don’t really want to explain it. You just feel it.”
On location: Our cover shoot took place at Staten Island’s Captain Barnes, a landmarked 1850s mansion built for oysterman Stephen D. Barnes and his wife, Judith Van Pelt. One of the last survivors of Staten Island’s Captains’ Row, its architecture blends Italianate and Gothic Revival traditions with Moorish flair. “Over its many lives, the house has been used or remembered as a sailors’ boarding house, speakeasy, cabaret and gathering place for artists,” says owner Biagio Pergolizzi, who is restoring the house with his wife, Giovanna. “Today, while it remains our family home, we occasionally open its doors for film, photography, music, celebrations and other creative endeavors. The people who enter become part of its continuing story.” CaptainBarnes.com
Photographer: Victoria Will; Editor: Alev Aktar; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Talent Booker: Patty Adams Martinez; Hair: Peter Butler at Tracey Mattingly using Oribe; Makeup: Mary Wiles at Walter Schupfer Management using Counter Beauty; Manicure: Kayo Higuchi at Bryan Bantry Agency using Chanel Le Vernis; Lighting Director: Timothy Young; Photo Assistant: Tessa Dillman; Digital Tech: Dustin Betterly; Fashion Assistant: Dominic Turiczek, On-set Assistant: Yared Glicksman
