Design Matters with Debbie Millman · Design Matters Media

Betty Buckley

August 11, 2025·1 hr 14 min·5 clips

Betty Buckley reveals how Sunset Boulevard felt like her 'big race' after decades of preparation.

Betty Buckley begins with hunger. She says she felt like a fast, talented racehorse training every morning, still waiting for the race that would let her run. Sunset Boulevard was that race. For Buckley, Norma Desmond pulled in every lesson, every body of experience, and every part of her life as a performer. Debbie Millman steers the conversation toward longevity. Buckley answers through the body. Physical strength, mental strength, focus, and emotional facility are not nice extras here. They are the tools a performer has to keep ready. The biography has weight: Grizabella, a Tony, Norma Desmond in New York and London, and the voice of Broadway. Still, the conversation keeps circling back to readiness. Buckley remembers knowing Cats was coming back to her before the callback, helped along by odd little signs in apartments full of cat memorabilia. It sounds almost too funny, but she treats it seriously, as private certainty. Then the callback at the Winter Garden turns into the real pressure point. Trevor Nunn asks for Memory again and again until Buckley feels completely exposed. Nothing is tucked away. She says every molecule of body, mind, and heart felt available to the people in the audience. After that, she asks to speak to Nunn and tells him others could play the part as well as she could, but nobody could do it better. It was her turn. Millman later turns to Tender Mercies, asking how Horton Foote and Bruce Beresford shaped Buckley's preparation for Dixie Scott. The episode closes with Buckley's larger body of work and Design Matters' twentieth-year invitation to make a difference.

As heard by us

A close portrait of Betty Buckley’s longevity, shaped by the wait for Sunset Boulevard and the discipline behind it.

Betty Buckley comes through as someone thinking about longevity more than any single credit. Debbie Millman frames the talk around the physical strength, mental strength, mental focus, and emotional facility it takes to last, and Buckley is at her best when she talks about…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for a long-view conversation about Betty Buckley feeling her big race finally arrived with Sunset Boulevard.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Design Matters with Debbie Millman