When she was a little girl, actress Gretchen Mol might have found herself dangling from the attic as Lois Lane or posing for her mother to paint.

The Lois Lane bit came from her brother, who got a Super 8 camera when he was in the seventh grade and made Gretchen the subject of his film experimentation. Her mother was an artist and a teacher and used her daughter as subject to many of her paintings. Mol thinks those events might have forged her interest in acting.

“I was often the subject in that way, and I was comfortable there,” she says. “We don’t know what drives us to anything. Like why do we fall in love with the person who we fall in love with? Acting’s the other piece of me. It makes sense for me, and I know, sometimes ahead of a job going on stage, I’m petrified. And I’m thinking, ‘Why do I put myself through this?’”

But the fear is worth the effort, she says.”When I get to do it and I get in that state where I almost feel like I lose consciousness, something else takes over. No feeling like it exists. It’s a sort of release from yourself and it’s a connection to something bigger — which is very comforting.”

Mol has experienced that comfort in a variety of roles in films like “3:10 to Yuma,” “The Notorious Bettie Page,” “Rounders,” “Manchester by the Sea.”

She’s challenged again with her latest, “Millers in Marriage,” a film by Edward Burns opening Friday in theaters and on-demand. It’s about three middle-aged couples coping with the universal questions that haunt folk at that stage of their lives.

Mol plays a former rock star who gave it all up for marriage and a family. “She spoke to me because she really seemed to go on a journey and change, and I really loved that,” says Mol.

“She started in a place of confusion and frustration and fear and really landed in that place where you felt that there was so much hope for her; the world was her oyster again. ... We’re always on that trajectory if we allow ourselves to be, and life can get in the way. And we make bad choices sometimes, but we have time to keep our dreams alive.”

Keeping her dreams alive hasn’t always been easy. Mol’s career has been erratic, but it was her role as the sexy showgirl in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” that caused pulses to race. “Having her in my system for five years changed me because she was so fearless,” says Mol.

“I mean, she was so damaged and dark, but because of her survival instincts, I realized I have that.

“I have that ability to tap into that strength and I don’t think I always was aware of it. And just the things that I was asked to do to play her changed something in me, in my perception of myself in a good way.”

In her off-screen life Mol has been married to director Tod Williams for 20 years and is the mother of two teenagers.

“When I think about my choice it was based on a visceral attraction, a physical attraction, and I never once thought about whether he’d make a good father. I never once was practical about it,” she says.

“I just was so attracted and felt that this person was the one. My parents were divorced, so it wasn’t like I had this amazing school to replicate. I definitely had to learn some things myself about being in a relationship and growing in a relationship. And I saw things growing up that I didn’t want in my relationship. So I think it’s about communication — as everybody always says ‘communication.’ But it is true. It’s like a friendship,” she says.

“If you’re speaking to someone and you realize and you instinctively know that they’re not really hearing you, or getting you, it’s hard to imagine it will work out. Being attracted to somebody who actually DOES see you and hear you, yeah.”

With a son and daughter now in their teens it’s easier to embrace a consuming job, she says. “Now they are set up pretty well. It’s almost easier now to go, although it’s hard to commute no matter how you put it. It’s just a hard thing; a big task on everybody. It’s a nice thing that we have FaceTime and Zoom, and I also have these large breaks where I’m not working and I’m around and I’m sure they’re dying for me to go to work.”

Carlyle goes ‘Toxic’

Ever since “Trainspotting,” “Angela’s Ashes” and “The Full Monty” Robert Carlyle has been an actor of note. His latest is a four-part drama about the town of Corby in England that was poisoning the populace without explanation.

“Toxic Town” premieres on Feb. 27 via Netflix. And the diffident Carlyle is still amazed by his success. “It’s a different thing for a young American actor to get into the business,” he says.

“As a young Scottish one, it’s a very difficult situation because we think about theater over there; we’re not really thinking about television or film. I started in 1981-82 and suddenly I’m still doing it. And I’ve been catapulted into this kind of place now and the acceptance of that is actually quite hard because you think, ‘Is this for real? How did this happen? Why did it happen to me? Is it right that it happened to me?’

“All of these questions. You start to doubt yourself slightly, whether you belong or whether you deserve it. Maybe it’s a bit of self-flagellation — I don’t know what it is, but that’s probably the most difficult thing is just trying to accept it. ‘Yeah, it’s OK, you belong here. You deserve to be here.’”