At 94, June Squibb Is Scaling the Box Office in ‘Thelma’ and ‘Inside Out 2’

At 94, June Squibb became an unlikely box office champ last month. She had roles in two of the country’s Top 10 movies: “Thelma,” the charming action comedy in which she plays the lead, and the No. 1 blockbuster “Inside Out 2.”

Her career has spanned seven decades, Broadway, TV and an Oscar nomination, in 2014, for Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska.” But it’s “Thelma” that has ignited audiences: In it, Squibb is a live-wire nonagenarian grandmother who sets out to retrieve her money after being scammed. “We thought ‘Nebraska’ was hot,” she said during a recent video interview. “This is hotter.”

“Thelma” is based on (and named for) the writer-director Josh Margolin’s real-life grandmother, who will turn 104 in July. Though the offscreen Thelma did not engage in a stunt-filled chase or even fall for the con, she and her alter ego share a sense of tenacity and a joie de vivre, if not a daredevil style on a mobility scooter.

Squibb’s co-star is Richard Roundtree, the original “Shaft.” It was his final feature role before his death last year, at 81, from pancreatic cancer. He got to see the movie about a week before he died, Squibb said, explaining, “We had no idea that he was ill. It was a joy of my life to have had that time with him.”

In “Inside Out 2,” Squibb plays Nostalgia, depicted as a bespectacled granny. “The rose-colored glasses got me right away,” she said, laughing. “I thought that was so funny.”

She tap-danced her way though childhood in a small town in Illinois, and said she always wanted to be an actress. “It never occurred to me when I was growing up that I was anything else — that was it,” said Squibb, who is also the lead in Scarlett Johansson’s forthcoming directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great.” She is not considering retirement; she still thinks of herself as ambitious.