It’s almost unimaginable that Parker Posey hasn’t worked with Woody Allen until this week’s “Irrational Man,” more than two decades after her breakthrough. In the 1990s, the sardonic, witty actress was a figurehead of Allen-indebted indie film, yet she never seemed to catch Allen’s attention. Worse still, it was on the verge of not happening at all.

It’s the type of weird, loosey-goosey, frenzied character that’s so Posey that it’s hard to believe the actress, the Queen of the Indies, and Allen, possibly the genre’s most prolific progenitors, have never collaborated before.

They first met while Allen was filming Bullets over Broadway 20 years ago. “Well, you know, I suffered over the years with bitterness,” she says, cackling a little. “I would reluctantly see his other films and watch with bitterness and jealousy. But I always thought I’d work with him.”

The actress plays a lonely professor trapped in an unhappy marriage in Allen’s dark new comedy, Irrational Man, in which she seduces her college’s new philosophy professor (Joaquin Phoenix) immediately after meeting him. Emma Stone co-stars as a young student who is similarly smitten by the new faculty member.

Posey spoke passionately about the status of the industry, her love of acting, and why she almost abandoned the industry during a recent visit to Chicago.

“I basically just said ‘yes’ to everything in the 1990s,” admits Posey. “I was in my 20s and I was insatiable.”

“And then the movie business changed and it was all about the corporate culture, and we had the rise of Gawker and this cult of fame and gossip and reality television and it’s kind of a new mythology in a way … it’s very strange to me. As an actress, you want to keep a mystique, but people want to know the gossip. In a way it’s provincial, you know? Like we all live in a small town. All the gossip upstages your body of work …”

“I had this reputation for being connected to independent cinema, and yet my worth — it’s very much like the Occupy movement. My number wasn’t high, but I had the talent, I could do the job.”

According to a Daily Beast feature on Posey, she sobbed when she found out she got the part in the film (after meeting the director for three-and-a-half minutes) because she was on the verge of quitting the industry and turning her home into a wedding venue to generate income. She explains, “It wasn’t, ‘Oh my god, I get to work with Woody Allen.'” It was far deeper than that. Her choice of role was reassuring.

She told the site, “I saw the independent film movement go away from me. How movies are financed, it’s a world market now…. I feel like, you know, the independent film way of working is something that was in my bones. It’s like being a part of a punk band but no one’s singing punk rock anymore. Only a few bands are able to play, and Woody Allen is one of them. That’s why I cried. It was a relief.”

Posey injured her wrist after falling off a ladder a week after being cast, “because some contractor bailed on the job,” necessitating surgery just before she was due on the set. “During the camera test, Woody came up to me and I thought for sure I was going to be fired. But he said, ‘Do you need anything? How’s your wrist? Do you want me to write it in?’ I didn’t want to intrude in his story. It was really painful, but it gave me something.”

Allen handled Irrational Man like a top-secret blockbuster, according to Posey, who was only allowed to view pages from the screenplay in which her role featured. As a result, she stated, “I didn’t know if it was a light movie or a heavy movie. But I became aware quickly that it was one of Woody Allen’s deep movies, which I love. I was thrown into the water quickly.”

Looking back on her wide and extensive career, Posey stated, “I feel like I know so much. I work with directors who haven’t had the experience of being on sets as much as I have. I feel like in a way, if it’s an independent movie, I can teach the crew to kind of relax, or create a vibe. It really is about a vibe.”

According to Deadline, the actress is one of the few performers to appear in two Allen films (and even fewer to do two in a row), joining the cast of his unnamed 2016 project alongside Blake Lively, Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg (another two-timer), and Bruce Willis. “Irrational Man”  will be released in cinemas this weekend.