The director of the tenth episode of the second season is, in fact, Ms. Wright. On camera since she was a teenager, she is for the first time calling the shots, and is deeply engaged by every aspect of the opportunity. Two nights later, she would accept the Golden Globe for best actress in a dramatic series, a shimmering silver gown draped over her lithe, elegant frame, her classic features beaming in surprise during her aw-shucks acceptance speech. But in the editing suite, she was barefoot in jeans, with glasses under a newsboy’s cap.

The dazzling looks that first surfaced in the soap opera “Santa Barbara” and then were on wide display in “The Princess Bride” were tough to spot. She looked like a beautiful teenage boy, not the movie star whose unalloyed beauty tended to drain people of superlatives when she appeared in “Forrest Gump” (1994), “She’s So Lovely” (1997), “Unbreakable” (2000) and “White Oleander” (2002).

Something else was missing as well. Ms. Wright, 47, is a bit of a legend in Hollywood for passing on dozens of lucrative roles — in “Batman Forever” and “The Firm,” among others — and for fleeing the spotlight at every turn. As an actress, mother, wife — she was married to Sean Penn, with whom she has two children — she has lived a life of remove, with a reputation for reticence that some read as imperiousness. Having heard as much, I first approached the room on cat’s paws. But she smiled widely and said, “We’re going to get this started with a hug.” Gee, things were not going quite as I expected.

Ms. Wright was clearly in a very good mood. She is in love, newly engaged to the actor Ben Foster (“Lone Survivor”). She is happy to be in the middle of Netflix’s grand tale of political intrigue (returning Feb. 14 and just renewed for a third season), and animated by working on the other side of the camera. “It feels like a second coming, not in a religious way, but for me personally,” she said, alighting on the top of a couch in a screening room. “I am the age I am, I have been in this business for a long time, and I didn’t work a lot, because I wanted to raise my kids. I have no regret about that. But this is a very different chapter I am embarking on.”