Glenn Close Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Fatal Attraction' to '101 Dalmatians'

All we want as actors is to have great roles. [laughs]

I have not had a career

where all the great parts have come onto my desk.

I just have not had the luxury of just sitting around

and having people pour great scripts my way.

I think of my career as challenging

and working at it, making things happen.

I'm Glenn Close, and this is the timeline of my career.

Is it all right?

It's not in it.

It's a she, and she's all right.

I was starring in Barnum on Broadway,

and George Roy Hill and Marion Dougherty

who really, she pioneered the role of casting director,

and George said later that she knew

what he wanted more than he did.

They sat and watched me in Barnum,

and I was asked to come in and audition for Jenny Fields.

But he can't feel life.

So he takes off the gloves and he dies,

but he finally feels life

as he's flying into the arms of death.

I like that.

If that's what it means, I like it.

And the memo that went out

to all the agents was a young Katherine Hepburn,

so I gave probably the worst audition of my life.

I was not good at auditioning,

but George told me later

that it was probably the worst audition he'd ever seen

because I was kind of trying to talk like Katherine Hepburn.

But somehow I got the role of Jenny Fields.

When I got my first Oscar nomination,

it was totally out of my even realm of possibility.

I was in the cellar of Tidalholm

where we were shooting The Big Chill

and I heard that I had gotten nominated,

and it was like, what?

It just was something I never dreamed of.

I had never even thought of.

[baby hiccups]

She's got the hiccups.

He should be here.

I feel like we should have had a chair for Alex.

Of course we don't have enough food, but.

I was asked to do a reading by Larry Casden

I remember going up to Larry saying,

I bet you want me to play Sarah Cooper,

because I wanted to play the part

that Mary Kay Place ended up playing.

I thought that was a much kind of juicier part.

The entire cast got together on the lot of Columbia.

I think it was a month before we went down to Atlanta

where we shot the epilogue,

which does not appear in the movie.

And we lived in these,

we each had apartments out Inland Waterway or you know,

somewhere down in South Carolina.

I'm an introvert.

And I would,

I was reading my book in my apartment,

and Mary Kay knocked on the door and said,

Kevin and Jeff Goldman and Jo Beth, and I were,

we're all gonna meet and have dinner and play games.

I said, Oh God, I'm not, I'm sorry, I can't go.

And she literally physically pulled me up,

pulled me in, and that was the beginning

of our hardcore group that ate dinner together,

danced, played trivial pursuit,

played jokes on each other, dressed up for Halloween.

You know, that was the beginning of that.

I love you all so much.

I know that sounds gross, doesn't it?

The life we learn with,

and the life we live with after that,

with or without the records.

The Natural came my way because of Robert Redford.

I was cast in a Merchant Ivory film,

and it was my first real leading role part.

Robert Redford, I met him at his office in New York,

and he said, I want you in this movie,

and we can work it out that you can do both.

Well, it didn't work out that we did both.

And the other production got fed up, and I lost that role,

but I ended up playing Iris,

which I'm very happy for because I love that movie.

And I loved working with Bob Redford,

and that started a lifelong friendship.

What am I supposed to do?

You won't answer my calls.

You changed your number.

I mean, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan.

I never in a million years would call

Alex Forrest a villain.

And I've talked a lot about it

because people didn't know her backstory.

They didn't know the why of her behavior.

But after conferring with psychiatrists,

I was playing a woman who had been incested

by her father at a very, very early age,

and for long enough to really traumatize her.

When you do the research,

people who have gone through situations like that are

incapable of kind of normal human relationships.

There is like the Madonna whores,

you're made into a sex object

before you even know what sex is,

then you're made to feel shameful about it.

You hate yourself.

A sizeable percentage

of people sadly can take their life by suicide.

The original ending was that she actually did that.

And I felt that that was how that character would end,

but famously they tested the movie,

and six months afterwards came back to me and said,

We're changing the ending,

which was a real shock

because I felt I was betraying the character

that I believed in.

Ended up doing it, not happily.

What I learned from that is how important catharsis is

for the audience to feel like some sort of sense

of order will be restored.

I mean, and that's classic.

It was a hard journey.

It was a hard lesson to learn,

but it's something I've never forgotten.

I still think it would be fascinating

to tell the exactly the same story from her point of view.

She would not end up a villain.

You don't get it.

You just, you don't get it.

I had no choice, did I?

I'm a woman.

Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men.

You can ruin our reputation

and our life with a few well-chosen words.

I remember hearing

that nobody's gonna go watch a costume drama.

We proved them wrong.

That was fun.

I had just given birth to Annie seven weeks

before I flew over to France,

so I still had my mommy body

that had to be absolutely crammed into a corset,

and at the end of the day, I had these,

these welts on my waist where the two kind

of came together and rubbed.

So, and that's why I have those wonderfully full bosom

because I had just weaned her.

At first, I thought, well,

maybe I could still nurse her during the filming,

but to get out of those costumes and nurse

and get back into the costumes would have,

it would have been at least an hour and a half.

James Acheson designed those magnificent costumes

in Dangerous Liaisons.

The Stephen Frears, fantastic director.

He did come closer and closer in

on faces as the movie evolved,

which to poor James Acheson would be pulling his hair

because he wanted his costumes to show a lot.

And I remember there's a scene of me sitting

at my dressing table and he said,

Show the shoe, show a shoe.

And so I'm sitting in kind of a weird position,

and you can see the shoe on my foot. [laughs]

So of course I had to invent not only myself.

Have you ever engaged in immoral conduct?

What do you mean by immoral?

As defined by the department of defense,

alcohol abuse, drug abuse, homosexuality, adultery,

sexual acts with a minor.

I'm a lesbian.

Yeah, I'm always seduced by a story.

It also was the first time,

well, no, the second time, actually,

when I said, I wonder if this is going to affect my career,

whether people will have negative reactions

if I play a lesbian.

Whenever I've confronted with that question,

my next question to myself is, well,

what's the alternative, not to do it?

Because you're afraid?

No.

Why did you disclose your sexual orientation

to the DIS agent?

Because he asked, and it was the truth,

and I was being honest.

Doing that movie at a time when it was

don't ask, don't tell, both Gretta Cammermeyer and myself,

we got these letters from women who said,

I was thinking of killing myself.

I can't tell you what it meant to see a hero

that's like me.

It had a profound effect on the LGBTQ world,

and I'm very proud of that effect.

And when Obama did away with a don't ask, don't tell,

Gretta was right there behind his desk.

Anita, darling.

Good morning, Cruella.

Well, I had grown up

with the great Disney animated features,

Snow White, Cinderella, Bambi.

I was very aware of the value of witches in fairytales.

As a young child, I loved fairytales.

And to be asked to be a Disney witch,

which is what Cruella is, was thrilling to me.

So I had a wonderful vocal coach for Cruella,

and I loved the Joanna Lumley's accent

in Absolutely Fabulous,

And my coach, Joan Washington, knows her,

and she had this very clipped way of talking.

Also I emulated Trevor Nunn

who had directed me in Sunset Boulevard,

and he has this way of, ta, ta,

he makes things, take it or leave it,

and he doesn't talk like that all the time

or else he'd kill me,

but just really strong consonance

and clipped very much in power.

Alonzo, did you ask Anita if she'd like something to drink?

College kids know me as Cruella

because my costume collection is at Indiana University,

which is fantastic.

I was there at one point,

and we had a showing of,

it was Fatal Attraction actually,

but it's the first time that these kids had seen that movie,

and they were just as stunned as people had been all along,

but they do know me as Cruella,

and the younger ones know me as Nova Prime

in the Guardians of the Galaxy,

so my entire career, it's just those two parts.

What a charming dog.

Thank you.

Why don't you just leave the Roosevelt room

the way the Roosevelt's and wanted it>

[laughs] Because Eleanor Roosevelt was too fond of chince.

God, I loved doing Mars Attacks.

It was so much fun to be in the room

with all those other incredible actors,

Jack Nicholson for my husband.

I had a Pat Nixon wig,

that was pretty funny.

And to be killed by the Nancy Reagan chandelier,

I mean the whole thing was just delicious,

but we had a perfect replica of the oval office,

and whenever Jack Nicholson would come on stage,

they played [sings Hail to the Chief]

So there's a great sense of fun,

but also a great sense of professionalism.

Madam vice president, this way we'll avoid the press.

Is the president secure.

Not yet, the recovery team will have him very soon.

One thing I remember was

they had a scene around that table

where she broke down crying,

and I said, I will not do that.

I don't think that would happen.

Not my vice president.

My vice president would not break down into tears.

She would step up to the challenge.

So they changed it.

I love playing that part, again,

surrounded by a great ensemble of actors.

I think I was kind of a late casting

'cause I remember my hair was actually one of my wigs

that I'd used in something else,

and it was redone by my brilliant wig maker/ hairdresser

at the time Martial Corneville

who just did me and in Hillbilly Elegy,

one of the great masters of the craft of wig making

and did all of Cruella's hairstyles, for example,

he should have won an Oscar for that.

I think directors are just showing off

when they try to film a sex scene.

I don't think they're really trying to show us sex,

I think they're just trying to show us

they're not afraid to show a sex.

I mean, it's like they're all

thumbing their noses at their mothers.

Well, I had known Christopher Reeves

since he and Robin, they were best friends.

And when we were shooting my first movie, Garp,

Christopher would fly in in his little plane

'cause he was a pilot, pick up Robin,

they were bad boys at the time,

and they would fly off somewhere for the weekend.

They'd fly back,

he would kind of dump Robin out. [laughs]

I loved him.

He would have been one of our top directors had he lived,

he was astounding.

It was a difficult piece,

it was quite a literary piece, and he made it human.

He made it actable.

The dialogue was wonderful,

and to see him behind that monitor

in that chair doing such wonderful work,

I'm blessed that I experienced that.

You know, I speak a little French Mr. Coupet,

and just because that little outburst wasn't in English,

doesn't mean it's not gonna be on the record.

What did he say?

Tell me what, what did you say?

He called me a manipulative bitch.

You got that?

I had done one season on The Shield,

and it actually was John Landgraf who convinced me

because he was all about the writing and the artists.

And he still is that way.

I mean, he's remarkable.

So I did The Shield and that kind

of was my first real toe in the water with series.

So I said basically at the end,

if you ever have an idea for me,

come to me as long as it's in New York,

because that's where my life was at the time.

They came back and had one of the most brilliant pieces

of writing I've ever read, which was the first pilot.

I remember I gave it to my great friend, Ann Roth,

who was designed costumes for me my whole career,

and she also is a very smart woman with a great sense

of story and everything.

And I asked her to read it and she came back and said,

you would be crazy not to do this.

I did it.

And I signed my life away

for a possible six years, ended up doing it for five.

The writers never, ever, ever let me down.

The key to that character kind of came to me in a scene.

It was a scene with Rose,

and I realized that her power came

with keeping people off balance.

The only time that she ever showed

her true feelings was in private.

Never would she let her power go by being emotional,

unless it was calculated.

Please, may we go off the record.

Certainly.

He is slaughtering children, families.

That is your business.

Now I have other matters to attend to.

Prick.

I've always wanted to be in a superhero movie,

and I'd love to be in another one.

I just love that whole thing.

It's like going back to when I was six years old,

because half of it,

you have to act in your imagination.

In the set, they had this big round thing

that had this, you could see the hologram

of the battle, but of course it wasn't there.

And they have some,

some guy with a pole with a tennis ball on it

that's like a space ship,

and I remember standing around there and thinking, yeah,

I can do this.

I used to do when I was little.

I could imagine that there's a war going on

in front of me three feet away.

I love that stuff.

Anybody out there.

What's your name.

Albert.

Your real name.

Albert.

It took me 14 years to get that film shot.

I got the rights to the material,

and then I'd get a job, then I'd come back

then I had to at one point change directors,

and when we finally ended up doing it,

it was with the right people, the right cast.

It was just the most wonderful experience

because I've always been very attracted to characters

who don't have any self-pity,

and yet they don't know that their dream is impossible,

but we do.

And it makes them incredibly compelling.

I loved Albert for her innocent belief.

I played her as a woman who didn't know what she was.

She had never been touched with love.

She had never had a partner of any kind.

She was existing as in disguise, in order to survive.

It's a story of someone

who had to become invisible in order to survive.

And I think there are so many people

in the world who have had to face that.

I don't want it, it's yours.

It's all yours, it has your fucking name on it.

Fucking take it.

I don't want it.

I don't want it.

We came to a point where I was told

that Bjorn Runge was going to come to New York,

and we were going to have breakfast together.

And it was up to me whether he would be the director.

During the course of that meal,

I got a sense that he would be a wonderful man to work with.

You know, you just, I had nothing to go on,

except she's done theater.

He's written, he's done movies.

I said, you know, I think let's do this movie together.

And he's one of the best directors I've ever worked with.

And because he trusted the actor's face.

He trusted the closeup.

He used the closeup very judiciously

to keep the audience emotionally connected

to my character.

If a director sets up a feeling of trust, then you can,

you're absolutely free to do your best work.

And we had that atmosphere of trust.

And with Jonathan,

I mean the first scene we shot was the scene in bed,

so, oh, hello, I'm Glenn, I'm Jonathan,

okay, let's jump into bed. [laughs]

Why can't we let clean her own mess up for once?

Because family's the only thing that means a God damn.

I read the book basically when it came out and I loved it.

And then I think it was a couple of years later,

I heard that Ron had gotten the rights

and was developing a script.

I've always been very proactive about things.

I wrote him a note.

I wrote him a letter, and we had done The Paper

a number of years ago.

And I just wrote him, I said,

whenever you are casting, I hope you will think of me,

thinking no one will ever cast me as Mamaw.

And lo and behold, he offered it to me.

We had time as a company to get together,

to go to Middletown, Ohio,

to meet the members of the family,

of JD's family who were there,

who had amazing courage to let these strangers come in,

knowing that they were going to portray themselves

and members of their family,

that we, each of us,

each of us as individuals got time

to talk to each member of the family.

And we each had our own kind of questions to ask.

And my questions were, how did she sit?

How did she walk?

What did she do with her hands?

How did she hold her cigarette?

What did her voice sound like?

So you can do justice to who they were.

There's nothing better than having a wonderful story

and having a company that's like

this great chemical creature,

that everybody's contribution counts.

And Ron Howard puts together those kinds of teams

where you're free to do your best work

because everyone is doing their best work.

What I've learned, you own your choices.

You don't know at the moment

why you are particularly attracted to that story,

but you are,

and you think it's good because you think it's good.

Not because somebody tells you

that you're gonna make a lot of money

or you're gonna get an award.

You think it's good.

You have to stay subjective to your own spirit.

I tried to do that.

And at this point, if I wasn't owning my career,

I might as well do something else.