Glenn Close 'very gratified' by career honors
Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 5:24PM by Nathaniel R
Glenn Close, a moment before we spoke on Monday nightThe Film Experience was honored to be invited to attend the Museum of the Moving Image's tribute to the career of Glenn Close this week at the elegant 583 Park Avenue venue, just days before her Golden Globe nomination. Attending the festivities were politicians, actors, industry vets, and museum officials and honorees including a whole excited table nearby mine of teenagers from Queens, where the museum is located, who collectively gave one of the night's most amusing speeches about MoMI's community outreach programs and youth engagement.
We spoke briefly to the woman of the hour, Glenn Close upon her arrival at the gala. The story of The Wife, an arthouse success this summer, is about a woman whose genius goes unrecognized...
Things must be different for the woman playing her, given this and other impending tributes.
Does Glenn herself ever feel underappreciated?
"I'd be pathetic if I felt that way tonight!" Glenn answered, giving the tiniest glimmer of what would bloom later that evening into tearful graciousness. Then she reflected a bit more on the madness of awards campaigns, long careers, and healthy perspectives.
I think you feel [underappreciated] if you let yourself feel that way. We're in a very competitive profession. On my first job this wonderful actress said 'try not to compare you career to anyone else's.' That was profound advice. It's very healthy. Own your choices. Live with your choices and see what the result is.
In this case the result was an entire evening dedicated to her long career with clips shown from all of her most iconic roles.
That's what's so amazing about tonight. I'm here because of the sum of my choices. And, you know, you don't know when you're choosing. It's so subjective. That's why it's so amazing to me and very very gratifying.
Glenn is also starring Off Broadway in The Mother of the Maid at the moment and we wondered how she was holding up. "It's an incredibly rigorous role so I'm lucky my eyes are open right now," she confessed. Pressed about her stage work, she didn't profess any desire to repeat any more stage triumphs onscreen as she had with Albert Nobbs (2011). Well, but for one, she suddenly amended "I hope they make Sunset Blvd into a film!"
After saying our goodbyes to Glenn we sat down for a glamorous dinner with speeches and appearances from her co-star in The Wife, Christian Slater, her longtime friend and theater giant Jim Dale, and video messages from Rose Byrne, Michael Douglas, and more. Kevin Kline, her co-star in The Big Chill, sent a droll message that went over well with the crowd. Ethan Hawke (experiencing his own honors this season for First Reformed), also engaged the crowd with a fun story about the first time he ever saw Glenn Close onscreen. His mother had taken him to Glenn's debut in The World According to Garp (1982) but dragged him out of the theater halfway through when she suddenly remembered how the bestselling book ended. He tried to sneak back in to finish the movie but his mother won the battle.
Sony Pictures Classics co-founder and co-president Michael Barker was also in house for the necessary hard sell, given Close's perpetual bridesmaids status at the Academy Awards. Oscar went unmentioned but the message was clear. "It's time."
Glenn Close in "The Wife"
The evening ended with the actress taking the stage for a moving speech with shout-outs to her co-stars, family (including her daughter Annie Starke who plays her younger self in The Wife), and friends especially a tearful ode to her "very best friend" and perpetual inspiration, the actress Mary Beth Hurt. Glenn revealed that when she feels stuck in a scene she thinks, 'What would Mary Beth do?'
The most lovely part of her speech was a long and gracious detour into the people who are so rarely thanked at length and so specifically during speeches, the crew. She shouted out specific costume designers for iconic looks and helping her get into character, hair and makeup people for great wigs and attention to detail, cinematographers who light her, and so on. The funniest bit during this section was repeated references to her own 'great boobs' in Dangerous Liaisons, for which she gave credit to her then-nursing daughter Annie and the Oscar winning costume designer James Acheson.
After her heartfelt speech and so many clips of famous performances strung together, many of which were reminders of how bracing her choices and screen presence can be in her most iconic roles (hello Garp, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons), it was hard to argue with that underlying message from Sony Pictures Classics. Not that we'd want to.
It's time.
Reader Comments (64)
@Suzanne: While I agree with you that it should never get personal, you might avoid that by letting up on your obvious disgust with Glenn Close's Oscar story arc this year. If she wins, she'll deserve it. If she doesn't win, fine. But you seem utterly obsessed with denigrating her performance in subtle ways on every one of these threads, even if you don't realize it. Ceasing to do that on a site where the performance and the actress are very popular may help tone down people's personal attacks on you.
Bruno - I'm glad you agree it should never get personal. I hope you take that to heart in the future.
From what I've understood (from reading Inside Oscar and more recent interviews), Close has always had a zen-like attitude towards Oscars and awards. She knows she's had a good career and is well-respected. I don't think she'll fall apart if she doesn't get the gold this year. That said, I thought she was so wonderful in The Wife and I hope she does get it!
FIVE Grammy noms for Gaga, including Record of the Year! YAAAASSSS!
Anyone has the video of the speech? I research and nothing till now
Horn -- sadly i could not record it because my phone was full but i got some of it on audio.
I've seen The Wife twice. If you don't see how brilliant Glenn Close is as she slowly reveals Joan Castleman, then you're not paying attention. Joan is a fascinating character: a nurturing person who truly doesn't have the confidence needed to make a go of it as a writer. I thought it was fantastic.
And I'm done reading blog comments. It's always Glenn vs Gaga. It's a bore; a big one.
Nat—I don't take your pushback against Wife haters personally, but I'll say I strongly disliked it and not because I need more than good acting to enjoy a film.
There have been plenty of simple, light-on-their-feet acting showcases in the last decade that don't suffer from nearly as much congenital badness as The Wife does. I blame the flashback structure, the score, most supporting performances, the script, and other majoe factors. I wanted to love it so badly that when I didn't, I felt very disappointed and slightly misled.
The final 20 minutes are a perfect digest of what makes Glenn Close one of the greats, and I hope she wins because if not now, when? I'm in the same boat with Adams this year.
I still actually view Close as the front-runner, albeit a soft one, to prevail. Odds are, it'll be Gaga and either Blunt or Colman at the Globes, Close at SAG and Colman at BAFTA. The critics will splinter all over the place with their prizes. In a chaotic field like this, an overdue narrative is precisely the sort of thing to put someone over the top.
@NATHANIEL and @Horn
Someone upload on YouTube. Here is the link:
https://youtu.be/1Fudlo5nHCk
@Jon -- thanks a lot for bringing my attention to this video.
It was a lovely speech and I kinda get a sense Close is a warm and gracious person to be with. Her anecdotes about Christopher Walken, Kevin Kline, Mary Beth Hurt, and the advice she got from fellow actors and directors and those sweet tributes for the people she worked with behind the scene were quite touching without being cloying.
If ever she gets that Oscar in February, I wonder what her acceptance speech would be like. I don't like to see people cry when they receive their awards. But I just might.
I remember I discovered she was very nice and classy during the telecast of the closing ceremony of Venice Film Festival in 1991. The ceremony took place in the wonderful Piazza San Marco, so it was in open space, just like in Locarno. Close didn't receive the Volpi Cup for her work in Meeting Venus, by hungarian master Istvan Szabo, but she accepted to be interviewed by the evening host and at the end of the interview she read a very short message in italian telling that she was honoured to deliver the Best Actress prize to Tilda Swinton for her magnificent portrait of Queen Isabelle in Jarman's EDWARD II
I would not advise comparing my career with another one either. First, you need to look at what he himself has achieved in life, and then at others. I will not be modest, I started my career at https://resumeedge.com/reviews, very nice guys, they helped me with writing a cover letter and resume.
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