“You age out of a lot of parts, that’s just the nature of things,” Jessica Lange, the legendary stage and screen actress, said during a recent recording of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast at the Virginia Film Festival, where she was being honored with the fest’s Visionary Award. The 77-year-old, who also brought to the fest her latest film, a big-screen adaptation of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, was discussing the possibility of retirement and continued, “I wouldn’t mind ending on Mary Tyrone [the protagonist of Long Day’s Journey, a morphine addict in 1912 Connecticut], let me tell you. I would embrace that, because there’s no greater part I’m ever going to play.”
One of only 24 people ever and one of only 10 people still living who have won the “triple crown of acting,” as in, at least one Oscar, Emmy and Tony (she has won two, three and one, respectively), Lange has been a screen actress for 50 years. She made her film debut after being “discovered,” while working part-time as a model, and cast by producer Dino De Laurentiis in his large-scale remake of King Kong (1976). She received a huge publicity build-up, even appearing on the cover of TIME magazine. But the film proved to be such a giant flop that, she explains during this conversation, it shattered her self-confidence and almost destroyed her career.
Slowly but surely, though, she rose from the ashes, first with a supporting turn in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979), then with unforgettable lead performances in films such as Bob Rafelson’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Graeme Clifford’s Frances and Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie (both 1982, and both of which brought her Oscar nominations, the latter resulting in her first win), Richard Pearce’s Country (1984), Karel Reisz’s Sweet Dreams (1985), Bruce Beresford’s Crimes of the Heart (1986), Costa-Gavras’s Music Box (1989), Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) and Tony Richardson’s Blue Sky (1994, for which she won her second Oscar).
Then, as she became a mother and entered her forties, a mid-career malaise set in. For a number of years, she worked far less frequently, more often in supporting roles, and rarely in projects that excited her. That changed with the HBO limited series Grey Gardens (2009), for which she won an Emmy, and a result of her association with producer Ryan Murphy, which began soon after and encompassed four seasons of the anthology series American Horror Story (2011-2015), two of which brought her Emmys, and a single season of the limited series Feud: Bette and Joan (2017).
But no part has enchanted her more than Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which she first played on the London stage in 2000 (becoming the first American actress to receive an Olivier Award nomination) and then reprised on Broadway in 2016 (winning a Tony). She spent much of the past decade trying to bring it to the big screen — a previous film version, starring Katharine Hepburn, was released in 1962 — and encountered almost as much drama as is featured in the play itself. Financing came together and fell apart numerous times, including even after the cast and crew were on set in Ireland. But ultimately, she got it across the finish line in collaboration with writer David Lindsay-Abaire and director Jonathan Kent, and she is immensely proud of the finished product.
Now, as Long Day’s Journey Into Night plays at film festivals and in select theaters courtesy of a tiny distributor, Lange is hustling to make sure people know about it and see it. And having also recently returned to American Horror Story for its 13th season, which rolled out between Sept. 24 and Oct. 29, she finds herself back in contention for both an Oscar and an Emmy.
For now, at least, Jessica Lange isn’t going anywhere.
