Jessica Lange
👤 PersonPodcast Appearances
Oh, it's back with a vengeance.
It's crazy, the number of people on the streets.
It feels more frantic, feels a little more hysterical.
Yeah, and I think, you know, for some reason, there's a lot of tourism there. Now, why anybody would... Yeah, I don't know. But so you've got like throngs of people moving down the streets all day long, all evening.
You know, and you just wonder, what are you doing? What are you doing?
Right. I don't know either.
Well, I mean, I first went there in like 1969. That dates me. The first time I moved to New York.
It was so great. It was so great because it was filled with like, you know, underground artists and like theater. Things were just like crackling. I mean, I used to remember getting to New York and there was a physical... Ein multilayered smell. You didn't want to investigate too closely. Yeah, but it was thrilling back in those days and filled with young people coming to the city and artists.
Well, not with that group, but, you know, other kind of experimental like theater groups downtown where, you know, everybody was living in illegal lofts.
You know, you'd have to hide your garbage because they weren't zoned for residence.
Yeah, I lived in the first place we had in New York was a converted like flop house on the Bowery.
Oh yeah, it was before that.
Yeah, that was what? That was the 70s, right?
The Bowery was the Bowery.
I mean, we'd have like, you know, you'd step over people in your doorway. Yeah, yeah. And you got to know them because that's where they always slept off. Right. Their, you know, binges. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was... Yeah.
I had come back from Paris.
Well... Do you really want to know this?
Well, it was wide open. Right. It was just complete. I mean, you could invent yourself.
That's what I loved about that time. Yeah. Is you could just roll into town and like... Ja.
No, at the University of Minnesota, actually.
Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota and went for one quarter to the University of Minnesota and met these really fascinating people and ended up just leaving that life behind. And first we went to the south of Spain. But what do you do? They wanted to make a documentary about the flamenco gypsies when they would do the fair.
Oh yeah, you know, SDS and everything.
Yeah, so then we went to Spain. We were working, I mean, they were working, I was observing. I was just like, kind of, wow, this is southern Spain. These are the gypsies. This is Flamenco.
Yeah, I mean, I had been, you know, yeah, basically always Minnesota. I grew up there. All sorts of tiny little towns throughout northern Minnesota.
Alle meine. Sie sind alle emigriert. Finnisch. Auf meiner Mutter Seite, beide meine Großeltern sind aus Finnland emigriert. Wow. Auf meiner Vaters Seite aus Deutschland und Holland.
Well, I think, yeah, there was, I think a lot of the Finns, for instance, up in that area came for the mining.
Yeah, a little bit, yeah. But, you know, I mean, that generation that immigrated, I mean, there was a strong Finnish community in these small towns that I was living in. But, yeah, I never learned a word of Finnish. Right. Because that was the private language.
18. And it's, yeah, I mean, it's just, I mean, the world just kind of broke open. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we decided, they wanted to do, they had this idea of doing another documentary film in Amsterdam. Oh, wow. So we threw the motorcycles on top of the old Land Rover. Right. drove from southern Spain, from Andalucía, all the way up to Paris. Wow. And we rolled into Paris in May of 1968.
Oh my God. When the city was just on fire. I mean, the students and the workers, everybody was like, you know, they were overthrowing de Gaulle's government.
Oh, you bet. Yeah. Yeah, every time there was a march going, I would be right there. I didn't even, you know, I mean, I didn't speak French or anything. But you knew what was going on. Yeah, and I always came back smelling of tear gas. Really? Because there was, you know, they had the riot police out in full riot gear, you know.
But the students were building fires like on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and, you know, pulling up the cobblestones to...
Well, I did move back to Paris because when I was there, I thought, ah, this is where I want to live.
But I knew immediately that Paris was the place. And I ended up moving back there several different times to live.
Aber das war, ja, und dann sind wir von da nach Amsterdam gegangen und haben dort ein bisschen gelebt.
Ja. Und dann bin ich zurückgekommen.
Ja, ja, ich meine, da war ein... Ja, da war ein guter Hasch. Ja, ein Hasch.
Ich meine, es war... Ich habe keine Ahnung... Weißt du, ich bin noch nie nach Amsterdam zurückgekommen. Seit 1968. Warum? Ich habe ein Gefühl, es ist nicht, was es war.
Ich hatte einfach nicht die Möglichkeit, zurückzukommen.
Yeah, but every place has changed, hasn't it? I know. And not for the better.
Ja, ich meine, das ist, weil es viele Leute gibt.
Well, let's see, then coming back to live in New York after Amsterdam, and that's what we were talking about earlier, living on the Bowery.
Well, I was with a guy, yeah.
Well, he was Spanish.
Yeah, but I picked him up in Minnesota. Okay. Ja, also der ganze Gruppe von Fotografen ging zurück nach New York und ich wurde mit dem, was wir gerade gesprochen haben, wie einer Untergrund-Theater-Familie, einer Tanz-Familie, involviert. Ja, und ich meine, das ist wirklich eine leichte Beschreibung, was wir tun.
Ja, aber es war wichtig. Ein Art physischer Ausdruck. Na, wie ich gesagt habe, es war wie, wir machen einfach Dinge aus.
Wir waren jung und probierten Dinge aus und waren verrückt.
Well, then, through the dancing, we got interested in mime. And there were some great old students who were still in New York who had studied with the original company of Etienne Ducroux.
Well, you're probably thinking of Marcel Marceau. Yeah, right. But this was very different.
This was Etienne Ducroux, who developed this technique with Jean-Louis Barrault back in the 40s.
Well, he referred to it as mime concrète. So it was like, but it was a physical movement that was connected to, I mean, I don't even know how I would describe it. People wouldn't understand what I was saying.
The art of it was very particular and very precise.
Es ist mehr abstrakt.
Ich meine, er, was Ducruz tun würde, wäre, um Bewegung zu brechen.
Du weißt, wie ein Dreh des Herzens.
Es würde plötzlich ein Triple Design werden.
Also, es war wie.
Ja, und emotional.
No, absolutely zero. But it was a great discipline. I loved the crew. And, you know, to be in his presence and study with him every day. That's great. And to be 19 years old and living in Paris on my own.
Well, that's a bit of a... A sidetrack? I mean, it was... I never made a dime modeling. So if that qualifies as being a model, I'm not sure. But no, I had no success as a model and I wasn't pursuing it with any kind of, you know...
Well, but that was even, mime was before. Oh, yeah. But anyhow, so the modeling thing came the third time I moved back to Paris and met a whole group of Another group of really fascinating people. This was kind of in the early 70s. And somebody said to me, why don't you try modeling? So when I moved back to New York the next time, I was working at the Lions Head.
Nein, aber die Lions hatten... Ich meine, es gab... Ja, wir hatten viele Schriftsteller.
Well, I went back to New York because the modeling really, I mean, not the modeling, the mime was, you know, I mean. So I thought, well, what's the next step from here? And I thought, well, maybe acting classes.
Well, when I first got back. I went to HB Studios, studied with Herbert Berghoff.
And then from there with Warren Robertson, and from there with offshoots of the Actors Studio. So, you know, just covering all the bases there in New York at that time.
I didn't know I wanted to act, but, you know, again, it was one of those things, well, what do I do now?
You know, I mean, they raised us so that we would just, yeah, explore. Oh, really? Yeah, be brave, do whatever you want. And I had one sister who was a sailor living on a sailboat somewhere out in the Pacific. Where'd she end up? Well... You mean now? Well, she sailed for decades. Really?
I'm not a great sailor.
In class, you know. I remember one of the first scene, because I was doing scene study classes. And one of the first scenes I worked on was from that play by Leroy Jones, Dutchman. And it's the scene where she accuses this black man. And we're rehearsing. I'm in this illegal sublet on Barrow Street, right on the street there.
Well, close, yeah. And, you know, we're rehearsing this scene and pretty soon I hear sirens and cop cars. And they're pounding on the door.
Because they think I'm in distress, that I'm being, like, you know.
Yeah. I thought, oh, okay. It works this way.
It was horrifying. But anyhow, so that was... I mean, I just... When I started the acting classes, it felt to me like everything just came together. It fulfilled all sorts of things that I had been in the process of discovering.
Oh, ja. You know, I think about that now because, I mean, you had to rely on your imagination then as a child. Because what else were you going to do?
You had none of that stuff. So you entertained yourself. You made up games. You made up fantasies. You fulfilled these... I mean, I remember one time... writing a letter to myself from Clark Gable, a love letter. I was like seven years old. But you liked Clark Gable. Well, I had seen pictures of him and I probably watched some old movie of his on TV, you know, black and white TV.
Ich habe drei. Zwei Brüder und einen jüngeren Bruder.
Ja, oder im Garten, um Dinge zu überlegen, was auch immer.
Ich war im Chaos, vielmals. Ja.
It really works, I'm telling you. Like I said, it's like... For a lifetime. Time travel. You can like just... Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, not from a place of calm and peace. No, never that.
Da bist du. Da bist du. Das ist großartig.
Well, okay, so then, yeah, I was working at the Lions Head. And taking acting classes, living in the West Village.
And somebody said to me, again, why don't you try modeling? And I thought, well, okay, yeah, I mean. So I met with this agency called And, you know, they didn't take me on as like a client or whatever you call them, as a model. But she knew that I was studying acting. And at some point... I would imagine a lot of the agencies or whatever got a call from Dino De Laurentiis.
But anyhow, so that's when she got that call. She called me.
I don't even know how she called me. I didn't have a phone, but asked if I wanted to go audition.
Well, he was kind of what you would imagine. You know, he was a showman and yeah.
Spent a lot of time in that hand, yeah. There were all sorts of problems with it. With the hand? Well, it was mechanical, you know. I mean, it was kind of a genius thing. I mean, this was before CGI and digital and AI and all this other bullshit. This was just... A practical working hydraulic hand. It could have probably killed me at any moment.
Yeah, it was big. But I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing about anything.
They flew me out. I was living in, like I said, an illegal sublet on Barrows Street. Often didn't have money for the subway. My only income was waitressing at the Lion's Head. And suddenly they're saying to me, we'd like to fly you to Los Angeles to audition for this part. And I thought, what the fuck, man, I'm going. Wow. Ja, drove me to MGM.
I mean my favorite studio as a little girl growing up. Came into the lot of MGM. It was like a fantasy come true. Yeah, I did this audition and they took one look at me. I'd just come back from Paris, you know, I was like 114 pounds. I had like kind of this blonde, you know, blonde Venus look. And they looked at me and they, no.
So, the agent in New York said, come on, you flew her all the way out there. Just roll some film on her. Just do it. So, I went in. Now, that was unbeknownst to me. That was the modeling agent? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, she actually kind of, you know, just do it. And I walked onto this sound stage and... Nobody was there. I mean, you know, skeleton crew. And they gave me the scenes to play.
I think I was just reading with some second AD or something. There wasn't the director. Nobody was interested in just watching me. And I did it. And then they said, well, just, you know, wait a while. We'll do it again. Yeah. Then somebody else came and then they asked me, would I do it again? And then I noticed that the director finally showed up. Yeah, who was that? I can't remember.
John Gillerman.
And then I did it for him a couple times. And then, you know, the next thing I know, Dino De Laurentiis shows up.
So, you know, and I'm just doing this. The scenes are kind of, I don't know. Silly. Silly, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And then I had to do it. Yeah.
This was not the break I had ever anticipated. You know, I thought, oh, I'm a New York actor. I'll do like, you know, we'll do showcase, you know, try to find an agent or, you know, manager or something. Then off, off Broadway, maybe some underground theater. Maybe, you know, someday do an off Broadway play, maybe at the public or, you know. Right.
But no, I'm going to be in the most expensive film made up until that point. With a big mechanical hand.
She did. God bless her. I mean, it was like, yeah, she went out there.
I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it made a difference. But, you know, after Kong, then I didn't work for three years. Nobody took me seriously. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. What were you doing for three years? I went back to live in New York. Back to the Lion's Head? No, I didn't do that. But I did go back to New York and, you know, take more acting classes.
Yeah. How was that guy? Er war großartig, er war großartig, er war, ich meine, du weißt, ich meine, er hatte einfach diese unbegrenzte Art von Energie und, und, und Liebe, was er machte. Ja. Du weißt, ich meine, auf der Grenze, ich glaube, du weißt, Insanität.
You know, I didn't watch it.
Yeah. What? I don't know. Well, yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, these stories are interesting and should be told, but leave them alone.
Yeah, he was a wild man.
And Schreider did a good job? I thought Schreider did a great job.
Ich mag seine Filme. Yeah, everybody's good in it.
Anne Reinking.
Yeah, she was his main muse.
No. Disco dancing, that was the extent of it.
Well, I did that film for Bobby, all that jazz. And I mean, I thank him for that because, you know, we were good friends. And, you know, I think he, I mean, he really fought to get that done because they were over schedule, over budget. And we hadn't started shooting that section yet. He just was a bulldog about it. He was going to shoot that. They wanted to shut him down. And yeah.
And they do it. Yeah.
It's a different time. It's too bad. I mean, because I think something that made film extremely thrilling and fascinating to observe. I mean, that all seems to me to have been lost.
Some European films are still interesting. Yeah.
Oh, I've been quitting for about 25 years, I think. It's imminent, but there's always something that will come up.
Yeah, I did four seasons, the first four seasons of that. People loved that show. You know, I haven't seen it. You don't watch your stuff? No. I think I've watched... I've watched Tootsie, because that's an easy one to watch, you know.
Well, now, sometimes there are different things. Sometimes you do a film for the wrong reason.
What reasons are those? Money? Well, I've never been paid for anything. So it's kind of like, I can't say I've ever done anything. Yeah, basically. I've never done anything for like big bucks or the paycheck. That's never materialized. But, you know, you say yes to something because you haven't worked for two years. And you think, man, I've got to, you know. Get out there.
Yeah, I mean, I'm an actor.
And so you, or then there's the other, you know, the other reason where you look at a script and you say, but I think I can do something with it. Okay, yeah. That's always a big mistake if it's not on the page and the, you know. Es ist so, ich denke, ich kann etwas davon machen. Nein, du kannst es nicht. Nein, es wird nicht ausstehen.
Yeah. I mean, that came right after All That Jazz. That was like my third movie.
It was thrilling.
Ray Filson or Nicholson? Both of them. Both of them. They were crazy. It was great. It was great. It was fun. It was exciting. It was, yeah, it was a total kind of experience. I mean, I loved it. I loved both of them.
Yeah. Role. Yeah. And the way Francis came to me was Graham Clifford, who was the editor on Postman.
When he saw, like, you know, I mean, he's watching hundreds of hours of footage.
Yeah. Yeah. He immediately thought of me for Francis.
Yeah, that's what makes it thrilling.
Yeah, everything about that. I mean, I loved her. I loved Frances. Yeah. I loved her spirit and, you know, and the, I mean, the tragedy of what happened to her.
But like lobotomy... That's pretty like, yeah, that's pretty absolute. Yeah.
Yeah, and the doctor who performed it on Francis was actually the foremost proponent of... Lobotomizing?
Yeah. I mean, in the scene that we played, it was based on what really happened. He's, you know, he's actually like giving a demonstration to, you know... To a medical class.
Yeah. No, I mean, I hate to admit it, but I'm always drawn to like the darkest part of a character.
Because it... Or the madness in a character. Because it allows you so much room to just experience and experiment. I mean, places to go.
Ja. Und in wirklich dunkle Orte gehen.
Well, there were quite a few, yeah. I mean, certainly enough, you know, carried me through several different characters.
Yeah, Blue Sky is another one. Blanche DuBois is a classic one.
Yeah, I did that three different times.
I mean, I just want, you know, also because, I mean, with like Williams, you know, he's giving you this template. Yeah. This kind of map, this road map.
And it's so rich.
That, I mean, it's the same thing with, now I've done... Mary Tyrone von Long Day's Journey Into Night.
Ja, wir haben es gedreht. Wir haben es gefilmt. Aber das ist wie Postproduktion. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie bald das rauskommt. Aber als Schauspieler fühlst du dich so, okay, ich habe das einmal gemacht, ich habe das eine andere Zeit gemacht, ich habe das eine andere Zeit gemacht. And yet it's a bottomless well, that character, that part. There's no way you could ever exhaust it.
Yeah, and it's endless, the possibilities. You know, just like one little sidetrack here and it takes you down a whole different place you've never been before. And it's like, I mean, it's...
Yeah, but also about brilliant writing.
Yeah, because you have somebody like, you know, O'Neill, who's writing about his mother.
Or you have Williams, who's writing about his sister. I mean, so you're grounded in this, like, the most personal kind of truth is, And what they've gone through to write this, you know, is... And therefore it's like... It is endless. Right. It's like a bottomless well. And it's a... Like it's a human constant. Like it's like... Almost like a truth. Yeah.
Yes, and those are two good ones. You can usually rely on them.
Yeah, I don't know.
It just doesn't really work, I don't think. Come on.
Well, I know when I was working with Kim Stanley. Oh my God, she's the best. The brilliant Kim Stanley. She's the best. No one knows enough about her. No, I know it. Why is that? I don't know. People should be studying. I mean, I did this many, many times before I would start a film. I would watch The Goddess. Oh mein Gott. Und ich würde einfach, okay, weil es mich inspirieren würde.
Das war das, was großartig war. Total. Und, aber ich hatte die Möglichkeit, mit ihr zweimal zu arbeiten, aber die erste Zeit war mit Anne Francis, wo sie meine Mutter gespielt hat, die auch, ich meine. Oh, ich muss es wieder anschauen. Verantwortung für. Die Insanität. Und putting Francis away. Right, right, right, yeah. Um.
But yeah, working with her, it was just, I mean, and we were coming from the same place and we had spent weeks doing just improv work together with like a moderator, somebody from the actor's studio, this great coach, Sandra Seacat. And she would just set these things in motion and Kim and I would do improvs for hours and hours and days and days.
Yeah. Yeah, we had rehearsal time.
No, I guess it doesn't, no. Oh. So, but, you know, watching somebody like, yeah, people should study her.
Yeah, it was Paddy Chayefsky.
She had a very difficult time.
Well, this is interesting because, you know, we were shooting Francis. Yeah. And Dustin and Sidney Pollack kept approaching me about this part in Tootsie. Yeah. And I thought, oh my God, I am not going to go from playing Francis Farmer to like this, you know.
Aber Kim war derjenige, der mir sagte, eine Comedy zu machen.
Ja, sie haben mich dazu gesprochen und ich habe es einfach gemacht. Das ist großartig. Es war großartig. Ich war froh, es zu machen.
Ja. Yeah, have some fun. Was Dustin fun? Yeah, he was great to work with. I loved him. I loved Sidney too. Sidney was one of the best directors I've ever been around.
Oh my God. Oh no, as an actor, I know it.
Yeah, that scene in the Russian Tea Room, it's great.
Yeah. Yeah. Tommy Lee was, I'm...
Weil er so grundsätzlich ist? Ja, er ist so präsent und so komplett. Und jede Wahl, die er macht, ist faszinierend. Und er ist großartig, um zu arbeiten. work with, you know.
No, no, he's brilliant.
Yeah, we had just, I think, yeah, that film was being made about the time we ran off together and yeah, we weren't really reachable for a long time. You were somewhere with horses. Yeah.
Oder hast du sie separat gehalten? Ja, ich meine, die paar Mal, dass wir darüber gesprochen haben, oder ich eine Lieder von ihm oder etwas, oder eine Adaptation, ich war krank, also, du weißt, das kam nicht aus. Wir haben... We did a film together.
No, we met on Francis.
Yeah. Yeah, Francis was huge in my life.
For everything. For everything. Yeah. Yeah. No, we did a film that he wrote and directed called Far North. Okay.
No, that was Country.
I was having babies.
A couple babies. Yeah.
Yes. In every single play.
I thought Sam was great.
I think he was underrated.
Yeah. And she was not happy on that film.
She was very unhappy on that film. And they would always send Sam to try to get her out of the trailer and come to the set. Oh my. Yeah. She used to call Sam old horse eyes. Yeah. Because he always looked like he was ready to... Oh, yeah?
Well, yeah, she actually liked Sam a lot.
I don't think she liked... It's kind of a one-dimensional character. Yeah, and I don't think she was happy with... Kaufman? Yeah, I'm not sure. I really, I shouldn't speak for it. But I just know, I think she was troubled on that film.
No, I never did.
Oh, you mean in the Great Lillian Hall?
Yeah. Yeah. Oder nicht.
Okay, danke. Ich wundere mich manchmal. Nein, aber du weißt, dass eine Teil der Sache, die mich so viel über diese Geschichte und diese Skripte interessiert, die Michael Co wrote und Michael Christopher gedreht hat, war, Ja. Ja. Ja. A time that's been lost or, I mean, and then the thing of, yeah, of loneliness, you know, I mean.
Well, it started, it was originally conceived and written by the niece of Marion Seldes, the actress. Mostly a stage actress, a great stage actress, who, yes, suffers dementia.
And this gave me, you know, the opportunity, because we rehearsed for several weeks, so we were rehearsing it like a play. And we had a great ensemble of actors. And, you know, yeah. And what I loved about the story was how... Lubias Leben an diesem Punkt im Cherry Orchard schlägt Lilian Halls Leben im Film, in der Geschichte. Weil es alles um Verlust geht.
Es geht alles um das, was weggerissen wird. Im Fall von Lilian Hall ist es ihre Erinnerung. It's her ability to do what she's always done. It's like the knowledge, all of that, that's being taken away with the dementia. And, you know, in the cherry orchard, it's the land, it's the orchard, it's the house, it's family. Everything is being, these women are losing everything. And you're like, I'm in.
I'm in, I like that, okay, loss, sorrow. Grief, Leidenschaft, ich kann es. Ja. Das ist der Zeitpunkt.
Ja, und du weißt, ich habe ein Spiel auf Broadway dieses Frühjahr gemacht. Ja. Mutter-Spiel. Wo, ähm, wiederum, es ist ein Charakter, der alles verliert. Ja. Ähm, und es ist ein, äh, es ist etwa ein 12, 15-Minuten-Sektion des Spiels.
Wo ich an einem bestimmten Punkt in der, du weißt, My son, my daughter, my son has died, my daughter is, you know, we've been separate and I'm living alone in a little apartment and I come home from work. And it's a silent section of the play. And for about 15 minutes I'm on stage by myself. Just what does a woman do when she walks into her home at the end of the day?
She's confronted with twilight. And how does she fill those empty, empty hours before she can take her first drink? Before she can go to bed, before she can, you know. And it was really a fascinating, it was my favorite part of the play, one of my favorite parts of the play. Just you on stage. Just me on stage. 15 minutes. 15 minutes.
Yeah. The life of a lonely woman coming home. And how does she fill that time in the evening? How does she survive it?
You just, but you have to fill that up.
It's, yeah, you come in, you turn the lights on. Yeah. You turn the radio on right away, so you're not in silence. Right. You... Turn the radio off, you turn the TV on. Nothing there, you know. So, I mean, there are different things.
But you can't escape yourself. And just this pervasive loneliness.
Yeah. How about a good comedy? Yeah.
She grew up in it. I know it. It's like she knows exactly what's happening. I know. When she came into, I mean, it's that thing where you work with an actor where you know... That they're bringing something that's so personal.
And whatever it is, it's like grounded in something that's so true.
I mean, you can always sense that about another actor. Is it coming from a place of absolute truth?
It was. Yeah. And I mean, working with Lily on some of those scenes was just like, whoa.
And Pierce Brosnan was like... I know, how about that?
I know it. I loved our scenes together, the little balcony scenes. They were fabulous, yeah.
Yeah. No, I loved those scenes with him. I mean, that one where... Because in the script it was written that I come out on the balcony and, you know, we have an exchange. And then I'm standing there and I drop my robe and stand there in the kind of, you know, the evening light. I said early on, I said, you know, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to stand here naked. So...
Yeah, those days are long gone. And besides, he doesn't want to see it. So I said, let me ask him to kiss me.
Yeah. And you know, I love that moment because it's a woman who probably hasn't been kissed for a long time. Her husband's been dead quite a while. And there's no possibility that she will again.
So, but there's something about being kissed that she still wants to, you know, experience and remember it so she can maybe take it with her. And it was such a great, it was such a wonderful scene to play with him.
Yeah, she was wonderful too.
When Michael came in, he moved a lot of the scenes. I think in the script that was sent to Michael Christopher originally, the opening night of Cherry Orchard came in the middle of the story. And then after that, you just kind of tracked this woman disappearing. But what became interesting for him and what ultimately was the most interesting for me was to see somebody...
Ja, und auch nicht bis zum Ende der Cherry Orchard bis zum Ende des Films. And then, you know, you know what the outcome will be a couple of years down the road. But what was more interesting than playing that was the, you know, how she fights against it.
And, you know, her singular bravery and tenacity. Right. To get through this play, one last play, because the theater has meant the world to her.
Ja, und einem Kasten, der immer präsent war und sie unterstützt hat.
Nein, ich meine, ich denke, ich habe immer. Aber vielleicht ist es mehr jetzt, weil ich jetzt viel mehr allein bin. Meine Kinder sind aufgewachsen. Sie sind aus dem Haus. Sam ist weg. Die Generationen vor mir sind lange weg. Genau. So it's, yeah, you know, it's narrowing down, narrowing down.
Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I still love doing it and there's still a lot to discover and to experience. So, you know, it's just... And I guess, yeah, in a way it is. It takes you out of yourself.
You, you know, which is always a good thing.
Well, I did notice this time doing the play, and we had like a 12-week, 15-week run, whatever, with previews.
I've never been so tired. And... But, you know, the play itself was structured, and that's what made it work, is that we were never off stage. So it was like, what, you know, an hour, 45 minutes, just straight through, never a break. You never even sat down and, like, tried to catch your breath.
And you were moving at this tremendous velocity through 40 years in the lives of these three characters, the mother, the daughter and the son. And through all sorts of tragedy. So it was like, but yeah, I thought, holy shit, this is really exhausting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was worth it. But it was also like I took, you know, three months just to sit up in my cabin in the woods doing nothing.
Yeah, I'll go back to New York tomorrow. And there are a couple of projects that are in the works.
So hopefully, you know, those will come through. Oh, great. One is a story of Marlene Dietrich at, you know, her post-Las Vegas, yeah, her relationship with Burt Bachrach and that whole time of her life.
Which is really fascinating.
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