70-year- old Glenn Close not lacking in energy
Growing up on her grandfather’s estate in rural Connecticut, Glenn Close turned the field outside her house into a stage.
“I would roam the countryside, pretending all day long, because those images up on the big screen caught my imagination,” she said.
All these decades later, Close, 70, has earned six Oscar nominations (three for best actress, three for supporting actress), three Emmys and three Tonys. And she continues to work. “I still feel like I’m 18 and just starting,” she said.
Close’s recent work includes the 2017 films “The Wife” and “The Wilde Wedding.” She also stars in the new Amazon Prime series “Sea Oak” and the Netflix sci-fi drama “What Happened to Monday.”
Come Friday, she will be back on the big screen in the comedy “Father Figures.” Close plays Helen, a woman who finally comes clean with her sons (Ed Helms and Owen Wilson) about her colorful past.
She is front and center in the film, something of a novelty for an actress now in her eighth decade.
“It’s still difficult with film when you’re a woman,” she said. “On TV, it’s changed. As far as big studio movies, I’d love to be proven wrong. I do have a good choice of roles because I do a lot of indie movies, so doing a big studio film was great. It was an incredible cast.”
Although drawn to acting at a young age, Close didn't get serious about it until college.
“My life took little twists and turns,” she said. “I didn’t end up as a freshman in college until age 22. As soon as I arrived on the campus of (the College of) William & Mary, I walked into the theater department and auditioned for ‘ Twelfth Night’ and got the role of Olivia.”
She spent 10 years in theater before making her big-screen debut as earth mother Jenny Fields in “The World According to Garp” ( 1982).
“Jenny was a New Englander — so I basically decided to be my grandmother, who had a straight back and a wonderful way of talking.”
She earned her first Oscar nomination for that performance and her second the next year, with “The Big Chill” ( 1983).
One of her favorite roles, she said, is the conniving Marquise de Merteuil in “Dangerous Liaisons” ( 1988).
“I think the key to her was that she was a brilliant woman who was brought up in a convent and, when she got out, was expected to be married off and become some man’s property,” Close said. “She made it her goal in life to never be used. In some ways, she was a woman acting like a man in a man’s world.
“She gets punished for it,” the actress continued. “I seem to play a lot of women who have to be doubly punished.”
The best example might be Alex Forrest in “Fatal Attraction” (1987).
“A lot of men still come up and say, ‘You scared the (crap) out of me,’” she said with a laugh. “And it was 30 years ago that we made the film.”
In television, too, Close has made her mark.
On the FX series “Damages” (2007-12), she played high-stakes litigator Patty Hewes.
“It was a rare part,” Close said. “She had this genius for keeping people off-balance. It was thrilling.”
These days, most of her best opportunities stem from television.
“In many ways, TV offers you more than movies,” she said.
Close’s latest project is the Amazon Prime series “Sea Oak.” She plays working-class Aunt Bernie, who dies in a home invasion but returns from the beyond enraged and determined to get the life she deserved.
“I never played a character like this, so I said, ‘I’m in.’”