Glenn Close speaks out about mental illness
Glenn Close has a Tony Award, Emmy Award, Golden Globe and six Oscar nominations, but her latest honour is hugely meaningful.
The 65-year-old actress will accept a special recognition at the second annual American Giving Awards, to air Saturday on NBC, for her work with Bring Change 2 Mind, a nonprofit organization that aims to end the stigma of mental illness.
Close was inspired to help launch the group in 2009 after experiencing mental illness in her family. She talked with The Associated Press about what’s next.
AP: What led you to establish Bring Change 2 Mind?
Close: Realizing that what I should have been giving all my non-profit time to was right under my nose ... My sister is bipolar and my nephew is schizo-affective. And because our family had really no knowledge of or vocabulary for mental illness. (My sister) Jessie was actually diagnosed after her son. I think if we had been more knowing as a family, a lot of real suffering could have been avoided. ... And I’ve always been as an actress very, very cognizant of the power of words and how frightening some words can be and how they lose their power if you just keep repeating them.
AP: What progress has been made since 2009?
Close: We’ve made great progress with our Facebook website community. I think we’re being more and more known for a place where you can go to find people who are dealing with the same thing you’re dealing with, where you can tell your story, where you can have communication, the potential of a fantastic community that can grow up around this. The Web is perfect for this kind of thing because the person’s first step might be, to take our pledge on Bring Change 2 Mind, to acknowledge that they need help and to be able to articulate that on a website rather than in person with anyone.
AP: How are attitudes toward mental illness changing?
Close: That’s tricky because one really fascinating fact and the reason I stay really commit- ted to this is stigma. ... The most effective ways to change somebody’s prejudice and attitudes around mental illness is to meet someone who actually has it and to realize that they’re OK.
AP: How do cinematic depictions of mental illness affect perceptions?
Close: If they’re positive like Silver Linings Playbook — which I thought was a wonderful movie — I think it’s very positive. It opens up the dialogue. It’s all good, as far as I’m concerned. The tradition has been to use mental illness as a plot device for violence, for just plain old craziness, because that’s very easy. I mean, I was Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction. ... The amazing thing was when I was researching that character, even the psychiatrists that I talked to never mentioned the possibility of a mental disorder. And that was also before my sister was diagnosed, so it wasn’t even in my radar screen. But now I think we are getting more medically literate about all that, and I think it’s fantastic that really good movies showing interesting people who are coping with life and happen to have a mental disorder is great because there’s one in four. It’s an astounding statistic. One in four people across this globe are affected in some way by mental illness.
AP: How does this award help the cause?
Close: It’s huge. You don’t see that many things about mental illness. ... That shows that mental illness is not a comfortable thing for people to talk about, and the fact that they are giving me this award and my family — my sister, two of her children and my daughter are going to come up with me — because I think the image of a family together surrounding and supporting their members who have mental illness, there’s no words for it. That’s where I’m so moved and honoured by this recognition and excited, actually, that we can put that image on television. AP: What’s next? Close: I’m going to be doing, starting in February, a movie with Nick Nolte. We play kind of a rock ‘n’ roll couple. ... I think it’s timely and really well written. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and it will have great music in it. AP: What’s it called? Close: Always on My Mind.