I overheard Julie Taymor, the director of the Broadway production of The Lion King, now making her directorial film debut with an ambitious adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, tell Jessica Lange how "very courageous" she was. Lange plays Tamora, the Queen of the Goths, in Taymor's Titus, in a boldly fierce performance opposite such stellar thespians as Anthony Hopkins and Alan Cumming. The actress also ventured into completely new territory in her 25-year career: She had never performed any of the Bard's work until now. It is, indeed, a brave act on Lange's part, and her fearlessness paid off.
Lange, who turned 50 this year, recently sat down with Back Stage West to share her experience working on Titus and to explain what matters most to her in acting and in life. What shone through the interview was her glowing vitality and her yearning to take risks.
Prior to making her film debut in the 1976 remake of King Kong, Lange was a perennial student of life-actually, she still is. She dropped out of the University of Minnesota, where she had won a scholarship for her abilities in painting and art, to travel the United States and to Paris with her then-husband (she later had a child with dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and two more children with actor/playwright Sam Shepard, whom she's remained with). Lange decided that her artistic ambitions were being stifled back home and she returned to Paris on her own in search of a creative rebirth. During her time overseas, she studied mime with Etienne DeCroux, Marcel Marceau's teacher, and danced with the Opera-Comique. She later moved to New York City, where she waited tables, studied acting, and did occasional modeling to supplement her income.
After producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her to play the damsel in King Kong, Lange landed a supporting role three years later in All That Jazz. Her breakthrough, however, came in 1983 when strong performances in Tootsie and Frances led to Lange becoming the first person in 40 years to be nominated for two acting Oscars in the same year (she won for Tootsie). Her subsequent accolades include her Academy Award-winning performance as the neurotic Carly in Blue Sky and her Oscar-nominated turns in Country, Sweet Dreams, and The Music Box. Her other feature credits include The Postman Always Rings Twice, Crimes of the Heart, Men Don't Leave, Cape Fear, Losing Isaiah, Rob Roy, A Thousand Acres, Hush, and Cousin Bette.
In addition, Lange starred in the TV film of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opposite Blue Sky co-star Tommy Lee Jones, and performed in successful stage productions of Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire Off-Broadway, on television, and on London's West End, where she plans to return next year in a production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.
Back Stage West: Many actors are intimidated to tackle Shakespeare, especially if they are doing it in a major motion picture. Were you frightened to take this part?
Jessica Lange: I've always been hesitant to do it. I think it's especially intimidating for American actors. There's such a spin put on the language, you know? I know it's always scared me off. But it's such perfect language, actually. Once you start, it's much easier doing Shakespeare than bad dialogue.
BSW: What convinced you that now was the right time to take this on?
Lange: I think it was the idea of finally doing Shakespeare. I figured I was at a point in my life when I should do it. It was the idea of working with Julie Taymor-not being familiar with all her work, but being familiar with what she did in The Lion King-and knowing that this was a piece that she had done before [in a 1994 Off-Broadway staging]. She has such a powerful vision. I thought it would be a great opportunity to do Shakespeare with someone like that. To work with Tony Hopkins [who plays Titus] and Alan Cumming [who plays her husband, Saturninus] and the rest of the cast-it's great when you can be surrounded by really brilliant actors. And I just found the characters to be so alive, unusual, and primal, in a way, and that was exciting to play.
[Just then, Sydney Pollack, who directed Lange in Tootsie, coincidentally walked by our table at the Four Seasons restaurant. Lange excused herself momentarily to say hello to Pollack.]
BSW: It's funny. I just sat down to watch Tootsie this week. I hadn't seen it in years, and the thing that surprised me was how well it's stood the test of time. It will go down as a classic. Why don't you do more comedy?
Lange: That was my one and only. People never think of me that way.
BSW: To get back to Titus, the violence in the film is handled so responsibly. The story is really about the cyclical nature of violence and how nobody involved in that cycle wins in the end. Do you hope audiences walk away with that in mind?
Lange: What the play is about, and certainly Julie Taymor's interpretation of it, is the effects of violence, which I don't think many Hollywood films really ever deal with. They tend to glorify it or mystify it or romanticize it, but they don't actually show the devastating results of violence, and I think that's what this play deals with.
It's really a dissertation on the destructive elements of violence. You see the cyclical nature of revenge and how it just keeps repeating itself and never is resolved and that, in the end, everyone has suffered and everyone is destroyed; it's so clear. There are no heroes in this play, and I kind of like that, especially at this time and with what's going on in the United States. We are really reeling from the effects of violence in this country. I think the play offers an important statement on the nature of violence, and Shakespeare really doesn't pull any punches. I mean, rape, mutilation, cannibalism-he doesn't pretty it up in any way. I think what this film does is it shows you exactly how sick and perverse and diabolical violence is.
BSW: Besides tackling the Shakespearean text, what did you find to be the greatest challenge of working on this project?
Lange: It was trying to find a character who has a tremendous vitality. I mean, she's a voracious character and to make her alive [was tough]. In essence, Titus is a historic drama or a historic tragedy, but there was very little, historically, that I was able to draw on as far as research or reference. I found very little about the Goths. I just didn't know what to draw on. So I approached it from the most human departure point-which was this primal, emotional connection between a mother and her sons, to power, to her sexuality, and to her absolute blindness in the face of what was actually happening.
As for the language, I had the opportunity of working with Cecily Berry, one of the foremost Shakespearean dialogue experts in the world, and that was extraordinary for me. To have those couple weeks of rehearsal and to be able to work with her and to really begin to get a feel for the rhythm and the music of it, and then to be able to make it my own and to try to infuse it with something extremely intimate and personal-I mean, this woman is an amazing teacher.
BSW: Generally speaking, how do you begin to tackle a character?
Lange: I guess I always start from the interior life. I always have to have the emotional connection right away. I mean, I've tried to work other ways and it's never seemed to work for me. So I approached [Tamora] very much the same way I approach any part. I just tried to find the emotional through-line, the arc of the character, because her look was so severe and so particular. You know, when you have that given to you, it actually is a great boon to the character, because if you're just playing an ordinary woman of this time and age, sometimes you have to work harder in your imagination to make it vital. But with this character, because of time and place, it just brought a lot to it immediately-in simple terms like costume and wardrobe and hair and makeup. It was extreme, which makes it's easier, I think, with the characterization.
BSW: You've worked recently with two very well known theatre directors making their film directing debuts-Des McAnuff (Cousin Bette) and now Julie Taymor. As different as these two artists may be, did you find that there is something distinct about them because they come from the stage? Do they bring something different to the table?
Lange: I think one thing that they know about, which I think a lot of film directors don't have any clue about, is how to stage a scene-how to actually take a scene and create the dynamics of it. I think a lot of times with film directors, and certainly the less talented ones, they don't have any clue about staging. All they think they have to do is put a camera on the actor and let him say his lines and then cut to another actor and do the same thing. And then get your master, your two-shot, and your close-ups-and you've created a dynamic scene, and it's so not true.
I think the thing with Julie and with Des is they have a sense of what you have to do to create a dynamic scene, because they're used to the proscenium. They're used to making it all happen right there. I wish there were more directors who understood staging-that it's necessary even in film. You have to stage the scene. You have to find the rhythm and the dynamics.
BSW: Forgive my na™vet , but besides your acclaimed performance in A Streetcar Named Desire, what has been your experience working onstage?
Lange: I did stage very early on, but once I started doing film work I really dropped out and didn't come back to any stage work until I did Streetcar in New York and the production in London. And that's basically it. A year from now, I'll be back in London doing Long Day's Journey Into Night. But that's it-my limited stage experience.
BSW: Where did you pick up your craft-through study or by working on sets?
Lange: The acting craft, certainly the basics of it, I learned in acting classes. I can't tell you how important I think it is for people to study and to study as much as possible-and to study movement and to study voice. I think we're so limited as film actors-the scope of what we're able to do-because we're never asked to use movement. We're never asked to use voice.
I think it only enriches the work if you've got experience in all these other things. I mean, I studied mime for years. I studied dance. I studied voice. I even tried to sing, which was pathetic! [Laughs.] I came out of this old school of being a student, where I thought it was important to really learn everything I could, and I've always, in my heart, been a good student. I like being a student. I like learning. So it was no hardship for me. I worked with three or four different acting teachers in New York in the early days. They all brought something to the table that was really thrilling and exciting.
But where you really start honing your craft is when you're actually doing it. You can't be the eternal student. You have to actually get out and do it at some point. I'm still learning a lot about stage that I don't know. I'm really trying to work my way through it. Film is a different story. After doing it for this many years, you can kind of begin to understand what part of the craft works for film. But right now, the exciting thing for me is thinking about stage and being able to really bring it all together in a performance-in that singular performance every night.
I worry about these young kids who come into the business thinking they want to be actors and the first thing they do is get a shot on a television show and that's it. That's as much preparation as they're going to get. I think you've got to study. I mean, when I was studying in New York, we were doing showcase theatre and just working for free-just to be onstage, just to have the experience.
BSW: Many actors think that to succeed in film, they've got to move to L.A. and plug away at it. Even successful film actors think they have to live here in order to sustain their careers. You, on the other hand, have stayed as far away from Hollywood as possible. Has that been a conscious choice?
Lange: Yes. I guess I never had that kind of ambition-that it mattered that much to me that I had to be in the thick of it. I was always under the belief that once people know your work and know what you can do, if they want you, they want you. If they don't, they don't. There's nothing you're going to do to change that-like schmoozing at a party. Maybe it does [help]. Maybe I'm completely mistaken, but I just decided I didn't want that kind of life. I needed a separation. I needed to be in a place where it wasn't all about this, because I think your perspective can get so skewed as to what's really important in life.
Making movies is not the most important thing in the world. It's just not. It's something we do. It's enjoyable. We make a good living. And sometimes you can pretend it's art and satisfy that area of your ego, but otherwise it's not important.
BSW: Many actors forget to live their lives-to have a life outside of acting. I'm not talking about having something to fall back on-I'm speaking of having life experiences to fill you as a human being and to feed your work. You've lived a very full life and still do. A lot of actors are afraid to not be working, but I don't gather you feel that way usually. Am I right?
Lange: Some of those times have been easier than others. There is a natural anxiety when you're not working that something is passing you by or you're missing out on something or you're falling behind or you're not getting as much attention as somebody else-all of those ego-related issues-and it's all such crap, basically. I mean, I have really had to work hard, at times, not to allow myself to fall into that trap. I've had to be very vigilant because I'm susceptible to that thing as much as anybody else.
But I just know in the long run it was the best decision for me, because I can't make this my whole life. It's not that interesting to me. There are so many other things that are more interesting to me, like my children, my family, my garden, photography. There's a lot of stuff that takes up as much time as acting does. So when I'm away from it, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything anymore. When I do act, it's still thrilling to do.
I just have always wanted to try to find a balance so there's not a loss of perspective, because I think that's when lives get really sad-when it's only about making money or it's only about being recognized. There's a certain kind of inherent neediness or grasping or loneliness that I actively try to avoid, and I think we're all subject to fall prey to that, and I probably would have had I been in the vortex-if I stayed in the middle of everything.
So I think in some odd way it was just a choice for self-preservation, and some people can live in it and do great, but I don't think I ever could have.
BSW: While you can't predict the future, do you think you'll act until you drop?
Lange: First of all, it gets harder and harder for me to leave home because of my children. It was great when they were smaller because we'd pack up like a gypsy camp and go from one place to another and they were fine about that. As they get older, they don't want to do that. They want to stay home and live their lives. So it becomes more difficult for me to uproot my children and move them somewhere, which means I have to make a choice: Do I want to be separated from them for three weeks at a time and try to manage that way? Is it a part that really means much to me or would I rather just stay home? Most of the time, I'd rather just stay home.
And then, on the other hand, there's also the thing of being 50 years old and the good parts are getting very scarce. There are still as many scripts coming, but there's nothing to play in them. That's why I'm so excited about doing these two projects that I have lined up and if they are the last two projects I do, at least I'll go out playing great characters.
BSW: Besides the Eugene O'Neill play, what's the second project?
Lange: It's a book by Colette called Ch ri and it's a beautiful French novel from the turn of the century-a very unusual love story. Very sad. Very touching. That's what I'm going to do this summer. And it's a really great character. So there are still some out there. I'm not saying that there aren't. But as for the kind of run-of-the-mill fare of movie scripts, it's pretty slim pickings.
BSW: You're not the first great actress to tell me that. Even though the pickings are slim, what remains the joy of acting for you?
Lange: For me, it's gotten to be more and more the idea of the language and the use of all the things we were talking about and trying to incorporate the idea of voice and the power of the voice. That's the thing that has really begun to fascinate me and that's something I'd love to explore more-what you can do with the voice.
You see it mostly, I think, with English actors, and sometimes it gets to a point where it's just the voice-this kind of disembodied voice, which is not what I'm talking about. They get so precious about their voice that it can go too far the other direction. But when you see an actor using his voice really well, I think it's thrilling.
It's that idea of taking something, like this character, that's so far away from me, and really finding and giving it life. I love taking chances. I love going out there [on a limb]. Sometimes I fail miserably and sometimes it works, but I like the idea of being daring and taking big chances, as opposed to doing it safely. BSW