In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and senior editor Vinnie Mancuso for this guide to living the creative life from those who are doing it every day.
Even after 48-plus years in the industry, Jessica Lange still manages to be surprised. Those everyday amazements, she tells us, come in many forms: whether it’s a fan singing the praises of her 1976 screen debut in “King Kong,” a stranger quoting “there’s not going to be a swimming pool, you stupid slut” at her (“I don’t even remember when that [scene] was!” Lange says with a laugh), or being presented with an all-new acting challenge at age 75 in Paula Vogel’s new Broadway drama, “Mother Play.”
It’s the latter that just earned Lange her second Tony nomination, following her win in 2016 for “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” She plays Phyllis, an alcoholic single mother wrestling with her regrets across four decades of raising two kids, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger).
On this episode of In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast, Lange delves into her process, dealing with onstage mistakes, and feeling as energized as ever.
Lange relishes the lack of a safety net in live theater.
“We’ve all [made mistakes] a few times so far in this run, especially me, probably because I’m so much older than they are. I’ve come to an absolute stop and thought, I don’t know what the next moment is. Sometimes if you sit there for a moment and kind of just gather yourself, it’ll come to you. One time, Celia had to actually feed me the line, and then I got right back on track.
“That’s what makes it so exciting. You just find your way. I dropped a whole deck of cards all over the floor [one night]. There was a moment where I thought, I’ll just leave them. And then I thought, No, this is real. So then that became part of the thing. I picked up all the cards and put them back. It’s like your mind’s playing with you for a second there. What is the reality at this moment? Inside the scene, she would pick up the cards. But as an actor onstage, you think, Fuck, I just dropped all the cards. Goddamnit. Now, what am I gonna do?”
“Mother Play” Credit: Joan Marcus
She sees her ‘Mother Play’ character as bucking against an industry trend.
“That’s a problem sometimes with female actors, is that there’s a certain… I wouldn’t say requirement, but to make them likable. Because you can have a lot of men heroes, right, leading men who are not likable characters. It’s much harder with an actress. So this was a great challenge, too. Because to play somebody who really makes horrible decisions in life, you just have to commit to it and embrace it and be that person for those two hours onstage. You can’t separate yourself and pass judgment or any kind of qualitative appraisement of the character. You just have to do it.”
Lately, the Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winner feels she’s reached an all-new level of her skills.
“I’ve felt, in the last couple of projects that I’ve done, that there’s a freedom that I’ve never felt before, a kind of abandon. I don’t even know how to explain it really, except that it’s very liberating. I’m not trying to figure things out. It really is about intuition, the instinct, the emotional life that just seems to kind of reveal itself in some odd way. I don’t mean to make this sound like hocus-pocus kind of stuff, but there’s a lot less thought and just much more emotion involved. The danger of overthinking something, especially as an actor, you can always see that when you’re watching something, that it’s a mental exercise. I feel like now, I’ve gotten to a point where I can just give into it and let it take me wherever it’s going.”
Listen and subscribe to In the Envelope to hear our full conversation with Lange:
