by Nathaniel R
Glenn Close, a moment before we spoke on Monday nightThe Film Experience was honored to be invited to attend the Museum of the Moving Image's tribute to the career of Glenn Close this week at the elegant 583 Park Avenue venue, just days before her Golden Globe nomination. Attending the festivities were politicians, actors, industry vets, and museum officials and honorees including a whole excited table nearby mine of teenagers from Queens, where the museum is located, who collectively gave one of the night's most amusing speeches about MoMI's community outreach programs and youth engagement.
We spoke briefly to the woman of the hour, Glenn Close upon her arrival at the gala. The story of The Wife, an arthouse success this summer, is about a woman whose genius goes unrecognized...
Things must be different for the woman playing her, given this and other impending tributes.
Does Glenn herself ever feel underappreciated?
"I'd be pathetic if I felt that way tonight!" Glenn answered, giving the tiniest glimmer of what would bloom later that evening into tearful graciousness. Then she reflected a bit more on the madness of awards campaigns, long careers, and healthy perspectives.
I think you feel [underappreciated] if you let yourself feel that way. We're in a very competitive profession. On my first job this wonderful actress said 'try not to compare you career to anyone else's.' That was profound advice. It's very healthy. Own your choices. Live with your choices and see what the result is.
In this case the result was an entire evening dedicated to her long career with clips shown from all of her most iconic roles.
That's what's so amazing about tonight. I'm here because of the sum of my choices. And, you know, you don't know when you're choosing. It's so subjective. That's why it's so amazing to me and very very gratifying.
Glenn is also starring Off Broadway in The Mother of the Maid at the moment and we wondered how she was holding up. "It's an incredibly rigorous role so I'm lucky my eyes are open right now," she confessed. Pressed about her stage work, she didn't profess any desire to repeat any more stage triumphs onscreen as she had with Albert Nobbs (2011). Well, but for one, she suddenly amended "I hope they make Sunset Blvd into a film!"
After saying our goodbyes to Glenn we sat down for a glamorous dinner with speeches and appearances from her co-star in The Wife, Christian Slater, her longtime friend and theater giant Jim Dale, and video messages from Rose Byrne, Michael Douglas, and more. Kevin Kline, her co-star in The Big Chill, sent a droll message that went over well with the crowd. Ethan Hawke (experiencing his own honors this season for First Reformed), also engaged the crowd with a fun story about the first time he ever saw Glenn Close onscreen. His mother had taken him to Glenn's debut in The World According to Garp (1982) but dragged him out of the theater halfway through when she suddenly remembered how the bestselling book ended. He tried to sneak back in to finish the movie but his mother won the battle.
Sony Pictures Classics co-founder and co-president Michael Barker was also in house for the necessary hard sell, given Close's perpetual bridesmaids status at the Academy Awards. Oscar went unmentioned but the message was clear. "It's time."
Glenn Close in "The Wife"
The evening ended with the actress taking the stage for a moving speech with shout-outs to her co-stars, family (including her daughter Annie Starke who plays her younger self in The Wife), and friends especially a tearful ode to her "very best friend" and perpetual inspiration, the actress Mary Beth Hurt. Glenn revealed that when she feels stuck in a scene she thinks, 'What would Mary Beth do?'
The most lovely part of her speech was a long and gracious detour into the people who are so rarely thanked at length and so specifically during speeches, the crew. She shouted out specific costume designers for iconic looks and helping her get into character, hair and makeup people for great wigs and attention to detail, cinematographers who light her, and so on. The funniest bit during this section was repeated references to her own 'great boobs' in Dangerous Liaisons, for which she gave credit to her then-nursing daughter Annie and the Oscar winning costume designer James Acheson.
After her heartfelt speech and so many clips of famous performances strung together, many of which were reminders of how bracing her choices and screen presence can be in her most iconic roles (hello Garp, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons), it was hard to argue with that underlying message from Sony Pictures Classics. Not that we'd want to.
It's time.
