The US Interview

Source: Us
Date: 1/2000

by James Kaplan

She has been many things: a two-time Academy Award winner; lover of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Sam Shepard; mother of three; King Kong's gal pal. But through it all, Jessica Lange has remained, at heart, a girl from Minnesota.

As Tamora, the revenge-obsessed Queen of the Goths in Titus, this month's spectacular and spectacularly bloody screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Jessica Lange is covered with tattoos. In real life, she has just two. One, a remnant of her wild days in Paris 30 years ago, is, as the French say, Id-bas - down there. The other, a small, dark-blue disk on her left wrist, is a Celtic knot. "All that stuff about life everlasting and the journey to the center and the spiritual path," Lange says, smiling shyly.

The star is sitting in a sedate Manhattan hotel room, sipping tea with honey, looking handsomely, quietly elegant in an all-black ensemble and sensible shoes -- quite the opposite of the fierce-eyed, gold-cornrowed, body-armored Tamora. At 50, after decades of zigging and zagging through her personal life and playing complicated, frequently distressed women on stage and screen, Jessica Lange has made yet another bold move by appearing in Titus, a stunningly unconventional costume drama about a chain of blood-curdling revenges that begins when Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins) has the captive queen's eldest son put to death. Directed by Julie Taymor (who mounted the groundbreaking stage production of The Lion King on Broadway), the movie freely mixes period settings ranging from ancient Rome to fascist Italy and features lots of hacked-off heads, hands and arms. Yet Lange's own life seems as peaceful as Tamora's is violent. Lange appears, at long last, to be on a path to the center.

She lives on a farm in rural Minnesota with playwright-actor Sam Shepard, 56, and their two children, Hannah, 14, and Samuel Walker, 12. Lange's child with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Alexandra (nicknamed Shura) - who wears the twin of her mother's Celtic-knot tattoo on her wrist - is in her freshman year at a small liberal arts college in New England. For years, Lange and Shepard had a farm in Charlottesville, Va., where Shepard could attend to his beloved polo ponies. But in 1995, with her widowed mother ailing, the actress moved the family back to her native state, to a big old house in the country outside of St. Paul.

"The one great thing about the way I grew up was it truly was clanlike," Lange says. "Kin and family came before anything else. I wanted my kids to know that, too - to know their cousins and aunts and uncles - to really feel a part of someplace and something.

"There's something very haunting about the land there that gets into your blood,- she continues. "And my mother was getting old and I wanted to be next door to her. I remember what that was like as a kid, running to Grandma's house, coming in the back door, and the way it smelled, and getting the lemon drops out of the candy drawer. I think we kind of live in a rootless society, so I wanted [my kids] to be rooted."

Lange is never far from Minnesota, even when she's in the thick of Hollywood. "One day in the studio, Jessica and I started talking about the state of the movie business," says Hopkins. I got the sense that she loves the quiet country life in the heart of the Midwest. You know, they say 'Get a life.' Well, she got one."

Like all great stars, Lange has an air of something withheld, untold. Her almond-shaped eyes hint at deep reservoirs of sexual wildness, sublime mischief also at pools of untouchable sadness. And her real life has always seemed to bear out the image. She came from a troubled family. Her father, Al, who died in 1989, was a restless soul, a traveling salesman who moved the family (Lange has two older sisters and one younger brother) a dozen times before Jessica was a senior in high school. Her mother, Dorothy, who died in 1997, had dreamed of being a dancer but became a housewife instead. Jessica inherited her father's gypsy spirit, and in 1968 dropped out during her freshman year at the University of Minnesota to marry a fellow student, a Spanish photographer named Paco Grande. The couple traveled like hippies in a pickup truck, exploring the United States and South America, but she grew bored with marriage and in 1970 moved to Paris to study mime. She painted, she photographed, she grew restless again and this time moved to New York, where she worked as a waitress and modeled for the Wilhelmina Agency. Producer Dino De Laurentiis' chance glance at a photo of her led to her first movie role, as the giant ape's blond plaything in the 1976 camp-- classic remake of King Kong.

With her high-cheekboned Finnish face, strong limbs and voluptuous figure, Lange simply didn't look like other actresses. Still, she might have ended up as a trivia question if it hadn't been for that something behind her eyes that led Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson to take a chance on her in 1981's The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was an incendiary role. Lange played Cora, the discontented young wife of a service-station manager; Nicholson played a devious drifter on the make. Their sex- on-a-butcher-block-table scene made history, not only for its graphic eroticism, but for the bold power of Lange's presence, which was every bit as strong as Nicholson's. The scene was less a seduction than a bruising mating ritual between two creatures who nearly devour each other.

After cementing her reputation the following year with a performance as the schizophrenic actress Frances Farmer in Frances and an Oscar-winning role as a disillusioned soap opera star in Tootsie, she could have written her own ticket. Career and money, however, have always been far down on Lange's list of priorities. She had formed a passion for acting when she started in movies, but her passions have tended to be transient, "I've always attacked things kind of violently, but I get lazy really quickly" she says.
And two important events had shaken her world: in 1981 she had a baby with Baryshnikov (whom she had met after a party for King Kong), and, while making Frances, she met Shepard. By 1982, she and Shepard were living together. They had their children, and Lange found a fulfillment in motherhood she had never had before.

Through the '80s, her movie career trundled along, giving off more light than heat. Yet even if many of her projects didn't set box-office records, her screen presence was always memorable. She had a knack for playing what might politely be called emotionally unpredictable women, in films like Sweet Dreams and Crimes of the Heart - "kooks," as Lange once put it.

Her second Academy Award, for her role as the promiscuous wife of a straight-arrow military officer played by Tommy Lee Jones in 1994's Blue Sky, confirmed that even at age 45, long past the commonly accepted danger point for American leading ladies, she was still a force in Hollywood.

I thought her performance in Blue Sky was spectacular -- so vulnerable, so sexual, so moving," says Titus director Taymor. "I thought it was the gamut of Tamora. What I didn't want was a Lady Macbeth - a harsh queen who was just cold and vicious: I wanted that vulnerability that Jessica has. Through all the horrible vengeance she takes, there's somewhere where you will always understand the primal hurt. She is the mother incarnate.
I was also very interested in her age," Taymor continues. "We all know that Hollywood and our culture in general are very cruel to women over 40. But the sexuality that Jessica has is incredible. Every actor on the set was in love with her."

Is it true that you had never done Shakespeare before Titus?
Not even way back when, when I was doing acting classes in New York. I just never had enough confidence in my ability to tackle the language. Although I remember Elizabeth Ashley saying to me one time, "Oh, you've done [Tennessee] Williams, now you can do Shakespeare" [laughs].

Why did you decide to take the leap now?
There's always one scene in a script or in a play that somehow I so connect with that I immediately decide to do the film or the play, and the rest can kind of come. And in Titus it was my character's opening scene, where she pleads for her son's life. I thought, it's so primal and so basic to motherhood. If I have that as my center I think I can tackle this character. And so I said yes.

Besides being vengeful, Tamora is also one lusty queen. Did that appeal to you?
I loved the idea of this woman being so of the earth and so sexual that she could just as easily sleep with the emperor, this little crazy Italian, and have probably great sex with him, and in the next breath, without even showering, have sex with this Moor. [Laughing] I liked that part of her, in this kind of Christian-right world that we live in the idea of a woman who just enjoyed sex and used sex as power in all those different ways. It was fun to play a character who had no kind of moral reserve, no moral checks. Obviously, this is not a kind of character that you can be in life anymore. But it's a great character to play, because it allows you to really go to extremes.

You've spoken so many times about quitting acting. Do you still feel that way?
Well, one thing I've noticed recently is the longer I go without working, the harder it is for me to commit to doing something - the easier it becomes to just say, "No, that's really not that interesting a character," or, "I'm just not thrilled about working with that director," or, "it's football season at home. I can't be away." I've basically, since I did this film, turned everything down. Ten years ago, I might have found a reason to do one or more of those pieces that came my way, but now it's kind of like I don't want to interrupt my life. I don't want to just play those kind of, I don't know, ordinary characters. I don't mean that to sound pretentious or snobbish or anything like that.

So, you're not quitting, but you're being choosier?
I've kind of come in this circle. I've come back to a point where I would really like to start again. I would like to recapture some of that passion for acting that I had very early on, but without the kind of hysteria that was attached to it - without the drive, without the grasping. It feeds ambition, this business of moviemaking. It feeds narcissism, and it certainly feeds a kind of self-centeredness a certain grasping, neediness, indulgence. All the things that I'd been working hard to kind of rid myself of, but I see that it's a hard process.

You've also said when something gets too easy, you get bored.
Yeah, and I think in recent years I've mistaken experience for not really working hard. The last couple of film roles that I did, I'm the first to admit, I've been so lazy because everything takes precedence over that. I mean, if I can spend a half-hour before I've got to go to the set hanging out with my kids, or have a conversation with a friend on the set, I would rather do that than prepare for the scene.

You seem to feel more settled at this point in your life, True?
Much more. How did that begin? Well, I thought it was going to happen when I turned 40. It didn't. I felt just as much in a state of upheaval as I ever had. I think in away we've been led down a path that's very difficult this idea in America that you can have everything, you know? I think it's very destructive in a way, because you can't have everything, no matter what you have. Trying to have a career, a marriage, raise children - that's not easy to juggle. And this idea that came out of the women's movement that you can have everything, or should -I think it's hard for women. And certainly I was coming of age during that time where - I mean, for me, I never felt there were any restrictions. I could do anything I wanted. I could try anything. There were no limits, in a way.

So that was a bad thing?
Now when I look back, I realize there are limits for a reason. Because you're so young and you're so impetuous and you're so kind of violent in your emotions, that you go through life without paying attention to your responsibility or the repercussions. So now I begin to see in some odd way that my field is getting narrower rather than wider. There are certain things that I won't even allow into my life anymore, because they detract from what's really important.

When did this change for you?
When my mother died. It was huge. I don't even know how to describe it. It was more than just suffering this death and grieving. It changed the way I saw life and how I was going to proceed from that moment on. That was two years ago, and since then it's been a very introspective, kind of quiet time. You know, there's a lot of stuff that I have to try to come to terms with, and it can only be done through some kind of study, whatever you want to call it, whether it be a spiritual path or whatever. The rest of this really matters less and less to me, especially the business end of this. It was always difficult for me, but now I see it has no importance at all.

How did you feel about turning 50?
It didn't really have any impact on me. It had more impact on people around me. People were saying, "This is the birthday!" [Laughing] I mean, I wasn't thrilled. It wasn't like I was dancing in the street: -Whoa, I'm gonna be 50!" But it came and went inconsequentially. I've never made a big deal about my birthdays. I think I've had one birthday party since I was about 12 years old. But every once in awhile, when you have to write your age, there's a moment's hesitation, like, wow, I can't believe it. But then I read an interesting statistic the other day that said of the people turning 50 today, half of those will live to be 100. Don't you find that amazing? I hope I'm in that 50 percent. I would love to think of my life as being just halfway there.

Have you appreciated your own beauty through the years?
Well, there's a time in your life when you're just at your prime - maybe in your 30s, your early 40s. And I think that's this horrible conditioning that American women have that you don't necessarily see in Europe or in other parts of the world, that you have been taught never to be satisfied with what you have, because there's always someone that has something better. So even at your peak, even in your prime, when your body is strong and your face is smooth, and everything is as it should be, you still can't quite appreciate your own beauty. I blame the fashion industry, I blame advertisers - all that conspires against the American woman just accepting who she is and feeling great about it. I've tried very hard with my daughters not to instill this dissatisfaction in them.

You looked different from other actresses - more voluptuous, more muscular. Did that bother you?
Yeah, I suppose. You wanted to be more ... Reedy, you know - more this, more that, more aquiline, bigger eyes. I mean, whatever it is. So now, when whatever you had all begins to kind of fall apart [laughing], you think, oh, too bad I didn't appreciate it to its fullest extent. Today I sat down for lunch at this very kind of upscale Manhattan eatery. It was a mistake. Usually I go to a little coffee shop, but it was jampacked, so I went there. And there was a woman sitting in front of me who had had so much work done on her face. You wonder, when they look in the mirror, do they actually, somehow, perversely make themselves believe that they look younger or that they look better, instead of freakish?

How do you feel seeing yourself onscreen now?
[Long, long pause] Sometimes it's not even so much the age that bothers me when I look at my face, but there seems to be a certain sadness in it. And then other times I think, well, no, that's what it is. It's not sad. It's fine. Actually, I wasn't bothered at all by how I looked in Titus. It really didn't bother me. I remember when I was working in the garden one day and then I came in to practice the piano with my boy, who was a couple of years younger then. My hands were really beaten up, and they're very veiny, and I saw him look down at my hands and his eyes welled up - tears ran down his checks. And I realized he suddenly saw me as old in that moment. I remember once when I was a kid about his age, I was waiting for my mother to come pick me up, and she had such a wonderful kind of style. She had this black hair and a really strong Finnish face - high cheekbones. And she was wearing this Pendleton jacket, real square-cut, and trousers. She came walking toward me and I thought, oh, my God, she's so beautiful. And the little girl sitting next to me turned to me and said, "Is that your mother?" I said yes. And she said, "She's old, isn't she?" It just broke my heart.

You once said that if you had your life to live over again, you wouldn't do it. Does that ever occur to you now?
Oh, no, no. Not at all. I take great joy in things now. I really do. I cherish. Certainly when you're ayoung mother and your children are really young, you just assume that that time is going to be there forever. That they're always going to be 3 and 4 or 1 and 2, and you're always going to be changing diapers and getting up in the middle of the night and nursing a baby. And then suddenly they're in college, and you realize, I've got this finite time on Earth with them. I think we have to just really pay attention to that. Really be present to them, because it goes so fast.

You and Sam Shepard have never married. But does it feel like a marriage at this point?
Yeah. It's as much a marriage as I think anybody can have. I mean, in the beginning there was that whole residue left over from my first marriage and also from the '60s that whole kind of wacky thing about " I don't need somebody to tell me I'm married." And then time just passed. We've been together 17 years, so whether or not there's a piece of paper, it has the same kind of commitment.

Are you still friends with Baryshnikov?
Oh, yes. As time has gone on, we've gotten to be best pals. It's been a great gift for all of us for Shura and for me and for him.

Was moving to Minnesota an adjustment for Sam?
Well, you know, Sam's a desert person at heart. From the West. But he'll still be completely blown away by something that is familiar to me but not to him. Like Walker, my boy, has always wanted to catch a muskie. A muskie is like a mythical fish, almost impossible to catch. They weigh up to 100 pounds. I mean, they're prehistoric. So we went up to Lake of the Woods, which is more than 470 square miles of take. And I could see, just by the vastness and the isolation of this place, that Sam was kind of blown away.

Are your kids as fond of Minnesota as you hoped they would be?
You certainly felt rebellious about it growing up. Yeah, but, see, I didn't have the other side of the coin. They spent part of the fall in Rome. I mean, to me they have the life I always wanted to have. Shura and I were in India this summer. It's so thrilling to me, and I assume it's thrilling to them to be able to go to these places. And the great thing about making movies is you actually live that life for a while. You're not just there as a tourist. I hate being a tourist. You have a place to live. You have a job. You have to go to the market- You get to know your neighborhood. You settle in like a camp of gypsies, you know? And for my kids to be able to go places like that - to India or to Rome or to France or to England - I think, God, how lucky they are. Of course, what they really want to do is stay home and see their friends on Saturday night. [Pauses, smiles] I guess you're never satisfied with what you've got.

Close Window and Return to Media Menu