Glenn Close has had to wait almost a year for this moment. Her new film “The Wife” debuted at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival with those able to catch it hyping up her performance as Oscar-worthy. Now, Sony Pictures Classics is finally releasing the drama in a late summer window hoping it lingers in award season voters minds through the fall. When Close sat down to discuss her performance it was less than a day after she’d screened the picture for the first time in almost 11 months.
“You know what I got the second time? It was how fabulous what everyone else was,” Close says. “I think maybe the first time you see it you’re kind of checking yourself out and you don’t pay as much attention to everyone else. But this time my daughter blew me away. I saw everyone else’s performance that I hadn’t seen before. Everyone I saw moved me.”
Adapted from Meg Wolitzer’s 2003 novel, “The Wife” find Close playing Joan Castleman, the partner of a celebrated author, Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), who is being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. As she accompanies him to Sweden for the ceremony she reflects back on their relationship, her own contributions to his career and what she gave up to make it happen. Her daughter, Annie Starke, portrays her character in flashback scenes. The film also features Max Irons as Joan and Joe’s adult son and Christian Slater as a slimy biographer.
Close says she’d never played a role like this before and that it was “new emotional territory” for her.
“She was in the background. [That’s] what their marriage had become. Holding the coat and checking the beard and you know,” Close says. “She wanted to write. That’s what she said when she was young, ‘Writing is my life’ and I think that’s the truth.”
The film has long, intricate scenes (you could argue it’s theatrical in that regard) and director Björn Runge had the cast rehearse and discuss the script for a week before filming began. Close found this opportunity to discuss the script in depth with screenwriter Jane Anderson invaluable.
“I had notes, I had questions,” Close says. “What I was most concerned with was why she never left him. And in that exploration, a greater understanding of their relationship happened. They kind of downed, honestly it was on set organically with Jonathan that I think [I figured out Joan’s perspective].”
A six-time Academy Award nominee and three-time Tony Award winner, Close is returning to the stage at the end of September in “Mother of the Maid” a new play by Anderson where the 71-year-old actress will play Joan of Arc’s mother. Close says she’s “terrified about this one” but that it’s “good to be terrified.”
“I can’t wait to jump into it. Grace Van Patten is going to play Joan and I did a cute little movie called ‘The Wilde Wedding’ with her. I just love her. I think she’s really talented. So that’s gonna be fun,” Close says. “I’ve done a lot of reading about Joan, the transcript of the second trial where they reinstated her. All the people who knew her in life. I read about the Middle Ages, about the plague, about the Hundred Years’ War because you just want to figure out what the hell was life like back then.”
Longtime fans of Close are still waiting for her to reprise her Tony-winning role as Norma Desmond in a big-screen musical version of “Sunset Boulevard.” It was revealed the project was going forward at Paramount Pictures a year ago, but there’s been little word on it since. Close bluntly explains what’s transpired.
“Somebody pulled out and so we were back to the drawing board in certain aspects, but yes, it’s definitely an on-going thing,” Close notes. And as to whether the new regime at the studio is still supportive of it she adds, “I’m told that they [are]. You know, there was a certain amount of skepticism, I have to believe it because I think that it’d be incredible, incredibly powerful film. I hope it happens.”
“The Wife” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday.
