Jessica Lange: 'The film industry has changed drastically - it's a fickle business'

Jessica Lange says the entertainment industry has “changed drastically” as she reflected on nearly 50 years in film and television.

The American actress, 75, has reprised her Tony-winning role Mary Tyrone in the silver screen adaptation of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which had its UK premiere at Glasgow Film Festival.

But filming, which took place in County Wicklow in Ireland in 2022, was hit by several delays, with the cast waiting for three weeks to resume shooting.

“We got one day’s work in front of the camera, went home, came back the next day and they shut us down. Money fell out,” she told Scotland Tonight. “But we got it made.”

Lange said securing budgets for films that don’t fit the megahit mould has become “almost impossible”.

“I remember Sydney Pollack, director of Tootsie, saying to me, ‘these middle films that aren’t huge expensive blockbusters or tiny independent films? This road is going to be closed soon.’ These aren’t going to exist anymore – and he was right.

“Just great storytelling, great parts, well-written, made for a decent budget, scraping and not getting shut down on the first day of shooting; I think that’s kind of come to an end.

“I think things come and go quickly. It could be this year, it feels like that, next year it may not. It’s a very fickle business.”

Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play, published after his death, follows the dysfunctional Tyrone family over the course of one summer’s day in Connecticut in 1912.

Lange, who has performed in the play in both London and Broadway, said she was excited to take the role to film alongside Apollo 13 and Westworld actor Ed Harris.

“I had wanted to do a film of it because just to have a record of this part means the world to me,” Lange said.

“I love this character, probably more than any I’ve ever played. The idea of doing it on film was very enticing.

“There are some characters you could play over and over again, like Blanche Dubois. They’re kind of inexhaustible.

“Film seemed to be the most logical place to play her again when it happened. It was really exciting.”

Lange said bringing her character to film was a “very different process” compared with the stage.

“When you’re doing a play, a long run, everything gets inside you. It lives in you – the words, the exchanges, the blocking, everything.

“On stage, there’s nothing else like that. Every night, that leap into the unknown and feeling that adrenaline as another character in the play – it’s wonderful. The immediacy of it. The thrill.

“You’ve got nothing to fall back on. If things don’t go right, you’ve got to figure out how to get out of it.

“Then, when you come to a completely different medium, it is very disarming. Obviously, we had to cut a great deal of the script.

“There was always this moment when we started rehearsals and shooting ‘Wait, we can’t not say the next line!’ I drove the director crazy.”

Lange described O’Neill’s work, widely regarded as his magnum opus, as “almost like an exorcism for him”, centring on themes of addiction and acrimony which had shaped his early home life.

“I remember reading an excerpt talking about him, how he was writing this show,” she said.

“He would come out of his study after hours in here, in tears, and could hardly speak. He was so emotional.

“When he wrote this introduction to his wife, ‘I give you this play, written in tears and blood,’ it was written with understanding and pity and great forgiveness for the four tortured Tyrones – O’Neills, actually.

“I think what touches me so deeply always about this is that it came from such a deep part of this playwright.

“Such depth of love and forgiveness that he had for his family, his brother, mother, his father – that somehow, the truth of it is so profound that you can’t escape it.

“I always found that part of doing this play just all-encompassing. It just grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let you go.”

Lange is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of her generation, with over 30 credits to her name across stage and screen. She remains one of the few actors to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting.

She first rose to stardom in her breakout role as Jane in the 1976 remake of King Kong, earning her a Golden Globe for the New Star of the Year.

She scooped two Academy Awards as a soap opera star in 1983 comedy Tootsie followed by a number of Oscar-nominated roles in Frances, Country and Sweet Dreams.

On television, Lange received a Primetime Emmy Award for her work as Big Edie in HBO movie Grey Gardens.

She also marked her first regular role in television in FX horror anthology American Horror Story, which earned her two additional Primetime Emmys.

Lange recently hit headlines for bluntly refusing to return to the show (“Christ, no!”), but she said the appeal of TV series is having the time to delve into her craft.

“American Horror Story was like a repertory company. I did it for four seasons, each season was different characters. It was wonderful – it was very unusual.

“With television, the limited series is very nice – eight episodes and then you’re done, but then you have eight hours to develop a character.

“When we were doing Feud: Bette and Joan, I could really get inside Joan Crawford, study her, learn about her. I had all sorts of wonderful scenes with my friend Susan, who was playing Bette Davis.”

The Glasgow Film Festival is not the first time Lange has set foot on Scottish soil. She also filmed in the Highlands for 1995 biographical drama Rob Roy, in which she portrayed Mary MacGregor, the wife to Liam Neeson’s 18th-century outlaw.

“It was the most marvellous time,” she recalled. “We were up in the Highlands, I rented a house with all my family and children there. It was one of those very special locations.

“I think there was a lot of mud – I do remember that, all the camera equipment trucks getting stuck in the mud several times.

“I loved the cast and thought that script was really beautiful.”

Lange admitted she can be critical of her work, but she has few regrets looking back.

“It’s never 100%… There’s this or there’s that,” she said.

“Film has been what I’ve built most of my career on. I love some of them; some I wish I hadn’t wasted my time on.

“But I love acting so much. Each one brings with it its own gifts.”