Why did Jessica Lange's career go straight down the shitter?

Plastic surgery.

....

Her career was in decline before the bad facelift.

She was too limited to an actress to successfully transition in supporting roles in the late ‘90s.

As an actress, she's too mannered and self aware... that's why she appeals to superficial people like Ryan Murphy, who understand style without substance. There's a very good reason why Lange's film career imploded by the late 90s and that she could only reinvent herself as a grotesque persona.

Her career at this point essentially exists solely at the benevolence of Ryan Murphy. Seriously, check her IMDb. Only one person is keeping her off welfare.

She’s too showy an actress to have moved into like an interesting mother role in a small film. She’s smart enough to know, probably due to her earlier experiences, that actory, attention seeking performances are a quick way to praise. That doesn’t work when you end up distorting a role and pulling focus from the lead actors because of your histrionics.

Feud should have been Faye Dunaway reprising Joan and Judy Davis as Bette. It would have been the greatest thing ever made.

She aged. Happens to most actresses.

Then look at the roles in cinema from 2000 onwards for women of her age. There aren't many and Streep gets about half of them because she can get bums on seats - her contemporaries (Close, Field, Keaton, Lange, Sarandon, Spacek, Weaver, Winger) do not. On top of that not every actress is suitable for every role. For example I cannot see Lange in bettering these other actresses in Albert Knobs, Lincoln, Something's Gotta Give, In the Bedroom, Julie and Julia - they right actresses got the roles.

Having finally gotten around to watching American Horror Story: Season One I can say without a doubt that none other of Lange's contemporaries could have played Constance as well as Lange did.

[quote]There aren't many and Streep gets about half of them because she can get bums on seats - her contemporaries (Close, Field, Keaton, Lange, Sarandon, Spacek, Weaver, Winger) do not.

Most of them actually had respectable careers throughout the '00s. Lange just dropped off a cliff after her second Oscar win (which one would've thought would've given her momentum). She hadn't worked in years before she started blackmailing Ryan Murphy, and he really is the ONLY person who hires her.

[quote]Having finally gotten around to watching American Horror Story: Season One I can say without a doubt that none other of Lange's contemporaries could have played Constance as well as Lange did.

I don't think she's very good. What a smarter actress could've and should've done would have been to use the nature of AHS as an opportunity to show producers her range. 'Look at what I can do in this season, look what I did in that season'. But she just turns up and does her old act in each one. Streep and Spacek would sieze that chance. It's that awful occurrence where the more you see an actor, the more you realize how LITTLE they can do.

I never really paid attention to her before... but when I start to think about her now I just see how shallow and obvious her performances are.

Her facework wasn't as good as Moore (tight) or Ryan (pouty), but she can take heart in that it was better than Dunaway's.

Her career went down the shitter when she became too old to be sexually attractive to the old men running the movie business. They have an endless supply of young nubile females eager to trade sex for movie career. As Miss Lange well knows. She is as famous for fucking Bob Fosse, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Sam Shepard, as she is for anything else. when she became too old and Haggard and have too much bad plastic surgery to be desirable to powerful men, that was pretty much the end of her career.

She had sex with a sixty-something Dino De Laurentiis too.

Rumors of her being a total cunt don't help.

Nor do comparisons to Beverly D'Angelo.

Usual stuff:

Plastic surgery

Aging

Too limited

Attitude

Not quite talented enough to compete once over forty

And they say she drinks

She primarily sought Oscar bait films. Other actresses of her generation -- Streep, Close, Field -- tried to cultivate a broader body of work: like some less interesting roles in more interesting films, more comedy, and commercial films.

She got older - the death knell especially for an actress.

Some others have managed to do alright for themselves: Julia Roberts, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman.

She used to be born in 1945.

She's 69. I wonder if King Kong would be willing to take her back?

Anyone care to guess what dirt she has on Ryan Murphy?

////

Again with dumb questions....

She got old.

Actors have a shelf life. Male actors have a longer one than female ones but a TINY handful of people have huge A list careers from start to finish.

For women, it gets problematic by 40 and very problematic by 50. Most roles for women are written for ages 20 to 35 or so...after that, it just becomes "moms" and "shrews".

For men, it can stretch up to 50 or more if they can still play action or "hot dad". Things start getting problematic for them at 55+ or so but there's still far more working 50 & 60something male actors out there than female ones.

Glenn Close aged better than her. She still looks handsome today.

She has a shelf full of awards, this thread is ridiculous.

Awards ≠ career

She is a grandmother now, maybe she just wants to smell the roses.

Some of these comments are ridiculous.

Lange said very early in her career as a leading lady that she didn't anticipate doing many more films because it just wasn't high in her list of priorities. When she did do films, it had to be something that she really wanted to do, so she was very selective. However, there were a few in her filmography that she did under pressure from her agents who wanted to capitalize on her early successes. When her career declined in the 1990s, she merely walked away, as opposed to Streep, who suffering the same career trajectory, fired her agents, managers, publicists, etc., and rebranded herself as America's Greatest Living Actress.

Cut to the 2010s, Lange's kids had grown and moved out of the house, and Sam and she had drifted apart. When Ryan Murphy came a-calling, she thought, "I've got nothing better to do... why not?" But after 4 seasons, she got bored and high-tailed it back to her cabin in Minnesota. She really is not that invested in her showbiz career.

She starred in the Broadway revival of Long Days Journey Into Night a few years ago. Like someone else said, she didn't have to work. She had the luxury of choice.

Most of these actresses are well-off enough to not have to work. Yet some still get offers whereas Lange doesn’t.

If she’s such a selective artiste yet accepts only those silly Ryan Murphy projects it would make one wonder what she turns down.

Her contemporaries still do good work. Streep and Close are amazing. Lange is a self-parodying drag act.

I' m surprised that no one has mentioned the real reason - BOOZE.

Sh e and Sam Shephard were hard core drinkers, and their booze fueled fights were well known.

She gave it up after she got the AHS role, and promptly left Sam.

She was quite unemployable for a long time.t

There were plenty of rumors about that. I happen to believe them. Didn’t she have a particurly bad fall in 2009 when drunk? And didn’t Shepherd sometimes become violent?

But what’s an aging unemployed diva without some booze?

And, how is her career in the shitter? She's been working non-stop for the last few years on television, getting some of the best reviews of her career.

Her career failed to live up to its early hype, the collapsed completely in the ‘90s, she was totally unemployed in the ‘00s, and today she makes no film or TV appearances in things that aren’t Ryan Murphy productions.

Is she a homophobe like Bette?

I read on her that she made some homophobic comments in a magazine interview back in the early eighties.

Unlike her peers she couldn't do comedy, which immediately ruled her out of a lot of roles.

I'd like to imagine Streep tried to get her blacklisted after that supremely cunty Goldderby interview.

R31, she was selective in her prime. Now she's in semi-retirement, and Ryan Murphy seems to be the only one who can cajole her into working. And she owes him big time for bringing her renewed success ($$) and that marathon play (LDJIN) for which she won a Tony.

Wow the Data Lounger who is stalking older women stars strikes again.It seems to love B movie actresses of a certain age group.Their careers are always going or gone.He always takes great care to go on about how he/she cannot be saved.As it probably masturbates to negative comments.Someone please contact the FBI,special crimed unit.Pronto

I'm sure Jessica is devastated...at home in her mansion cradling her Oscars and Emmys dreaming of all the hot cock she's had over the years (Sam Shepherd and Baryshnikov among many).

bump

I'm surely thinking OP meant to write OVERacting.

What was the gold Derby interview?

I'm surprised that no one have the obvious answer.. She stopped being willing to do nudity! We hacent seen her glorious titty witties for 21 fucking years!

Now, now. You're just waving a red flag at sweet LangeFanForever. Be strong, LFF!

I think Jessica Lange has done incredibly well for an actress who excels in a relatively narrow range of roles, pursued boutique films over commercial ones, and never seemed to really play the Hollywood game. She also regularly took extended breaks between projects.

She’s a talented actress, but I do think the multiple Oscars and Emmys are overly generous. Her ‘Crimes of the Heart’ co-stars Sissy Spacek and Diane Keaton are stronger actresses despite being considerably less celebrated.

Sissy is celebrated. Diane deserves no celebration, she's been playing herself for the last 30 years.

Lange too. She's been giving the same drunken imitation of Leigh's Blance DuBois for decades now in every role.

Some good points here--she has no flair for comedy and lacks what it takes for mother roles. Her plastic surgery makes her mostly appropriate for hagsploitation and battle ax roles.

She was never "interesting" like Close, natural yet versatile like Spacek, nor technically gifted like Streep. There's just not much to build on here. Awards are pretty meaningless--lots of false positives like Hepburn getting too many of them.

She spent many years with one of the most overrated people of his generation, Sam Shepherd, and tolerated a boozy, abusive marriage.

R35 God you’re dumb. She continued to work non stop in the 80s and won multiple Oscar noms. There was a bit of a slow down in early 90s, but the Blue Sky Oscar put her back on the map. She wasn’t unemployed in the 00s, but she does owe a debt of gratitude to Murphy for thrusting her back into the zeitgeist.

[quote] the Blue Sky Oscar put her back on the map.

Her career was holding steady by that point, but she never fulfilled her promised as a serious challenger to Streep. What's strange is how her career as a leading lady stalled AFTER her win for Blue Sky. Normally, a Best Actress win would've bought her another five years (at her age and with the questionable surgery showing) but by 2000 she was essentially over. A few films between '95 and then, but despite their bait-y nature no obligatory post-win filler nom or anything.

I think the Oscars can kind of be explained by the fact that while people felt she may have been a little unlucky to be up against Streep for '82 where she never stood a chance, that feeling flipped once she became a two-time winner. She was pretty lucky to find herself on par with Bette Davis.

[quote]she has no flair for comedy

She was delightful in Grey Gardens, which had elements of comedy in that performance. She also gave a fine comedic performance opposite Shirley Maclaine in that mess of a movie "Wild Oats."

[quote]lacks what it takes for mother roles

What qualities does one need to play mothers? She's played them in Tootsie, Country, Blue Sky, Losing Isaiah, Prozac Nation, Normal, etc. And bad mothers in Hush, Titus, AHS.

This video does a great job of discussing Lange’s career up until she got her 2nd Oscar.

Remember, Jessica started as a model first. She has able to get a few good film rolls and run with it as far as she could. But, she never was able to stop being a sex symbol. Once she aged out of that, she had nowhere to go.

Ryan Murphy then cast her as the aged sex symbol trying to recapture her youth. She got old enough that it worked.

R46, Sissy Spacek is celebrated, but not to the extent that Jessica Lange is. The latter’s Ryan Murphy-fueled career renaissance on television and stage gave her a whole new audience, and when combined with her multiple Oscar wins, she enjoys an elevated status over many of her peers today.

Spacek, despite being the superior actress, hasn’t been given many opportunities to shine or connect with modern audiences since ‘In the Bedroom,’ nearly 20 years ago.

Diane Keaton seldom appears in a good film these days, but I maintain that her career highs (Annie Hall, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Reds, Shoot the Moon) demonstrate more strength and versatility as an actress than what Lange has shown herself capable of.

[quote] What qualities does one need to play mothers? She's played them in Tootsie, Country, Blue Sky, Losing Isaiah, Prozac Nation, Normal, etc. And bad mothers in Hush, Titus, AHS.

Once you hit Lange's age there aren't too many roles outside of grandmothers. That requires someone who looks like a real person. Glenn Close, Sally Field, Sissy Spacek... all still look real. Due to their surgeries a few women that age like Lange and, oh... Dolly Parton don't.

Lange's a little like Marlene Dietrich in the '60s. With her days of glamor roles gone she can't really have a serious comeback like her contemporaries because she's not a serious actress. Just too much artifice for their talents to act through.

During her heyday, Lange was the go-to actress for women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown roles. Her stock in trade was being a flurry of emotions that zipped from Emotion A to Emotion Z in 10 seconds flat. So if you hired Lange, you had to have that one pivotal emotional scene, otherwise you wasted good money. That's why she was well-suited for women' pictures, which have pretty much disappeared from the big screen and gone to Lifetime or cable television.

Also, too, she grew bored with the film acting process, with the long waits between takes and much time spent away from home, so she turned down a lot of "nothing" parts as they were a waste of her time. This came back to bite her in the ass, though, because as she grew older and was looking for work, she was no longer in demand.

[quote]During her heyday, Lange was the go-to actress for women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervou - s-breakdown roles. Her stock in trade was being a flurry of emotions that zipped from Emotion A to Emotion Z in 10 seconds flat. So if you hired Lange, you had to have that one pivotal emotional scene, otherwise you wasted good money.

Even in roles that didn't require it she played things that way. It's tiring watching her.

[quote]With her days of glamor roles gone she can't really have a serious comeback like her contemporaries because she's not a serious actress. Just too much artifice for their talents to act through.

I don't understand this. In Grey Gardens, she played Big Edie, with silver hair and prostethic makeup. Her talents shone through and she took home an Emmy. In Long Days Journey Into Night, she played morphine addict Mary Tyrone, with silver hair and buttoned up Edwardian blouses. Her talents shone through and she walked away with a Tony. She is quite capable of playing old, unglamorous women and has done so with success. She just isn't interested in working a whole lot.

She should do a Nancy Meyers romcom. She would have been much sexier star of "Something's Gotta Give", rather than that minger Diane Keaton.

In fact, I bet the movie would have made more money with Lange, once word got out that she was doing full frontal nudity teenage boys and lesbians would have been queueing up to get an look at the "Jessica Giblets"!

[quote]She just isn't interested in working a whole lot.

Her IMDb shows she does work a whole lot -- it's just all with Ryan Murphy.

Tootsie---the problem was that she wasn't really maternal. A nanny did everything for her. You're really reaching with that, Lange troll.

She may have been cast as mothers but she never really seemed like a real one. Compare her with the queen of all mothers, Myrna Loy, who was, if anything, more attractive than Lange and aged well. Loy also could do comedy.

R60, No, I'm not the Lange troll. I just don't see why there are so many posts and threads devoted to disparaging her or her talents. There are many actors and actresses I don't care for, but I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about them and dissecting their work or merits and posting about them.

I assume Lange has her own reasons for working with Murphy.

Like how Crawford backed out of Sweet Charlotte once Aldrich made it clear that he wasn't going to put up with her behavior.

Maybe he's the only person who offers her lead roles or maybe she's like Crawford, who backed out of Sweet Charlotte once Aldrich made it clear that he wasn't going to defend her from Bette after her behavior. As soon as she backed out of that she went to do Strait-Jacket. A far inferior film and director, she knew, but he let her rule the roost on set (and let her play 29!!!) and so a favorite of hers.

R59, and as Ryan Murphy has said numerous times, he has to twist Jessica's arm and do a lot of coaxing, and flattering, and promising the moon to get her to come out of semi-retirement.

[quote]I just don't see why there are so many posts and threads devoted to disparaging her or her talents.

Eh... because it's a Shitter Thread. There's lots of Datalounge. Are you new here?

[quote][R59], and as Ryan Murphy has said numerous times, he has to twist Jessica's arm and do a lot of coaxing, and flattering, and promising the moon to get her to come out of semi-retirement.

Yeah, right. She's been announcing her imminent retirement since the early eighties -- as even the OP mentioned.

R65, And how many farewell tours has Cher had? People get sick of doing things, then miss doing them after time has passed, and are back doing it again. A girl can change her mind... many times.

A look at her IMDb shows that no time has passed in between her announcements that she's retiring and managing to get another RM gig.

[quote]Is she a homophobe like Bette? I read on her that she made some homophobic comments in a magazine interview back in the early eighties.

Now she works with a walking, talking gay stereotype.

"Can't play comedy"? I've got eight words for you, pal!

[quote] Is she a homophobe like Bette? I read on her that she made some homophobic comments in a magazine interview back in the early eighties.

Sam Shepard would use the slur faggot so she was at least around homophobia a lot. She also kept on in interviews about Sam' true maleness and real masculinity whatever that means (being a boorish, constant cheater, I assume). Who knows.

Too much booze and dope.

Why was this innocuous thread closed?:

How homophobic could she be? She married a ballerino.

She doesn't care that much for her career at this point. It is more like a way to pass time for her (let's face it, she is a movie star and she dislikes attention apparently, she may just stick at home most of the time). She is also very one-dimensional. There is not much difference in her approach to every role. Her career may have just gone down the "shitter" because she wants it to.

It’s up to her to make roles interesting. That’s her job as an actress.

Someone must have tied the hands of the Lange Loon so they can't type on their keyboard.

This thread made go down the rabbit hole and read all the Jessica Lange threads on DL. On the one linked below r230 posted this. I don't understand the post; can anybody explain what that poster mean by "scene" going on ?

"w/r/t Jessica Lange. It is all sad. There is a certain "scene" going on with some bi coastal actresses of a certain age. The "scene" is no good at all. Sarah Paulson is heavily in it but I haven't a clue if she brought Cherry Jones (no idea as to if they are still an item) down with it or not.

There is a reason as to why Sarah Paulson has a rather short gig on "American Horror Story" and is also shooting a movie along with Sam Shepard. "

[quote] How homophobic could she be? She married a ballerino.

He’s not homophobic. He’s spoken out about homophobic laws passed by the Russian government.

But her other husband... less sure.

She's wonderful in the right role and was very well utilized during her American Horror Story run. She can do comedy, but usually of the bitchier or more sarcastic variety. I thought she was very funny on many seasons of that show, but she's not one for pratfalls or wacky character voices or anything.

I, too, wonder why someone like Spacek doesn't work more. She's always been the best part of everything she's in, but at least she can say she has classic movies like Carrie and Coal Miner's Daughter to her name. Lange has Tootsie which is believed, but her film career was never terribly exciting.

I remember being so excited to see Lange play Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, because that role seemed like such a natural fit for her and I ended up thinking it was one of the worst performances I'd ever seen in my entire life. She played her as absolutely hopeless and insane from the first entrance and there was nowhere for her to go.