Can Jessica Lange do comedy?

Has she EVER given a non-comedic performance?

You be the judge; here she is in the "Cybill Shepherd role" in How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980):

No she isn't funny

I always laugh whenever she tries to do drama.

She wasn’t just a straight woman in Tootsie. She had some very funny moments.

#langetroll

She's good at ironic

I don't think she's that great at laugh-out-loud funny (not that she's NEVER delivered a funny line).

But she has the face and demeanor to do Curb Your Enthusiasm style funny - dry, uncomfortable, etc.

And, she'd probably be brilliant doing VEEP-style mean-funny.

She was hilarious in "Hush".

Thanks for your considered thoughts R8

Will she ever do a romcom?

She once briefly in Louis CK comedy show.

She sure can

She had many funny moments on AHS, and in Sweet Dreams, too...but broad, sitcom comedy? No.

she sure AS HELL can.

Wild Oats

Gosh that Wild Oats looks like pure shite. It's 0% on RT too.

Wild Oats fell apart because the producers ran out of money, forcing Jess and Shirl to take pay cuts and put in some of their own money. So the storyline is rushed and full of holes.

When you have resting bitch face like Lange why would you care abt doing anything but biting, sarcasm?

When your co-star are Demi Moore and a bunch of nobodies, you know you're no longer a star

She would have been much better in "Somethings Gotta Give" instead of that ham, samey Diane "Kooky" Keaton. I could believe Keuna would want to bone Jess

No, she's not funny and while she's quite talented as a dramatic actress, she's not talented enough to do comedy.

She can be comedic when she wants to be but that’s just it, she rarely wants to be.

She’s fabulously funny in “Tootsie” during the scene in which Dorothy proclaims, “If you could just see me out of these clothes!”

In “Crimes of the Heart” and “Far North” she has both subtle and overt comedic moments imbued, as always, with dashes of poignancy. Her deadpan comedy in “Crimes...” is :chef’s kiss::

She’s a riot opposite Joan Cusack, with whom she had amazing chemistry with, in “Men Don’t Leave” - an overall fantastic and underrated gem in its own right.

Her most overt attempt at the comedy being spoken of here is in “Wild Oats.” She and MacLaine had sublime chemistry and played off of one another brilliantly. Like someone upthread noted, however, their work and the film itself were severely undermined by the production issues. Even still, it’s an entertaining, buoyant, and poignant little pic. (Considering the circumstances, a small miracle if you ask me.) Her expression during and delivery of the line, “He was a machine,” always sends me, lol.

She was also a riot in “The Politician,” though the series is so terrible even I wouldn’t suffer again through it just for her.

Lange is a tragedienne and considering the fact that she’s prone to depression and dark moods, it seems to be her chosen forte.

She once admitted (interview below, "Though my dark side is dormant right now, it continues to play a big role in whatever capacity I have to be creative. That's the well I'm able to tap into, where all the anguish, rage and sadness are stored."

Some scenes from “Crimes of the Heart” I love her in, in which she’s both funny and poignant:

Wild Oats clip (there aren’t many available). The reactions 😂

Another great little clip.

And how could I forget her fabulosity in the Peabody Award winning “Horace and Pete”?! I see someone else mentioned it upthread. She’s hilarious in it.

Joan and Bette weren't particularly good at comedy. Joan *is* funny here, but she's spoofing herself.

When you do a little research and realize how much M loves Jess, the jokes become a sad attempt at divisiveness. 😂

Stop talking to yourself

R32 Don’t bother with the Lange hater; it’s retarded.

I always have to pause it after the part in Tootsie where Lange picks up a decorative corn cob thinking it's a telephone because I am laughing so hard, but that's probably more due to the way Dustin Hoffman in his Dorothy Michaels voice says the line, "That's a corn cob."

R34 I love her reaction when she falls back on the couch and pleads, “No, no - NO!” Her reaction was the pay off to his setup and it works marvelously.

Overreaching

Are you basing her comedic talent based on one minor performance from 1982? It’s strange how you are obsessed with her and post the same things over and over and over again.

It is definitely strange how, of all people, the poster who is obsessed with waxing rhapsodic about Arnie Hammer, Janet Jackson, and Faye Dunaway also gets his off by trashing Jessica Lange and creating threads about her to deride her work. Wasn’t he also the same poster that recently got FFed and blocked for calling violence on to trans people and for defending Dump?

What a sad, strange, odious little creature.

I think you are confused but go ahead and deflect. The Lange troll’s repetitive posts speak for themselves.

The loon that goes around making fun of Lange and accusing everyone of being “the Lange troll” has being doing so for years. He’s definitely a strange one.

Then it’s a small army of Lange loons saying the same BS over and over again. You can’t even admit it’s crazy.

I found the thread in which the loon had wished death upon “the Lange troll” and trans people. That particular post was R81 in the thread below; notice it has been deleted. He continued posting about “the Lange troll” in R83 and was FFed.

It was one of those weeks during which he became particularly unhinged, accusing every other poster of being “the Lange troll” to the point where Muriel had to step in.

Creepy.

R42 Jesus Christ. No wonder. That’s a Dump supporter for you.

I liked "How to Beat the High Cost of Living": all three leads are funny and they work well together. She's also in-on-the-joke funny as Dwan in "King Kong".

She's a bit camp. Her performance is Cape Fear is awfully breathy and SUL-try.

I love her in Cape Fear!! I love Cape Fear (only the remake tho)!

She was great in Tootsie and Crimes of the Heart. So yes she can do comedy.

Not laugh out loud, but she is good with being snarky, Love this scene in Coven where she dismisses Marie Laveau at the end of the haircut "I don't like it".

Jessica should do a buddy comedy with Viola Davis.

Her plastic surgery is certainly hilarious