Jessica Lange DISSES Helen Mirren's Husband!

This should have been a brilliant movie.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Debra winger didn’t like him either.

I guess Helen likes him, though.

I love Jessica for speaking her mind. No fucks left to give.

r4 "no fucks left to give" - wasn't that interview 30 years ago? what did I miss?

This was like 3 facelifts ago. She has no more loose skin to give.

I wonder if her badmouthing directors is what led Clint Eastwood to badmouth her.

I always loved Jessica but she's an absolute bitch which is why the roles dried up. Like Winger.

I love her but totally disagree with her about this film: I think it’s poignant, effective, and probably the best sports film out there.

Also, R6, I see so much surgery in this pic from 2019. Not a wrinkle in sight!

Jessica Lange has never cared. She's the Punk Rock to Saint Meryl of Streep's Easy Listening.

As one of her greatest fans notes:

How can you not love her for this?

Wasn't Dennis Quaid doing a lot of coke back then?

Why don't we just let Jessica Lange play ALL the parts and direct ALL the movies?

Bitch didn't even sound like me.

Lange was perfect as Farmer, and captured her timbre and every nuance of this sad interview perfectly.

I’ll always love Jessica for that, r12.

But she’d better watch her back. Yelena Mironova doesn’t play.

Taylor Hackford commented on Jessica's unhappiness with the film on the DVD director's audio commentary. He said that it was due to to the fact that he deleted a few scenes but overall her work is all there.

Jessica Lange has had a surprising amount of plastic surgery on her face. I think she does "care" about what people think of her. I can see doing an eye lift and a face lift "for herself." But she's gone further than that with the excessive Botox.

I do think she can actually act. I too was disappointed in her being cast in Sweet Dreams, though.

I don’t think Lange ever had surgery, though she did overuse Botox for a time. She’s showing a distinctly natural face in R9; one that is weathered from years of drinking and smoking, though still quite alluring and attractive.

IMO, the most obvious plastic surgery she's had is an eye lift and cheek implants.

R21 I could see maybe her having had an internal brow sculpt procedure, which “involves removing the excess upper eyelid and brow fat” but I don’t think she had a brow lift. Had she, she wouldn’t be able to frown as she does below.

As for cheek implants, did you see her face in R19? She doesn’t have the look. Her nasolabial folds are in tact, and the entire region is extremely wrinkly. Now, she has always had very high cheekbones and, with age, has gained some weight, making her cheeky.

Also, she’s 26 in that pic, which is nearly 50 years old, lol.

R13 Back then? He probably still is!

[quote] Jessica Lange has never cared. She's the Punk Rock to Saint Meryl of Streep's Easy Listening.

And what does that make me, soft rock?

And Taylor Hackford has no interest in working with that Lange cunt ever again.

fuck her

R24 M is classical music, J is a mix of jazz and punk rock, and you’re easy listening, G.

No, M is elevator muzak.

and even that's being kind

Taylor was actually very complimentary to Lange in the commentary for this film. He did say Chuck Berry was “impossible” to work with and called Russell Crowe “difficult.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if Quaid was dabbling in coke during this time (he certainly was while shooting “Postcards from the Edge”) but he is undeniably brilliant in this and should have been nominated, along with Lange and maybe even Goodman. It’s definitely his best performance.

I have never been so moved by a sports film and I’ve made a habit of watching it every few years. It really is both tragic and hopeful.

That scene when Quaid is out on the field in the snow and realizes “I’m too old for this shit” is just 😭

Bobbie had it right!

R27 G, please. Don’t sully my favorite peer’s name with your insults and fantasies.

[quote] I have never been so moved by a sports film

Jessica Lange said Hackford threw the entire film out the window

R30 As I said, I love her but she’s just being a bitch. Even she’s admitted there were times when she was “totally wrong” about a film, which she did with “Men Don’t Leave.” She confessed that she gave Brickman a hard time because she felt he was directing some of the scenes for laughs, but after seeing the finished film, it became one of her favorites and she conceded that she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. She said she also called Brickman up to apologize for being difficult. “Men Don’t Leave” is another underrated gem.

Nonetheless, she, Quaid, and Goodman are brilliant in this - a wonderfully moving and truthful film.

She's bitter because she quickly went from sexpot roles to playing a ricketly old football player.

R29 It's me Jess, not G, and just because I'm one of your favorite peers doesn't mean you're on of mine, cunt.

R32 You really know nothing about her, do you? She was attached to this script since the beginning, when Tommy Lee Jones was set to star and Michael Apted was going to direct. After they dropped out due to budgetary reasons - WB was not going for a $16 million price tag - Quaid and Hackford signed on a few years later. Hackford still wanted her in the pic, though, so she reluctantly stayed.

Lange is an admittedly moody, depressive, strongly opinionated, and mercurial creature, which I think makes her more intriguing and is an asset, not a liability.

[quote] The film also exposes the lingering lack of respect for casting directors among some helmers -- former DGA president Taylor Hackford says in Casting By that they don't merit Oscar recognition because "they don't direct anything"

He’s an asshole. Actors’ careers have been made because of astute casting and championing the correct person for a role.

[quote] Lange is an admittedly moody, depressive, strongly opinionated, and mercurial creature, which I think makes her more intriguing and is an asset, not a liability.

Maybe on screen, but not off screen.

Soft rock is easy to ignore.

This, along with her drinking, is why no one hires her. And it’s not her choice, literally no one hires her except Ryan Murphy.

R36 True, but she’s a good natured person overall, if a bit shy, timid, and solitary. Nonetheless, she’s managed to remain friends with many of her costars, including Charles Grodin, Jack Nicholson, Ed Harris and his wife Amy Madigan, Sissy Spacek, Diane Keaton, John Goodman (he worships her and they’ve done about five-six films together), Tommy Lee Jones (who is known to be difficult), Robert De Niro (who picked her first for “Marvin’s Room”), Nick Nolte, Anthony Hopkins, Kathy Bates (who considers her a great friend), Shirley MacLaine (who loved her and wrote extremely nice yet revealing things about her in her memoir covering the “Wild Oats” shoot), Drew Barrymore, and Susan Sarandon (who has been taking long walks with her since last year).

Lange is a salt of the earth type.

[quote]literally no one hires her except Ryan Murphy.

That's because he, and I use that pronoun in the strictest technical sense of the word, lives on martinis and cigarettes.

God, she’s ugly. I see she’s let wrinkles set in over that seriously surgically altered mug.

R38 Oh, cut the bullshit. She doesn’t want to work that much.

Louis C.K. - another admirer - wrote a part specifically for her in “Horace and Pete,” which was a brilliant miniseries and in which she was funny and sublime. Tarantino (who also loves her) wanted her for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...” but she backed out due to scheduling conflicts with her projects with Murphy, whom she chose to be loyal to.

She’s turned down some great roles because she just doesn’t care that much about working often. To a fan like me, it’s irritating but also somewhat beguiling. If she wanted to work - if she was hungry and ambitious enough - trust me, she would.

That’s why the bitch has under 50 credits in a career that has spanned nearly that long. If you look at her peers, they mostly all have filmographies twice as long.

I smell the stench of that pedophilic, transphobic, racist Lange hating loon.

Comparing so-called "tr-nsph-b--," a made-up pseudo-prejudice if ever there was one, to fucking child molesters is really misogynistic and homophobic, not to mention insulting to actual survivors of child abuse. Misogyny and homophobia actually are forms of prejudice.`

I don't care what anybody says, my favorite film of her's is How to Beat the High Cost of Living.

Have Jane Curtin or Susan Saint James ever commented on what it was like working with Lange?

R45 Chiiile... 😂

I wish I could find it quickly, but I distinctly remember an interview with one of the two in which they described her as “sweet” and made some joke about her being with Baryshnikov or Fosse all of the time.

[quote]Have Jane Curtin or Susan Saint James ever commented on what it was like working with Lange?

They commented by banning her from the set of [italic]Kate & Allie[/italic].

Oh, and she remained friends with all of her exes, even paying her first husband, who went blind, an undisclosed amount of alimony.

She’s a moron. Did she even read the script? It’s a movie about football, not some Tennessee Williams play. Sad old Jessica is always blaming others for her failures.

Poor Buffalo Bill at R49. It’s not happy.

It’s also the movie that killed her movie career. She was billed as the lead star and audiences were completely disinterested. She literally looks haggard in the film. No wonder she is so bitter. Oh well, Louis CK likes her.

The irony of you calling [italic]anyone[/italic] bitter, R51, is staggering.

She’s always been the same actress and does that weepy, throat coddling soliloquy very well but when did she turn wicked? When her looks faded and after her first butchering? Years ago now.

JL refused to promote "Everybody's All American" after she saw it in previews. She was devastated after seeing that many pivotal scenes she had shot didn't make the final cut and were replaced with more football scenes and more male bonding scenes. She should have just gone along and helped make the movie a success. But Lange was never one to hold her tongue.

Yes r45.

I remember Susan Saint James on an old episode of Bob Costas' Later show I found somewhere.

She jokes a lot about Lange. She said she and Curtin thought she was just too vulnerable and fragile for show business. She had just had a baby with Baryshnikov I think and Susan said she and Jane were encouraging her to go off and live a peaceful life with him and their kid and their "big Russian dogs."

She joked how then like 2 years later Lange was a double Oscar nominee and she and Curtin were like I guess we were wrong about her !

R51 Such bs. The woman got another Oscar nom the year after EAA and won her second 6 years later. Jessica would’ve entered the over 40 stage of her film career with or without EAA anyway, and the trajectory would’ve been the same. She was moving more towards stage work anyway in the 1990s. I think she’s fulfilled any career goals she has with 2 Oscars, 3 Emmys and a Tony and she’s happy now to work when she wants to.

Thanks for the update Jessica’s imaginary friend.

How come nobody ever has imaginary enemies?

What did Clint Eastwood say about her?

She and Meryl both hit a slow period in the early 90s. Streep dealt with it be broadening her range to comedies and even an action film (The River Wild.)

Lange did seem to struggle more than Streep and never did really regain the film career Streep or even Glenn have had. (she did always seem less ambitious, always talking about retiring etc. She probably wasn't as driven as Meryl and Glenn. )

Plus she was bad box office and bad mouthed directors. That may have had something to do with it. But I’m sure Jessica’s imaginary friend will chime in.

What did she do, bring up [italic]Paint Your Wagon[/italic]?

R59 Clint hated her histrionic acting in Frances. I think she’s brilliant in it. But I’m unsure that’s the word he used to describe it.

Clint tried fucking her and she said no.

I don’t think Eastwood ever met with her. He wanted a real star, not some slouch in a hotel chair who would throw him under the bus when she got bad reviews.

I can’t help myself...

[bold]Tootsie[/bold]: Lange is effervescent here, displaying an aching subtlety and bittersweet melancholy that grounds the film, giving a rare poignancy to what is essentially a slapstick, though extremely witty, comedy. Her performance elicits autonomous sensory meridian responses to the max. I love that she won the Oscar for her brilliantly understated work in this, which compliments and highlights her win for her brilliant performance in Blue Sky quite nicely.

[bold]Frances[/bold]: In one of the best performances in cinema history, Lange reaches Olympian heights as a troubled star would-be serious thespian, her mercurial visage flickering from quiet melancholy and sardonic contempt to white-hot fury and, finally, pained, darkened hope trapped in a void. A shattering performance.

[bold]Country[/bold]: Lange's work here, in arguably the superior and grittiest of the "80s farm films," carries all of the weight of an Andrew Wyeth painting: she is both graceful and severe; luminous and haunting; tender and brittle; fragile and steadfast. She exhibits a simplicity and naturalness that is effortless, beguiling and, ultimately, galvanizing.

[bold]Sweet Dreams[/bold]: From spitfire beginning to explosive - literally - end, Lange's performance is infused with an infectious exuberance and joie de vivre that is measured and composed by Patsy Cline's own peerless voice rather than by a valiant attempt at imitation or interpretation; this is perhaps the greatest honor one could pay Cline, who no one could sing like. Lange, with the help of the equally brilliant Ed Harris and Ann Wedgeworth, who both, dare I say, make her work possible, channels Cline's ephemeral electric essence like a live wire. As Pauline Kael, wrote, “When Lange's Patsy slings her strong young body around she gives off a charge. Lange has real authority here, and the performance holds you emotionally. This is one of the few times I've seen people cry at a movie that wasn't sentimental--it's an honest tearjerker. People can cry without feeling they've been had.”

[bold]Music Box[/bold]: One of my favorite performances of Lange's and one of Costa Gavras’ most underrated films. Both the film and her performance leave me dumbstruck and speechless. Kael said it best when she wrote of Lange's work here: "What counts is the Old World, New World texture that Jessica Lange brings to toughness. Her beautiful throatiness counts. She has the will and the technique to take a role that's really no more than a function of melodrama and turn this movie into a cello concerto." Her descent into the embodiment of Dieric Bouts's Weeping Madonna painting is both profound and cathartic.

[bold]Blue Sky[/bold]: What Lange does with what is, perhaps, my favorite of her performances is utterly riveting, transcendent, and nearly peerless. You would have to go back to the stars and thespians of a bygone era - a few of which she purposefully emulates in the film - like Monroe, Taylor, Bardot, and Leigh, to get a performance as simultaneously sexy, vital, potent, beguiling, authentic, melodramatic, volatile, and succulent as Lange’s is in this film. It still astonishes me that she managed to go from the drab, dowdy, albeit genius, work of something like Men Don't Leave to this: something so iridescent, intoxicating, and brilliant. It thrills me that she won not only the Oscar but LAFCA for this. It's a performance that is equal parts depressing, heartbreaking, infuriating, and uplifting.

I would have also nominated her for Best Actress in [bold]The Postman Always Rings Twice[/bold], [bold]Men Don't Leave[/bold], [bold]Everybody's All-American[/bold], and [bold]Losing Isaiah[/bold], and Best Supporting Actress for [bold]Crimes of the Heart[/bold], [bold]Cape Fear[/bold], [bold]Rob Roy [/bold], given her the win in this category for [bold]Titus[/bold], and nominated her again for [bold]Prozac Nation[/bold], [bold]Big Fish[/bold], and [bold]Don't Come Knocking[/bold].

Such raw, captivating, delicious work!

[quote] Asked to identify directors she has enjoyed working with, Lange cites Sydney Pollack, Bob Rafelson, Paul Brickman and her husband. She also loved working with Costa-Gavras because he was “so intelligent.” This is not a characteristic she ascribes to Taylor Hackford, who directed the inane Everybody’s All-American, the only movie in recent years that can seriously compete with Silverado for sheer volume of cinematic cliches.

[quote] “I despise that film,” says Lange, curling her lips with the Jack Palance-like venom she displays in Crimes of the Heart and Music Box once she really gets riled up. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

[quote] For those of you who got to the video store and found all 36 copies of the film rented for the weekend, Everybody’s All-American is a churning, hokey Cuisinart clunker about the travails of a once-famous LSU football player and his ex-Magnolia Queen wife. Lange says that she loved the original script, which answered the question: “What do you do for the rest of your life when you’ve peaked at 19 or 20?”

[quote] “It asked you: what is the basis of their love?” says Lange. “It was a great love story. But Taylor just didn’t get it. He somehow thought it was a football movie. I wouldn’t have taken the role if I thought it would end up like that. I’m not about to do a supporting role in The Knute Rockne Story.” She hesitates, then gets back in the cockpit. “It’s just a stupid film. I was up in New York doing one of those press blitzes, and when I saw it I was so infuriated that I went back home the same night. I’d been writing letters and notes to Taylor for months, but he cut out the underbelly of the story.” She eventually calms down. “It was just a poorly made film by a mediocre director.”

She also loved working with Karel Reisz.

[quote]Country: Lange's work here, in arguably the superior and grittiest of the "80s farm films," carries all of the weight of an Andrew Wyeth painting: she is both graceful and severe; luminous and haunting; tender and brittle; fragile and steadfast. She exhibits a simplicity and naturalness that is effortless, beguiling and, ultimately, galvanizing.

The biggest problem with that movie is that it expects you to care about the plight of the same corn farmers who were busy enabling the obesity epidemic that was already starting when the film was made. At least we got to see Sam Shepard shirtless.

[quote] Lange admits that Crimes of the Heart was in trouble from the word go.. “I had difficulties with Beresford,” she says. “He didn’t give us any direction. I suggested when we were in so-called ‘rehearsals,’ that if we could just establish the relationship these three sisters had between them already that we’d be so far ahead in the story. It occurred to me that we might do that with improvisation. I suggested that to Beresford, and he said, ‘I once knew an actor in Australia who liked to get prepared for a role by dressing up in a clown suit. I never could understand that.’ “Lange sits back and sighs. “So he thought improvising was getting dressed up in a clown suit. We were out there all alone.”

R59, Lange has said before that when the roles dried up she figured, "Well, that's it! I'm done," and packed her bags and retreated to her cabin in the woods. I think her split with Sam Shepard spurred her to return to acting. He didn't want her to work after all.

Streep, in contrast, when her career hit a snag and she lost "Remains of the Day" to Emma Thompson, she fired her team and hired a new agent, a new publicists, etc., and rebranded herself "The Greatest Living Actress." And it worked. She went on to be a top box office draw and nabbed a dozen more Oscar nominations. And she plays the Hollywood game, while Lange has been dismissive of it.

Hackford is not much of a name for a director.

No one cares about her old rotten movies.

She's not a supporting actress in Crimes of the Heart. They are all lead. Don't know why she hates that film. I thought the three of them were pretty good together. (Maybe jealous that Spacek got the nomination when she had what was considered the best role when it was on stage.)

Remember when she was going to quit acting and become a falconer and the DL reaction to her announcement. Ah. Those were good times.

[quote] Lange is not especially generous when it comes to fellow actresses. “You see good movies–Sea of Love, The Fabulous Baker Boys–and they’re well made, well acted, but there’s nothing to them. It’s all about mundane relationships; there’s nothing very profound about them. It’s slick, but so what? The story doesn’t stick with you, the characters don’t stick with you, the movie doesn’t stick with you.”

[quote] She also wonders why the women in Dangerous Liaisons got all the good ink, while John Malkovich got dumped on for his idiosyncratic performance as an almost simian 18th century fop. “I thought Malkovich was brilliant; I thought Malkovich dominated the entire film. I was stunned that Malkovich didn’t get honored for his performance.” She pauses. “Is my perception so far out of the mainstream?”

yikes she seems to have a thing against Michelle Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer did sort of take her place as the hot blonde. Wonder how they got along when they worked together.

R76 You make no sense and prove it yourself by mentioning that they worked together. She loved working with Pfeiffer, by the way

As for the quotes at R75, the worst parts are the writer’s conjecture.

Here are Lange, Pfeiffer, and Kidman chatting it up in 2017.

r77=the Lange loon surfaces!!!!

[quote] Debra winger didn’t like him either.

Honey, nobody likes Debra Winger. She’s as crazy as Faye.

I thought Jessica was pissed at Michelle take the role of Cheri, a film she had been trying to make for years.

R78 = the pedophilic, transphobic, and racist Lange hating psycho who has emerged from the subterranean depths of whatever bowels it has invaded, infested, and currently calls home, in order to foam at the mouth about Lange’s “sexy horny breathy ways” and accuse anyone who shares even the tiniest bit of admiration for her a loon.

How predictable.

If she only wants to work for directors/producers who budget for and support improvisation, she should put that in her contract. "Crimes of the Heart" had a great cast, good script, and Lange gave one of her best performances, so Beresford's belief that the skilled actors and writing overrode the need to improvise proved to be correct in that case.

And for me, "The Fabulous Baker Boys" is a much more memorable movie than the gimrack "Music Box".

At least Ms. Lange doesn’t insult critics who do their job by critiquing her work or talk about who should and shouldn’t have won an Oscar.

Jesus Christ another Jessica Lange thread.

I've only seen Hush, Losing Isaiah, and that car movie with Bates and what's her name where Lange looked hideous.

She sucked in all three.

I really liked her in Sweet Dreams......most of her other performances make me want to scream and claw my face.

[quote] I've only seen Hush, Losing Isaiah, and that car movie with Bates

Then do kindly shut the fuck up.

Meryl on Jess in Sweet Dreams.

And, of course, the moment at 4:03 in this clip is always delicious to rewatch. God, I love Meryl and her love for Jess.

At the same time as she disses Hackford, she praises her drunk husband Sam Shepard as a director, and most people who worked with him described it as a brutal experience.

I don't think women like Jessica all that much and that's why she was box-office poison and why her film career fizzled out. Women usually don't like pretty women who are neurotic.

"Everybody's All-American" was a better than average book and a less than average movie.

As Lange said in a quote above she thought the movie was about "How do you live when you have peaked at 19 or 20". IMPO, this is what the book was about.

Jessica needs to put down the bottle and shut up.

It’s nice that Meryl is a cheerleader for mean Jessica when no one else is. Shows real generosity.

I remember watching Blue Sky being repulsed by her nipples in r65. Look at that mottled tan line!

Jess and Sue talking one of many walks together while helping out people in need.

R93 You forgot me, love.

Meryl's career didn't really go down the shitter in the 90s as some argue. Postcards From The Edge was a hit and got her an Oscar nom.

Defending Your Life is 97% on RT

Death Becomes Her and The River Wild were box office hits, scored her a Globe nomination for each.

The Bridges Of Madison County was both a hit and an Oscar nom.

The only disaster was The House Of The Spirits, with Glenn.

Marvin's Room was acclaimed and didn't flop

Pauline "Keel" over at R65 is the Lange Loon AND The Tori Amos Troll.

Says shit like "My mind unraveled like a maypole today"...

Good grief!

Jessica Lange is my favorite actress but this melodramatic loopity-loo makes me want to wretch!

I saw an interview with Evan Peters where he said his favorite from AHS was Sarah Paulson, because she was so warm and friendly.

Sarah Paulson got her big break because of Jessica Lange.

It’s sad Jessica is so mean and all alone.

Aw, Stevie loves her too! How utterly delicious.

How much did you get to dig into the role?

[quote]Well, I did these scenes with Jessica [Lange], and I got to really watch an amazing actress act. Because, you know, we’d do something, I’d play piano and then be like, “Well, that was great – we’re done!” Nope. Fifty times later, after they’d filmed from under the piano and hanging from the ceiling and every possible angle, I realize, boy, this is a lot of work. This is much harder than what I do. I get on, I’m on for two and a half hours, I get off stage, I get on the plane and go to the next city and order room service. This is not like that.

[quote] “My favorite thing of all time is those scenes with Jessica Lange,” she says.

[quote] Meryl's career didn't really go down the shitter in the 90s as some argue.

It was the years between "Postcards from the Edge" and "The Bridges of Madison County" when Meryl's career was in the tank

In those years she made "The House of the Spirits" & "Death Becomes Her" & "The River Wild"

Only the River Wild was a critical and box office hit. While "Death Becomes Her" made money, the movie was panned by critics.

R104 it made money and is easily one of her most famous roles. It's got a reevaluation in recent years.

R105 but at the time it caused damage to her image because it was panned by crtitics

Isn't it curious that Lange keeps on working with the Empress of Camp ,Ryan Murphy, time and time again. AHS and almost anything Murphy touches becomes a total shitstorm. Mind you Lange was decent in most of her work with him but that was in spite of Murphy's Involvement.

"Clint hated her histrionic acting in Frances."

Well, I hated Sean Penn's histrionic acting and Tim Robbins somnambulist acting in the grossly overrated MYSTIC RIVER.

I agree with R105: Death Becomes her may have been panned by some critics, but it made money and is considered classic now. Meryl did - as did most actresses her age - go through a slump, though. However, I didn’t know anything about these sweeping firings or the rebranding.

Jessica and Meryl are my favorites, though - they’re the only bitches I would travel substantial miles for to see them in a supporting performance in a limited release 😂 - so I don’t really give a fuck when they’re bitchy!

Taylor Hackford's career is mostly enjoyable, disposable commercial stuff, but I do commend him on DOLORES CLAIBORNE which is very good. Plus he did give Mirren her first successful commercial movie in WHITE NIGHTS (even if her role is supporting), so can't fault him there.

I run hot and cold on Lange but she has a sensuality that Streep and Close don't have. Her films tend to work better when she has a specific type of leading man though - Ed Harris and Tommie Lee Jones were great matches for her. Jack Nicholson was not. And when she has a more low-key type of actor as a costar (someone like her ex Sam Shepard or David Strathairn), they tend to almost fade into the woodwork.

R107 It’s not so curious or mysterious. He was writing parts for her, paying her top dollar, and even making production decisions based on her schedule and locale of choice. Coven shot in New Orleans because Lange wanted live there for a few months (she has a house there).

R110 She was exquisite in Music Box and Men Don’t Leave without having sensuality or a leading man at her disposal.

In my waiter days she’d come in. She was nice - not chatty but knew we were thrilled. Tipped well. Sam shep came in once or twice with her. He had rat eyes but handsome. He caused a bigger reaction with the customers than Jessica. So this post is really nothing but there you have it. Oh. Pretty girl, maybe some work done. The 90’s.

How does she feel about Bette Midler?

they both turned down Misery so they have that in common r114

Why would pretty Jessica Lange ever be considered for Annie Wilkes? Those Disney execs must have been on acid.

They could have uglified her like they did to Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman etc.

A bad wig, ugly clothes like Bates wore. Bad makeup. Could have been a great role for Lange. Bates was a bit cartoonish.

Yeah do you all remember the bizarre interview with Michelle Johnson on Australian tv where she reminisced working with Meryl during death becomes her. She mentioned that she said how wonderful it must be to be meryl and have so much job security and jobs lined up. Meryl confided to her that it was not what it seemed, implying she was not so secure with jobs at the time.

Steep was conned out of The Remains Of The Day, where she would have been a much more age-appropriate Miss Kenyon than 33 yo Emma "English period drama" Thompson.

R119 How was she “conned out of” the film? Serious question.

She was cast in the part alongside Jeremy Irons and directed by Mike Nicholls.

The production fell apart but neither her team nor Nicholls told her til she found out through the grapevine. By which point the option had been picked up by Merchant & Ivory.

That's why she fired her agent and got better representation.

Being suddenly dropped from The Remains Of The Day also led to Meryl hastily signing on to one of her worst choices, The House Of The Spirits

LOL....she doesn't make many films because she's 72 years old and Hollywood doesn't really have many roles for actresses over the age of about 45.

Unless they want to play Spiderman's Aunt Bessie.

R121 Did she admit to firing her agent for that reason?

R116 She wasn't considered for the role of Annie Wilkes. Lange like a number of actresses wanted the role but Rob Reiner had his mind set on Kathy Bates from the go-get.

Pretty the same with Frances. Graeme Clifford wanted Lange and whilst he did audition a who's who of Hollywood stars at the time he had his heart firmly set with Lange from the go-get.

R124 she didn't really speak much about it aside from saying she felt very let down and deceived.

R126 Damn. I knew nothing about this. Is it true that she fired her “team,” too?

No r125 Bette Midler has said she was offered the role and turned it down.

[quote] No fucks left to give.

People who say this should be set alight

R129 People who write “should be set alight” should be kissed like so:

What a shit-show Misery would have been if Midler had starred in that with James Can. But at least we might have been spared For the Boys, as they probably wouldn't have worked together again.

Bates was perfect, and it was her entree to substantial roles in big-budget films.

R132 Bette DID do Misery!

R132 😂

I love that fucking video.

Bitch.

We can’t ever forget about Alex’s crush on Ms. Lange. He’s brought it up a few times again while promoting “Godzilla vs. Kong.”

^ Oh Alex, how straight you aren't.

Oscar Isaac, too.

Such fervent fanboys!

Even Madonna loves her.

And, of course, Ms. Bacall:

[quote] Q: Who’s on your list of current-day great actresses?

[quote]A: It’s a short list. I love Jessica Lange, always been a fan of hers. Annette Bening. And Kate Winslet. She’s always been good, even in those early movies in England.

[quote]“Men Don’t Leave” is another underrated gem.

She was fantastic in this film, and I agree that it is underrated.

And Swanky:

[quote] HILARY: When I was asked who I wanted to do this with, you’re the first person that came boldly into my head, because you are so bold in all of the things that you do. You are a brilliant movie actress, a brilliant theater actress, you do television...you do it all, and not everyone can. JESSICA: I'm so honored! And in response to that, the thing that I've always loved about your work is your truthfulness, which, to me, is the most important thing as an actor. HILARY: Coming from you, that’s an extraordinary compliment. JESSICA: And also, you are brave. That is the other element for me that defines great acting.

R142 BLOCKED

[quote] However, I didn’t know anything about these sweeping firings or the rebranding.

It had to do with losing "Remains of the Day" to Emma Thompson - at that time Howard's End wasn't even released so there was no buzz to her performance in that film. All Meryl knew was that she lost a part to Kenneth Branagh then-wife. So it was the ultimate humiliation

I mean this is MERYL STREEP who doesn't lose parts to anyone.

So heads went on the chopping block.

R144 Yikes.

Chastain has always been a big fan too.

R139 who gives a shit what Bacall thinks? She was not a star in her own right

#langeloon

Lange Loon's mind unraveled like a maypole today!

She then fingered herself to Precious Things by Tori Amos while watching Jessica Lange in Titus (I pronounced it TIT-US) for fun.

Love ya, Lange Loon/Tori Amos Troll!

I wonder how Lange feels about Sarandon's Bernie support

Matt the Fetid is back with his conspiracy theory - one of many he’s tortured by - that Lange has only one fan on DL. How sad.

Matt, I’m sure there is a Mia Farrow thread you can invade and harass in defense of Woody Allen. Or, perhaps, some more racism and transphobia you can spew and jerk off to. Shoo, now, my delicate, odious creature.

R150 I’m thinking she voted for Bernie too. After being a longtime Clinton supporter, she low-key campaigned and voted for Obama.

Meryl worships.

Hackford's film Ray was dreadful. A strictly by the numbers in every sense of the word biopic that was unoriginal, cliched, repetitious, one note and at its 21/2 hour length punishing.

R154 You have to admit, though: Foxx was stunning.

I'll take Mirren over Lange.

Lange's films aren't that good.

Like her TV work much better.

Fuck that shit. I take Lange over Mirren in a heartbeat.

And I am not even the Lange Loon! I hate the Lange Loon!

Lange all the way...

Music Box, Sweet Dreams, Frances, Men Don't Leave, Country- No Contest,

All of those films are bad. You need to stop beating a dead horse.

Yeah but would take who in a fistfight?

R158. You are the AntiLange Troll.

There are 2 fuckers that I hate.

The Lange Loon

The Anti Lange Loon.

And the Anti Jamie Lee Curtis Troll from the Halloween Threads (that cunt)

R158 Actually, they’re not. Your tastes are just, shall we say, limited.

R161- R158 could only sit through Cape Fear.

Love Cape Fear, but you know where I am getting, R161.

It’s not a secret, Jessica’s old films are awful.

R160 I’m finding you a little bit adorable, toots. Who knew?

R162 So you admittedly love Cape fear but only R158 - R161 could sit through it?

I’ll take Lange over Mirren, Close, and even me!

R166 I will also take Lange over you.

Bitch, I just [italic]got it[/italic], R162. 😂

Probably not even that.

R164 is the LANGE LOON!!!!! And she of course has fallen in love with me because I am irresistible!!

Get away from me!!!! :)

R162- Come on. Cape Fear was Lange's most mainstream film that she ever did- My point was very clear.

R158 watches Transformers and Godzilla and fingers himself.

Country and Men Don't Leave are extremely fine films.

R169 You conceited little slit...

No, they are not. No one recognizes them as good films except her demented fans that pick fights with people.

R171 That’s because most people love her and her performances [italic]first[/italic] and that’s what they choose to fawn over and talk about. She’s not a film director, dear.

P.S. The real “demented fans” are those who hate but can’t stop talking about her while trying to convince someone - [italic]anyone[/italic]! - that she has no fans and that no one admires her despite the preponderance of evidence out there and even presented in this thread.

Lawson could cut any of these bitches.

Lange is the queen.

Despite me loathing R170- The LANGE LOON/Tori Amos troll.

I have to say that no actress touches her. And christ, I feel the same about Tori.

Lange Loon- how DARE you assault me with Lange's luscious melons! Slurp! Slurp!

R175 oh hell no. What kind of psyop is this?!

When I was 7 in 1984, I literally watched Country on HBO EVERY DAY that summer.

I understood it as well then, as I do now.

Amazing film. Unknown by many.

One of my favorites. In my top 30.

Jessica has principles and standards- and to film THAT film in her early-mid 30's??

Class.

Great film and highly recommended if you want to see what farmers face.

May have been 85- Some summer in the mid 80's- It was on HBO all the time.

R177 That’s too cute. I had the same sort of thing happen to me with Sweet Dreams in around 88/89.

Ha R179- They say our subconscious minds are open until the age 7 or so...

I knew that I was watching some REAL shit.

Country resonated to me and resonates now in my 40's!

Love Sweet Dreams too!!

R180 Well, Country is just a well made film, which handles the farm crisis in a gritty and unsentimental manner. Plenty of critics agreed, too. The score by George Winston is beautiful.

My connection with Sweet Dreams was the music and the domestic abuse, which I was a victim of. Of course, at the time, I was not aware of any of that.

Incidentally, regarding George Winston, I found out years later that he is Tori Amos’ favorite pianist and really got into his work after. His “Winter into Spring” album is sublime.

Of course Jessica repeats her usual response when asked about this latest example of her habitual beverage choice.

She says, "I never said that."

And when she is presented with the evidence, she says, "That's not me."

Unless it's after 10 AM. Then she says, "I neffer shed that" and "Thatsh not me" and tries to frown.

Being a drunk turned her wicked. Like Dorinda and Ellen too.

We love our lovable drunk!

Hackford is an absolute bastard. He chewed out Patti LuPone on set of The Comedian and the only reason she didn’t kick him in the balls was because Robert DeNiro was on set, too.

I heard Hackford wanted Winger’s nipples to be more prominent, even suggesting the application of ice, and she balked and hated him from then on.

Yes, R185. Miss Lupone is so well known for her restraint and carefulness.

Too adorable.

I love the new fans most.

I just checked her IMDb. Does she only come out of retirement for Ryan Murphy? Wild Oats was her last non-Murphy project. Yikes.

Sweet Dreams is one of my favorite movies ever. I’ve seen it countless times. I also love Men Don’t Leave. The only thing I didn’t like her in was Crimes of the Heart, but she wasn’t as bad in that as Diane Keaton, who I wanted to strangle by the end.

Crimes Of The Fart

Noted film critic Roger Ebert gave Sweet Dreams two out of four stars, writing:

There isn't the sense of a well-shaped structure in this movie; there's no clear idea of what the filmmakers thought about Patsy Cline, or what thoughts her life is supposed to inspire. Metacritic gave the film a 65 rating.

I’ve always loved this retrospective review:

[quote] Describing Jessica Lange’s portrait of late music legend Patsy Cline in 1985’s “Sweet Dreams” as underappreciated seems an odd task, or perhaps an unnecessary one. After all, reviewers at the time raved about the actor’s vivid transformation into the forceful country singer; she came in second place for female acting honors with the National Board of Review and the National Society of Film Critics; and Lange received an Academy Award nomination as best actress (sentimental favorite Geraldine Page took home the trophy for “The Trip to Bountiful”).

[quote]Yet Lange’s lusty performance—and the entire film itself—seems to exist in the mountainous shadow cast by 1980’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” the entertaining biopic of another country singer (and pal of Cline’s), Loretta Lynn. It’s a shame; despite the Nashville setting, the films are markedly different than viewers might remember. For all its charms—most notably Sissy Spacek’s indelible performance—“Coal Miner’s Daughter” is ultimately a rather conventional rags-to-riches show business saga that details the pitfalls that accompany fame. Cline’s short but extraordinary career, however, isn’t the central theme of “Sweet Dreams.” Director Karel Reisz (“The French Lieutenant’s Woman”) and screenwriter Robert Getchell (“Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”) have something else in mind. Their film is foremost a torrid love story, an incisive examination of a union between two temperamentally well-matched protagonists—Cline and her swaggering second husband, Charlie Dick (Ed Harris, equally sensational)—who are never happier than when raging war with one another.

[quote]We’re first introduced to Cline when Lange, earthy and resplendent in a curly dark wig and a homemade cowgirl costume, sashays onto the stage of a saloon to croon one of the singer’s signature tunes. Although Lange doesn’t do her own singing, she proves adept at not only lip-synching but transforming her usually soft speaking voice to match Cline’s distinctive growl. There’s no disconnect between actor and character; we never doubt that Lange’s Cline is a woman capable of belting out those hard-luck songs.

[quote]By 1985, Lange had overcome some hard luck of her own after being unfairly confused with her dim blond character in the 1976 “King Kong.” At the time she made “Sweet Dreams,” she was in the midst of one of the most impressive career resurgences in cinema history, having stunned moviegoers and critics alike with a series of films in which she seemed to instinctively inhabit a range of vastly different characters, from a reckless movie star in the harrowing “Frances” to an ethereal soap opera ingénue in “Tootsie” to a stalwart farm wife in the ripped-from-the-headlines drama “Country.”

[quote]“Sweet Dreams,” however, gave Lange the opportunity to play more quiet and subtle moments. There’s a particularly telling scene near the beginning of the film in which Lange effortlessly conveys the complexity of Patsy with a simple sideways glance. After Patsy rebuffs a pass from Charlie, he kicks her table and leaves with a vulgar insult. Without uttering a word, Lange lets us know that she’s finally met an opponent who can keep up with her, and that Cline can more than hold her own with any man who crosses her path.

[quote]Later in the film, a record producer thinks he understands Cline. “You want to be Kitty Wells, don’t you?” he asks. “Hell no,” Lange shoots back. “I want to be Hank Williams!”

[quote]Pauline Kael famously championed the film and pushed for Lange to receive best actress honors at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. If that’s not validation enough, Meryl Streep (who received her first best actress Oscar nomination for “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”) has revealed in interviews that she considers Cline to be the role she most coveted. But, she added, “I couldn’t imagine doing it as well or even coming close to what Jessica did, because she was so amazing in it.”

Titus was a box office bomb, earning only $22,313 on its opening weekend due to its limited release in only two theaters, ranking number 57 in the box office.Its widest release in the US was only in 35 theaters, causing the film to earn only $2,007,290 in North America. Overseas, the film grossed $252,390 in Chile, Mexico, and Spain, culminating in a worldwide total of $2,920,616.

Men Don’t Leave was unsuccessful at the box office, grossing just over $6 million in the US on a $7 million budget.

I don't believe that Lange liked working with Quaid at all in Everybody's All American..

I know that I read an interview once (or watched one) where she said it was "the wrong director and the film had bad chemistry between the actors)

And based on that awesome interview above, Lange almost cringes when the interviewer asks her if she has spoke with Quaid about what he thinks of the film.

I love her. She barely capable of not saying what she feels. Cool lady.

For Hush, Jessica Lange earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress, losing to the Spice Girls for Spice World.

I love that Meryl and Jessica were the first Best Supporting Actress Oscar winners to win Best Lead Actress Oscars. Cate Blanchett accomplished this 20 years after Lange.

Will Viola be the fourth Best Supporting Actress winner to wear such an esteemed crown?

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was even more critical of Music Box, doubting it existed for any purpose other than to get Jessica Lange an Oscar nomination, bluntly stating "real-life tragedy has been used to hype cheap melodrama. It's more than offensive; it's vile.”

Well, Lange Loon is offline and cuddling and kissing her Jessica Lange voodoo doll and AntiLange Loon Troll is fingering herself feverishly while googling all of Ms. Lange's crappy box office returns and critical reviews, while somehow eating Cheetos.

Thank you R201- keep us updated on what else you find?

And numb-nuts, did you really think that Men Don't Leave was EVER intended to be a box office smash? Or Titus??

Her movies are ROTTEN!

Pauline Kael:

[quote] When the cast and the script are right for Costa-Gavras--as they are here--he can give a courtroom melodrama the pull and excitement of a thriller. Lange verges on the astounding. Costa-Gavras provides a low key, controlled atmosphere, and she fills it with passion. The final plot developments feel fake, but this is an unusually lucid piece of storytelling.

She also wrote:

[quote] Jessica Lange is the Chicago lawyer defending her retired steelworker father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) against deportation to Hungary, where the Communist government is waiting to try him for war crimes. The emotional core of the movie is that during the trial, as the Second World War victims give their accounts, the daughter begins to lose faith in her father's innocence. There are no flashbacks; there's no shock apparatus. We simply take in what they're saying, and we watch her take it in. Everyone I know wishes we could see Lange in more fluffy-blonde comedy roles. (We long for another Tootsie.) But she has been developing a deeper range. She verges on the astounding. Lange is one of those star performers--Diane Keaton is another--whose characters don't necessarily come on as stars. Ann Talbot is a brunette in plain business suits, and her being slightly worn makes her beauty more accessible. Her curly hair suggests a bad perm; it sticks out in funny ways and has no shine, no highlights. (It's as if there were no hairdresser on the set.) Ann is a busy woman with other things to think about, and we get to see the workings of her mind. The competitive smartness of the opposing lawyers is always part of the drama of good courtroom movies, and Ann . . . springs traps with crisp efficiency.

[quote] What counts is the Old World, New World texture that Jessica Lange brings to toughness. Her beautiful throatiness counts. She has the will and the technique to take a role that's really no more than a function of melodrama and turn this movie into a cello concerto."

Even critic Stanley Kauffmann, who was as brutally critical of Lange as Kael was of Streep, loved Lange in “Music Box,” calling her “perfect” in the film.

R203- Anti Lange Loony Tune Troll OR possibly, Meryl Streep who has taken her morning truth serum (Chardonnay)

I don’t think anyone is claiming Jessica’s old films are good. They are in fact pretty bad and never mentioned, apart from All That Jazz and Tootsie. She had better success on cable television.

There was a time when movies were made for the sake of making movies--telling a good story and displaying the artistry involved in telling that story. Going back and looking at box office receipts is pointless. Lange was never a box office star and she is well aware of this. She didn't set out to make summer blockbusters. She chose small, character-driven stories instead.

R205 Meryl loves Jess. There is too much evidence - 30 + years worth - to dispute that. No, the Anti Lange Loon’s fervency betrays its envy of or, perhaps, subconscious love for Lange.

In either case, the fact that Lange’s film work has amounted to a string of box office failures with lukewarm critical reception - save for her performances, which have always received their fair share of rapturous notices - is a testament to her talent and, to quote from Paris is Burning, [bold]POWAH[/bold].

She has won pretty much everything, after all. Often more than twice over.

Interview with Bruce Beresford in which he clarified he had no issue with Jessica when it came to the casting of The Bridges of Madison County. Has anyone read his book? He apparently loved working with Jane Fonda.

His filmography is interesting...a few gems but a lot of duds.

I love many of Beresford's movies through "Crimes and the Heart" and "The Fringe Dwellers". He and fellow Australians Gillian Armstrong and Fred Schepisi had good runs, then sadly petered out. But even his lousy films are usually well acted.

Queen has a Jessica Lange (as Fiona Goode) portrait in the background, slightly covering a Madonna life size cutout.

And the fans have taken note! (See tweet reply below.)

Costa-Gavras regrets most of this English language film with the exception of Missing. I'm inclined to agree with him.

Hanna K., Betrayal, Music Box & Mad City were made strictly for the pay check. Disposable garbage cinema.

R214 And yet, he loved working with Lange, and asked her to present him with his award at the Deauville Film Festival years later.

So R200 what am I, chopped liver?