[IMG:L]When FX decided it was high time to feature a female version of the complex, compelling, and sometimes unlikable characters along the lines of the cable net’s signature antiheroes like The Shield’s Vic Mackey or Rescue Me’s Tommy Gavin, they went straight to the top of the list of actresses who specialize in complicated and troublesome women.
Glenn Close’s remarkable resume on film, stage, and made-for-television productions (her mantle includes Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe awards and she been nominated for five Oscars) might suggest the actress was out of range for a role on an ongoing series. But FX execs had already lured Close onto one season of The Shield in 2005, so when they were looking for a leading lady to play Damages’ Patty Hewes, the high-powered New York attorney with a drive to win that sends her into some shadowy moral territory, she was the first and only actress they went running to.
And Close said yes.
“I have always been seduced by really good writing,” said Close. “Very early on in my career, I made the decision to go where the writing was at a time when I was told, after doing The World According to Garp, if I did anything on television, it might really affect my career in film. And it just didn’t make sense to me. I kept thinking, well, if the English can do it, why can’t we do it? So that’s basically how I have made my choices–is what I read on the page. To have the chance to do a show like this with this incredibly complex character and be and make it in my own backyard was pretty exciting.”
Hollywood.com: What’s been challenging with a regular television schedule, as opposed to the film schedule you usually follow?
Glenn Close: The scary thing for me is wondering if I’ve come up with the most interesting thing–because it is so fast. You get very tired at the end of the day too. You’ve done like eight pages and you come to a scene that’s just as important as all the other scenes and you just have to keep yourself up. Part of the exercises that I’m learning is to keep yourself awake and with it, enough to do justice to what’s on the page. I think that it becomes a physical proposition.
HW: What is your life in New York like?
GC: Well, I have a wonderful husband who’s not in the business and I have a daughter who’s going to college. She just finished her freshman year at a college in New York state and so I’m very, very rooted to the east coast. I want to spend time with my husband because this is it [Laughs]. So it’s a huge balance. As the week gets longer, you’ve worked further into the nights and you kind of know you’re not going to see someone until late at night and you have to get up early morning. But for me what made it worthwhile is that it was only 13 episodes.
HW: Your character may have had a dog killed in the pilot episode. Did you cringe when you first saw that, thinking about what you did to the bunny in Fatal Attraction and terrorizing puppies in 101 Dalmatians and wondering how animal lovers might view you.
GC: [Laughs] I did. I thought of my mother. I thought, ‘Oh, my mother is going to hate this.’ I grew up with dogs. We’re dog fanatics in my family. But what I love about it–and again, I don’t know the whole story about that and I’m clinging to nothing–that’s what it seems. So I don’t know if we’ll find out more about what actually happened. I love the cheeky fact that she’s actually a dog lover. She’s rescuing the dog. Dogs are definitely a theme and it’s kind of a great witty thing on the writer’s part, with all my baggage of Cruella di Vil and all of that. That’s what I love about the series. I think these guys are truly witty–whether they’re talking about someone being covered with blood or someone’s just done this sort of twisting mind games. It’s rare to find that kind of real wit. It makes things so much fun when we sit around the table and read the next episode. We’re always going “Oh, no! Oh, God! You get to play that!”
HW: Any other pets on the show that should be looking over their shoulders?
GC: I have two dogs that I take to work everyday–Bill and Jake–and they have become the mascots of the Steiner Studios. So, dogs figure very highly there.
HW: You’ve played some great manipulators in your career. Do you make any connection or carry things over or do you do something to distinguish each of them?
GC: I think all of them have been very different. The one thing I love about Patty–and a lot of these women that I’ve played–they love the game. I think of my character in Dangerous Liaisons, and all the kind of tragedy in her life, even with that she loved the game. She was a master at playing it, even though it ultimately got to her. It’s that game of winning. The game of manipulation is an adrenaline shot from that. Patty’s the same. She’s an adrenaline junkie as far as playing that game of manipulation.
HW: Are you the type of actor who needs to research lawyers to play one, or can you kind of figure it out?
GC: I’ve played a lawyer before in Jagged Edge and I did a lot of research for that one. She was a defense lawyer in that movie. I thought that it was interesting in the beginning to meet some of the recognized and most powerful women lawyers in New York.
HW: You met with U.S. Senator Mary Jo White, who brought racketeering charges against John Gotti and prosecuted terrorists responsible for bombing the World Trade Center. What was that like?
GC: Mary Jo White and her partner, Lorna. It was fantastic. She’s unbelievable. She’s this dynamite woman who has never ever let gender be an issue ever. She’s atypical in that way because I also talked to Patricia Pines, who is fantastic. All of these women have been in the battlefield as far as gender is concerned. I asked Patricia, “There must be a bit of anger somewhere.” She said, “Oh, yes.”
HW: Yet White is considered a white knight–and your character is not.
GC: How do you know? How do you know? [Laughs] I could be on the good side. I would never compare Patty to Mary Jo White, but she said one thing I just loved: She said she wouldn’t characterize herself as ambitious, but she was competitive. She liked to win.
HW: How did you keep from becoming a Patty, being a very successful and powerful woman in this industry?
GC: I’m SO not a Patty. Patty is the kind of character I have to get my courage up to play, because she’s much smarter than I am. She’s much more… kind of out there in the world than I am. So, no, there was never a danger in becoming a Patty for me.
HW: Do you think that they’re going to do a film version of Sunset Boulevard?
GC: I hope so. Well, not a remake–that’s impossible! There’s been talk of doing a version of doing the musical. I’m sure as you all know, in the climate of Hollywood, it’s not something that people are leaping to make [Laughs]. Though, I am convinced it would be amazing to do.
Damages airs Tuesday nights at 10/9c on FX.
