Glenda Jackson

Yeah.

All right, to stretch this analogy further, what's it like when you can't take care? I mean, I don't know whether th- this is what happened with you, but I know that when she came back from being an MP, Glenda Jackson, w- who you'd directed in Three Tall Women with, uh, Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill, was a real old handful.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

But listen, I liked her.

Had no problem with Glenda Jackson.

I think that's the key, isn't it? You can sort of take any amount of shit, actually, from somebody, first of all, if they're talented.

I was gonna, I was gonna ask you about, uh, 'cause we're definitely gonna get to Maudie.

Um, the Elizabeth Is Missing, that's with Glenda Jackson, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, that's, you know, she's one of the greats, obviously.

Who's that?"

[laughs]

And I said, "It's Glenda Jackson." And then they looked at Maggie Smith, and then da-da, and you know, and then they said, "Oh, who's that at the end?" I said, "It's Glenda Jackson.

That's who we should have." And they went, "Oh my God.

But tho- so they really stood out.

We talk about the director as a sort of father figure, the director as everybody's dad in a theater, the award that was Joe's professional pinnacle, he says, and the closest he's come to feeling like a parent, wrangling the problem child that was Gle- [laughs] Glenda Jackson.

Joe directed her in Three Tall Women, and she won the Tony for it, but it was, by the sound of it, a struggle.

Uh, his praising policy and how it's changed over the course of his career, the early success that he had that led to a reckoning with himself, how a production of A Bomb in Gilead, uh, broke him open artistically, the pure experience of acting in Angels in America, for which he was Tony-nominated, the thrill of a bare stage, collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, his virtuosity with new plays and the relative lack of classics that he's directed, his debt to the great Terrence McNally, missing shows when you're a little sad, and the joys of his bonus lap.

They just literally, you know, were out of hand with it.

As far as Vanessa Redgrave was concerned, the role was originally earmarked for Glenda Jackson with the help Ken had worked with Glenda, and then it didn't happen because she had a different view of the character.

Ken said to me, and again, it's in the documentary, he said, we were thinking who on earth can do this? Who on earth can commit enough to the role to play Sister Jeanne because it's a very challenging role.

And he said he had seen Vanessa Redgrave and he thought she can do anything at all.

[laughs]

... uh, I had the agonizing experience of losing to Glenda Jackson-

[laughs]

...

Stanley Myers wrote the score with this main theme.

[tense music] He also made The Triple Echo in 1972 with the fantastic Glenda Jackson.

This is a superb little film directed by Michael Apted, making his feature film debut as director.

Glenda Jackson plays a woman keeping her farm going whilst her husband is a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II.

One day, she meets a wandering soldier, played by Brian Deacon, and she befriends him.

One thing leads to another and soon he wants to desert his post and live with her.

Anyway, but they'd have to get 60% of the [laughs] electorate to say, "Yeah, we want, we want a, uh, by-election again." So it ain't gonna happen, is it? But this Dan Hodges, who by the way, he was born with a canteen of silverware in his mouth, not just a silver spoon.

He's Glenda Jackson's son.

Brilliant actress, right? But he pontificates in the Mail.

So I had a right pop at him and said, "There's a lot of if and buts in your c- in your column today." He fucking didn't like it.

And what was interesting that I didn't know, and the reason I'm saying this is because in order to get a green card to work, Norman had to have references.

And the references were Sir Lawrence Olivier, Glenda Jackson.

You know, some big names.

Richard Brook, I think, is the big theatre director at the time.