Lange as Frida Kahlo
As Joan Crawford in “Feud”.
Photo, Robert Trachtenberg
Jessica Lange was photographed by Sandro (who has also shot a radically transformed John Malkovich, as well) as eight iconic women — Frida Kahlo, Gloria Steinem, Georgia O’Keeffe, Janis Joplin, Diana Vreeland, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, and Simone de Beauvoir. Lange chose the women she would become for New York magazine’s Fashion Week Issue.
Next month Lange stars along with Susan Sarandon in Feud, Ryan Murphy’s new anthology series, where she becomes another icon, Joan Crawford. Thoughout her career, Lange has now played other famous women; movie star Frances Farmer; the dowager of Grey Gardens, “Big” Edie Beale; and country singer Patsy Cline. For her the physicality is crucial.
“You do study every breath, every beat, but it can’t just be imitation… [With Crawford] we tried to do similar makeup and hair, of course, but that was the extent of the mimicry. And the voice. She had a very melodic way of speaking. It would rise and fall, and it was studied.
What’s interesting about it is you have to find those fissures, whether it’s just something that registers behind the eye, or in a gesture. There’s one interview, I think she’s at an airport and she’s drunk, and she’s trying really hard to keep the MGM-speak, you know. I’ve beeeen and haaaave. And at one point some children come toward her and — I had to listen to it over and over again to make sure that I really heard it — she turns to them and she says [in a distinctly Texan accent], ‘Well, hah’re yeeew?’ It was like, so right below the surface.”
For the full interview, check out the latest issue of New York.
As Gloria Steinem
As Georgia O’Keeffe
As Simone deBeauvoir
As Marlene Deitrich
As Mae West
As Janis Joplin
As Diana Vreeland
(Photos, Sandro; via New York)
