Jessica Lange on emotional baggage, starring with Ed Harris and lighting up Glasgow Film Festival

The legendary actor Jessica Lange will be in Glasgow this weekend for the UK premier of her film Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Glasgow Film Festival.

The American screen and stage great, 75, star of multiple films including King Kong, The Postman Always Rings Twice, American Horror Story, Feud: Bette and Joan and last year’s The Great Lillian Hall, appears in the screen adaptation of the acclaimed Eugene O’Neill play that was premiered last night and will be shown on Monday and she will also be answering questions at an In Conversation event today.

Ahead of her appearance the Oscar winner spoke to The Scotsman about playing the part of morphine-addicted mother Mary Tyrone, a role she has performed on stage twice in her long, award-winning career, and now in the film directed by Jonathan Kent, alongside Ed Harris as co-star.

Unashamedly autobiographical about O’Neill’s own dysfunctional family, the play was written in 1940 but not staged until 1956 after the Pulitzer prize winner’s death. Taking place over a summer’s day it examines family bonds, addictions, betrayal and love. Alongside Lange and Harris are Ben Foster, Colin Morgan and Ericka in the classic which was filmed in Ireland.

Why is Long Day’s Journey into Night regarded as one of the greatest plays ever written?

I think to my mind it’s one of the best American plays. It’s just beautifully written, it’s incredibly truthful and heart-breaking. It’s about O’Neill’s family so he’s writing from a place of great truth and forgiveness and that’s what makes it such an extraordinary piece.

I’ve played Mary Tyrone three times now - once on stage in London [in the 2000 West End production with Charles Dance], once in New York [in 2016 on Broadway with Gabriel Byrne] and now on film - and it is the kind of character that never, never gets old. There’s always some discovery no matter how many times I’ve done it and I refer to her as a bottomless well, and I think the play is too. Everybody discovers something in it every time. O’Neill wrote an introduction to it where he talks about writing this with great love and forgiveness for all the four tortured Tyrones, and that’s what catapults it into a whole other league.

What can you tell us about this film version?

Obviously it’s a film adaptation so we’re not doing a full four hour play with all the dialogue. That was a difficult thing for me when we started filming because so much of that dialogue was just in the marrow of my bones so when I would get to a section that wasn’t in the film script I’d always be thrown by it. Because it’s like music, you know you learn a piece of music and if you cut ten bars out of the middle, it’s going to feel different, so it was a big adjustment for me to start trying to really think about it as a film script rather than as the play.

But I think it’s a very honest adaptation. And the point is it should be claustrophobic. It’s these four people in this house for an entire day and you should feel like you want to get out, but you can’t go to town or go to the bar, or whatever, so I think it’s an honest adaptation of the play.

I have no idea how it’s going to be received or what people are going to think about it. It’s obviously much shorter than the running time of the play [the original is over three hours long], but I think that was necessary, so we’ll see.

You’re co-starred again with Ed Harris, who played your second husband in the Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams in 1986. What do you like about working with him?

Well, he’s a very honest actor and he’s one of my favourite actors to work with. He’s just a wonderful actor so it’s nice to be in the presence of somebody like that and know that what they’re doing is true and honest and exciting - it’s unpredictable.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night is about family, regrets and forgiveness. Were there elements you could identify with from your own life?

Oh well, yes, without getting in too much, I mean family always comes fraught with a lot of emotional baggage doesn’t it? So yes you can draw on things. I mean obviously the particulars are often different but the emotional life is often the same.

The particulars may be different but there are elements we’ve all experienced in it that we recognise.

Yeah, and so much of it is about Mary Tyrone’s addiction but the truth of the matter is all four of the characters suffer from addiction. The men in the family are basically alcoholics, but of course that doesn’t have the same resonance at that time that a woman who is addicted to morphine would have.

What do people ask you about most?

What it is like to have spent most of your life as an actor. I think that’s one of the most interesting parts.

The in conversation event looks back at your career, in which you’ve done so much, so what will you focus on?

This In Conversation is led by the moderator and then questions from the audience so I don’t come in with any kind of prepared statements.

Do you like that you don’t know what you’re going to be asked?

I do, very much so.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night is showing at Glasgow Film Festival on Friday, 28 February and Tuesday, March 4.

In Conversation with Jessica Lange, Saturday March 1, 2025.

Glasgow Film Festival runs until 9 March, www.glasgowfilm.org