Jessica Lange is thinking about retirement. In a candid interview with The Telegraph, the two-time Oscar-winner revealed that she is thinking of “phasing out of filmmaking” and offered some blunt criticism for the entertainment industry’s direction over the past few years.
“Creativity is secondary now to corporate profits,” Lange said. “The emphasis becomes not on the art or the artist or the storytelling. It becomes about satisfying your stockholders. It diminishes the artist and the art of filmmaking.”
Lange, who has worked with heralded directors like Bob Fosse, Sydney Pollack, Bob Rafelson and Martin Scorsese since her big screen debut starring in the 1976 remake of “King Kong,” also shared that she “has no desire to see 90 percent” of contemporary releases. The actor cited “big comic-book franchise films,” “frantic editing” and ageism as particularly disagreeable elements of the modern business.
“They’ve sacrificed this art that we’ve been involved in… for the sake of profit,” Lange continued. “I don’t know if it’s because the filmmakers think that they can’t hold the attention of the audience anymore… That kind of filmmaking drives me crazy.”
Though Lange has mulled exiting entertainment — “I’m sure they won’t miss me at all,” she told The Telegraph — she has kept busy in recent years. She earned two Primetime Emmy Awards for her turns on “American Horror Story” and received a nomination for playing Joan Crawford in “Feud.” Upcoming, Lange will star in a screen adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and reunite with Kathy Bates in the drama “Places, Please.” This year, she appeared in Neil Jordan’s period noir “Marlowe.” She will return to Broadway in the spring to lead a production of Paula Vogel’s new play, “Mother Play.”