Glenn, Close Up

February 2, 2012 | by Chris Azzopardi

Man, Glenn Close feels like a woman, but she sure doesn’t look like one in her new gender-bending movie. In Albert Nobbs, the actress – known especially to gay audiences for her role in the 1995 film Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, about a real-life lesbian soldier – drops her voice a few notches, wears a top hat and wraps her torso in a girdle, all to keep her job while living in late-19th-century Ireland.

Recently nominated for an Oscar, the role – originated by Close on stage nearly 30 years ago – also earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Nods also went to costar Janet McTeer for playing Hubert, a cross-dressing lesbian who’s living the life that Albert so desperately wants.

In a recent one-on-one, Close revealed her proudest part of the film, how she thinks Albert identifies sexually and looked back at her unexpected bisexual role on Will & Grace.

How was it getting in touch with your masculine side?

(Laughs) It’s funny, because I never think of Albert as a man. I always thought of her, even as Albert, as a woman, kind of wearing a mask. As far as getting in touch with her movement and her voice and all that, I would think back on the reality of what she must have gone through when she first had the idea to disappear as a waiter. The shoes would’ve been too heavy and too big, the pants would’ve been too long. Waiters in Victorian times who were very formal weren’t supposed to look anybody in the eye – they were seen, not heard – and so she couldn’t have chosen a better way to disappear

People aren’t sure how to define Albert Nobbs. I’ve heard both transgender and lesbian used to describe her. What do you think?

I don’t think she is either, and that’s what fascinates me about this character. She disappeared when she was 14 and she emerges 30 years later. She’s never been in a home, she’s never had any intimate human contact, and she’s never been loved by someone. Everything, in a way, is new and unexplored. She does not have, when you first see her, a hugely active regretful longing in her life. She counts her money, she wants to be left alone, she wants to have the security of her job so that she won’t end up on the street – and that’s fine with her. She’s lower-class and working, and it’s only when Hubert comes into her life and she’s revealed that – first of all, she fears life as she knows it ending, but when she hears Hubert’s story, naturally, she thinks, “Can I do that?” But she doesn’t have the tools; she just doesn’t. Hubert’s one mistake is that she thinks Albert is much more capable of forging a life, but she just isn’t.

One of the best lines in the film comes from Hubert, who tells Albert that “you can be whoever you are.” That’s such a powerful mantra for all of us, but the gay community can definitely relate. What effect do you hope that line, and this film, has on the LGBT community?

I hope that line makes them really happy. You’re absolutely right to pick out that line, because it comes after a scene where Albert, in the dress, realizes that’s not who she is either – and that’s when Hubert says, “Albert, you can be whoever you are. Look what you’ve done.” It’s a wonderful moment.

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