Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony Award winning actress Glenn Close is starring in three features that are filming this summer: Low Down, for director Jeff Preiss, co-starring John Hawkes and Chloë Moretz; 5 to 7, with Anton Yelchin, Bérénice Marlohe and Frank Langella for writer-director Victor Levin; and the highly-anticipated feature film of Marvel Comics’ Guardians of the Galaxy.
Close received her sixth Academy Award acting nomination last year, along with Golden Globe and SAG nominations, for the feature film Albert Nobbs. She starred in the title role alongside a distinguished cast that includes Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Brendan Gleeson, Brenda Fricker and Janet McTeer. Rodrigo Garcia, for whom Close starred in two previous films, directed. In addition to writing the screenplay with (Man Booker prize-winning novelist) John Banville, Close was also a producer on the film and she composed the lyrics for the Golden Globe and World Soundtrack nominated song, “Lay Your Head Down.” She received the Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA) as Best Foreign Actress, was voted Best Actress at the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival, the AARP Movies for Grownups Award as Best Actress and was honored for her performance by the San Sebastian Film Festival (Donostia Award), Hollywood Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival and the Palm Springs Film Festival.
Also in 2012, Glenn Close headlined the fifth and final season of the critically acclaimed original legal thriller, Damages. For her riveting portrayal of high-stakes litigator Patty Hewes, Glenn was nominated for a 2012 Emmy Award, a 2010 Emmy Award and won two consecutive Emmys as Best Actress in a Drama Series for Damages’ first two seasons. For the show’s 2009 premiere season, she won a Golden Globe Award in addition to the Emmy and received a SAG nomination. She was also nominated for a 2010 Golden Globe and both a 2011 and 2010 SAG Award. Prior to Damages, Close won rave reviews and an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Captain Monica Rawling in a season-long story arc on FX’s The Shield.
Glenn Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill's The World According to Garp. Her performance in the film earned her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for her performances in Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill; Barry Levinson's The Natural; Adrian Lyne's smash Fatal Attraction; and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA Award nominee).
Close's other films include Richard Marquand's Jagged Edge; Barbet Schroeder's Reversal of Fortune; Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet; István Szabó's Meeting Venus; Ron Howard's The Paper; Stephen Herek's 101 Dalmatians; Kevin Lima's 102 Dalmatians; Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One; Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune; Rose Troche's The Safety of Objects; Merchant Ivory's Le Divorce; Chris Terrio's Heights; Rodrigo García's Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and Nine Lives; andLajos Koltai’s Evening.
Close’s twelve Golden Globe Award nominations include a win for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture for Television for her performance in Andrei Konchalovsky's adaptation of The Lion in Winter (which also earned her a SAG Award).
The latter is also among the television projects that have brought her twelve Emmy Award nominations, among them a win for her portrayal of real-life hero Margarethe Cammermeyer in Jeff Bleckner's Serving in Silence: the Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, which Close executive produced.
Her other notable films for television include Jack Hofsiss' taped staging of The Elephant Man; Randa Haines' Something About Amelia; Jack Gold's Stones for Ibarra; Christopher Reeve's In the Gloaming (for which she won a CableACE Award) and Richard Pearce's musical remake of South Pacific, in which she starred and sang as Nellie Forbush, and which she executive-produced. She executive produced and starred thrice opposite Christopher Walken in the Sarah, Plain and Tall trilogy, directed, alternately, by Glenn Jordan and Joseph Sargent. She likewise executive produced and starred in The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, directed by Jeremy Kagan.
Glenn Close made her professional theater, and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince's revival of Love for Love. Other early stage credits include Paul Giovanni's The Crucifer of Blood and Simone Benmussa's adaptation of The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, for which she won an Obie Award. Close's first Tony Award nomination came for her role in Joe Layton's musical Barnum and she subsequently won Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, both directed by Mike Nichols.
For her portrayal of Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Sunset Boulevard, Close won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and a Dramalogue Award. She would later reteam with the show's director, Trevor Nunn, in London for his Royal National Theatre revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Close recently received the Donostia Award for career achievement at the 2011 San Sebastian Film Festival. She has been honored with a Crystal Award from Women In Film; a GLAAD Media Award; a People's Choice Award; the National Association of Theatre Owners' Female Star of the Year award at ShoWest and a Gotham Award for her contributions to the New York independent filmmaking community. She is a trustee emeritus of The Sundance Institute, having served as a board member for 16 years.
In 2009, Glenn Close participated in the launch of Bring Change 2 Mind, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to confronting, head-on, the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness. The organization was created by Close together with The Balanced Mind Foundation, Fountain House and Garen and Shari Staglin of International Mental Health Research Organization, and has the support of the major mental health organizations in this country.
The idea for this movement evolved out of Ms. Close’s first-hand observation of battles with mental illness within her family. Ms. Close’s sister, Jessie, is living with bipolar disorder and Jessie’s son, Calen, is living with schizoaffective disorder. All three are actively involved in spreading The Bring Change 2 Mind mission of tackling the stigma and discrimination of mental illness where they live – in all of us.
Close actively supports Puppies Behind Bars and their program Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who’ve Served Us. She co-directed, narrated and co-produced Pax, a documentary short subject that looks at the program and the affect it has had on one particular soldier, Sergeant Bill Campbell, who returned home from Iraq with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. The film has played in film festivals around the country and won an Honorable Mention at the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival.
Close is also a Founding Member of the Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee. Panthera is an international nonprofit whose sole mission is conservation of the world’s 36 species of wild cats.
