We were rehearsing.

It's hysterical and I'm kind of screaming.

And there was this pounding on the door and some neighborhood heard us and called the police.

So So we looked out the window.

We were scared to death.

Ah, cough card.

Two cop cars had pulled up so that Oh, this is the power of acting.

Yeah, King Kong is my first imdb credit.

I was taking acting classes in New York.

I was working as a waitress at the lion's head.

I had gone to see a modeling agent in hopes that maybe I could supplement my waitress income.

But I was never very successful at modeling.

But the woman there, the agent knew that I was serious about acting.

When she was contacted by De Laurentis, she thought of me.

I arrived in L.

A.

And suddenly I'm driving through the gates of MGM, which is like my childhood studio.

You know that everything about in GM fascinated me.

They took one look at me and they weren't interested at all completely not the type he was looking for.

But since they had flown me out there, they agreed Teoh, at least put me on camera.

I think the second a D showed up to, like, just say roll.

So I did the scene and then he asked me if I'd like to do another one.

So I did another one.

Then he said, What?

You just wait a bit?

Pretty soon.

Then the A.

D came on the set and he ran a few takes, and then they called the director to come.

So then the director showed up and I did a few more scenes.

And then they called the producer on de la Renta's came to the set, and by the time I left that afternoon, I had the part, you know?

I mean, it was like one of those crazy, hard to believe stories, but that's how it happened, I think, because I was so inexperienced and it was the first time I was in front of cameras.

It didn't seem bizarre to me that, like I was sitting in some big hydraulic canned, you know, and like playing scenes too blue screen or green screen and you know no other actors.

So at that point, it was better than being a waitress.

That's all I could keep thinking is like.

This is a little more interesting than going to the lion's head every night.

Not too much, but a little bit.

That's what I call a real drinker's nose.

And you should know because you're a real drinker, aren't you, Joe?

Also heavy into speed, aren't you?

Sleep with a great many women?

Bob Fosse directed all that jazz.

Bobby was a really dear friend and he actually recognized something of my talent that nobody else did at that time were very few people because, you know, after doing King Kong, it was kind of just like she's not really an actress or whatever.

There wasn't much to, uh, to take away from that experience, but Bobby Yeah, I mean, he really wanted me to work, and he wanted to create this character for me.

So he was shooting all that jazz and had been shooting a long time.

I think they were way over budget and over a schedule because my my scenes as the angel of Death were to come at the very end of the shooting schedule.

They told him that they were going to shut down, and he really, really went to bat to get those scenes that I was in shot.

So he was just a really dear friend, very loyal and and fiercely supportive.

So, yeah, that was basically my second part.

You know, my second roll.

Everybody was fabulous.

I mean, Roy Scheider And you know, all the actors that were in it.

I'm the only character in it that doesn't sing or dance.

So I mean, I thought Well, okay.

I mean, not that I could sing.

I could dance a little bit of certainly couldn't sing, But I thought, This is an odd character, you know, in the midst of like, this whole kind of musical familiar to be.

But I understood what he was going for.

His classic Bobby, wasn't it?

You know, a beautiful young woman comes to gather you up when your time is done.

The postman always rings twice.

You won't leave.

Three idea that I was like a newcomer.

And suddenly I was being directed by great director like Bob Rafelson and working with this extraordinary actor, Jack Nicholson.

It did a lot just for my whole way of seeing and thinking of myself as an actor.

And both of them were so incredibly generous to me for all of that.

And, you know, as you can imagine, working with Jack has a lot of fun.

It's a book, and we had a great time doing it, sinking back on that time it was like, That's something they're really opened up for me as an actor.

It was the first time I had been given the kind of part that felt like maybe I was a dramatic actress and that this was something I could pursue and want to pursue.

What, you're gonna leave me?

You're writing me A thank You know, I learned a lot from watching Jack work because he always had a sense of camera.

That was kind of uncanny.

It wasn't the kind of acting that I had studied in acting class.

Obviously, that was something new to me that it was specific for the camera, how you created your performance.

I never even thought in those terms really before.

It's a classic story.

I mean, James M.

Cain, you know, I mean, his stories were always sex and death, often opera.

I would've been insane not to do that part.

I mean, there would've been no reason in hell not to take that role.

I think more than anything, it waas the beginning of the way I work.

It was the beginning of finding the emotional life and working from there.

You got to go back there and tell them to let me up because I'm ready.

I'm ready to get out now.

So you go back in there and you tell him that you're gonna let me out of here.

Graeme Clifford was the editor.

Postman always rings twice.

And when he decided to direct the film, he thought immediately of asking me to play Francis.

Which is interesting, because years before, when I was taking acting classes in New York with Warren Robertson, Warren Robertson gave me the book.

Will there really be a morning, which was Francis's autobiography and said You should find some scenes in here to do for class because this was scene study class.

You know, I did.

I found some excerpts of things to do in class, and a couple years later, this movie comes to me a Frances farmer.

I mean, I didn't have to think twice about doing it.

It was I knew I could do it.

And that it would change my life doing it, and it kind of did it.

You know, Suddenly I was considered, really, for the first time, a riel actress.

I wanted to do it cause I knew it would be one of the greatest roles I'd ever play.

And the idea of exploring madness is something that has always fascinated me.

That idea of somebody who is living on the edge and the relationship with the mother, and the fact that after I talked to Graham about it, he said, I'd like to offer this part to Kim Stanley.

Well, Kim Stanley has always been to me, the greatest actress ever.

There's nobody that compares to Kim Stanley.

So the idea that I could play this role with this actress until this story was you know, it was like a gift from the gods.

And it turned out that way, Really.

It waas for her riveting portrayal of the beautiful but tortured actress whose star with a comet that burned out too soon, Jessica Lange in France, you always yourself and I'm grateful to you, but I just I just can't see you anymore.

No, I work in a very similar way that Kim worked.

There was no protective coating.

It was It was wild and it was raw and the crazier was the better.

It was especially for this part.

So I think Kim recognize that?

So she said to me, the best thing you can do is do a comedy Next, you know, out of the blue.

I got a call from Sydney Pollack and destined Hoffman.

There was Tootsie.

It was It was an extraordinary time.

Francis don't see And it was a banner year.

It was a good year.

It was a really, really good year.

I want an Oscar for Tootsie, and a couple years later I want an Oscar for Blue Sky.

Well, it just validated the fact that people recognize that I could do it.

That I did a good job on the script was brilliant.

It was It was funny.

It was smart.

It was an extraordinary vehicle for Dusty, and I give Sydney Pollack total credit for creating that role.

He really saw something in it and brought it forward, and it's funny and it's touching, and I mean again, I think Sydney Pollack is one of the genius directors.

I was so lucky to be able to work with him on that.

Sometimes that I'm watching television at night or something that comes on and that scene it just plays so beautifully in the way he let it.

The camera follow us as we walked awake says everything about that relationship.

It's hopeful and it's sweet and it's tender.

Yes, Lee to me, Man, listen to me, you know, X Since all this started, I tried to mansion when it must have been like for you all those years locked.

Well, first of all, I mean, that was one of those moments where you know, when I was talking to Marty and came to see me about doing this part, I thought, Well, this is a done deal.

I'm gonna work with Martin Scorsese At least once in my career.

I want to work with this brilliant man.

I loved working with Marty because he has on enthusiasm that's almost childlike, his love of film and the process is so contagious.

I'm sorry that I've only had one, you know, opportunity to work with him.

The seam where my character that I play Lee is trying Thio bargain to not abuse her daughter to not assault her daughter but to take her instead, begging him to leave her daughter alone.

I want you to be Oh, because we have a connection.

That's one of those scenes where you do your homework and you know you've got the lines.

You know what is expected, but something that explodes in the moment of doing it.

For me, that's always the thrill of acting where you you don't set things ahead of time with that scene.

It really waas some kind of explosion.

It's so emotionally powerful that it kind of sweeps you along with it.

I love that scene.

I loved playing that scene.

It was a great project.

Waas.

I really enjoyed doing it.

I wished the opportunity to do something like that would come up again.

How could you resist?

Theo?

Director Michael Soucy again asked me to do it.

And of course I didn't give it a second thought.

Big GT are you kidding?

And the way he had designed the story that we would actually go back and tell some of the early stuff, too portrayed their early lives because, as you know, in that brilliant documentary, you're just in the house with these women in this period of time at the end.

But Michael script takes us through those previous years to kind of see how this all came about.

I remember working with my singing coach and we were getting ready to pre record tea for two.

And he said, Now, I don't know.

Do you wanna, you know, do anything different with it?

I thought, Oh, no, no, I want to do it Beat by beat breath by breath exactly as she did it because you could never in a 1,000,000 years improve on dignity, singing tea for two.

And the way I found into her character every day was listening to her voice, and I would come into their trailer in the morning and I would put on the DVD.

It was an interesting process because I would hear her voice and I would listen to it and I would listen to it and I would listen to it.

And then suddenly I had feelings, though something head like settle down and that I could yes, that I had the character.

I loved her.

She's one of those characters, you know.

You can look back in your your whole canon of work, and you can say they were characters.

I really fell in love with Frances Farmer, obviously.

Patsy Cline.

Blanche Dubois.

Mary Tyrone, you You know, there are some that you just ah, they mean so much to you, and you just hold them in your heart.

I love everything about it, except the four hours in the makeup trailer.

You know, in the makeup chair, starting at 5 a.m. Do they work?

You'll see tonight.

I'm gonna let the whole world get a good look at me.

Who's the master switch?

I was up in my farm upstate New York, and the phone rang and he introduced himself.

And I had heard of Ryan Murphy, and but I didn't know him.

I'd never met him in person.

And I wasn't familiar with his work, really?

But I just love his energy and his enthusiasm right from the beginning, it didn't take much to talk me into it.

He served me say this before.

But if Ryan wants something from you, he knows exactly how to get it.

And he spun this story of the first season of American horror story, and I thought sitting up here at the farm, you know?

Why not do it?

Why not do it?

I always wanted to do like a psychological thriller.

It didn't end up exactly of that Sean Row, but that's what he originally promised me so.

But I loved working with Ryan.

I love his imagination, and he had great writers writing this stuff specifically for me, and it is a very special way of working when you know the writers understand who you are, your voice, what you like to do.