Haunted By Waters

HAUNTED BY WATERS
Jessica Lange
Interview Magazine, April 2006

I love reading interviews. The best ones I've read are almost always from Interview magazine- go figure. The one that I think of a lot and has never quite left my local memory is from April 2006 between Jessica Lange and Ann Roth. At the time I was most interested in Jessica because she was married to Sam Shepard who I was crazy about at the time. After reading this interview I started watching some of her films and learning more about her. My favorite performance by her is in Wim Wender's impossible not to love and visually gorgeous Don't Come Knocking. She won a Best Actress Academy award for Blue Sky and a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Tootsie. I've only attached the end of the interview, but this is the part that stayed with me. I went out to buy A River Runs Through It the very next day.

AR: So, what else? Were you a cheerleader growing up?

JL: Oh, dear God, no. I never fit in anywhere, Ann, and I'm telling you the truth. I try to go back and think, Okay now, where was it that you belonged? And I can't. I never felt like I belonged in Minnesota when I was growing up there. That's why I was out the door as soon as I turned 18. The only place I've ever felt was really my home is my cabin up north. Do you know that last line from A River Runs Through If?- I am haunted by waters. There's something in the water up there that connects me to that place. But there's also this sense of isolation and loneliness about it that I've never been able to shake.

AR: Do you dislike that feeling?

JL: I don't mind it- I mean, I've lived with it my whole life.