Glenda Jackson has already won a 2018 Drama Desk Award for her work in the Broadway revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, and June 10 she’ll find out if she will also take home the Tony Award for the role. But for Jackson, a two-time Oscar winner, and five-time overall Tony nominee, the great reward is in being onstage.
“The opportunity to work with actresses is very rare. Usually there’s only one good woman’s part and if you’ve got it then no other actress is in it,” she says in the video above. “So being in a play of this quality with actresses of their quality is such a privilege.”
Jackson also revels in the reaction from audiences, as she bumped into a fan in the street who gushed over her and the play. “I was so moved by it. Her eyes began to fill with tears and that's pretty potent, isn’t it?” Jackson continues, “I think it is because every performance is the first one you give so there’s always that mixture of fear and excitement. The play seems to exert its real power on the audience.”
Despite her successful acting career—one that was put on pause as she served decades in the British Parliament—Jackson has never allowed herself to get comfortable. “The minute you finish a job you're convinced you’ll never ever work again. It's a vastly over-crowded profession, certainly far too few parts for women. Building a life in a theatre, the possibility that it actually happened was just miraculous.”
Watch the full video interview above.
