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• Longer bio on Ms. Close
• The Lion in Winter on Showtime
• "A Letter from Glenn Close"

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Tavis: I am thrilled to have the beautiful and awfully talented Glenn Close with us this evening. The 5-time Oscar nominee has been in some of the most memorable films of my generation, certainly. 'The Big Chill,' 'Fatal Attraction,' 'The World According to Garp,' just to name a few. This Sunday night she stars in the Showtime original movie 'The Lion in Winter,' based on the classic 1968 film. Here is a scene from 'The Lion in Winter.'

King Henry II: Why her so damn particularly? I found other women.

Eleanor: Countless others.

King Henry II: What's your count? Let's tally the bedspreads you spread out on.

Eleanor: Thomas Becket...

King Henry II: That's a lie!

Eleanor: I know it. You still care what I do.

King Henry II: I want the Aquitaine for John. I want it, and I'll have it!

Eleanor: Is that menace you're conveying? Is it to be torture? Will you boil or stretch me? Which? Or am I to be perforated?

Tavis: Ouch. You can't fade Glenn Close. Nice to see you.

Glenn Close: Nice to see you.

Tavis: I was just teasing you during the clip. Didn't see much of you in this film with the head thing there.

Glenn: A couple of scenes, the hair's down.

Tavis: Let me just get my brown-nosing out of the way first. I love you. I love your work, and one of the things I love about your work is that you have never been afraid, it seems to me, at least, as a viewer, to take risk, but I must confess also, at the top of our conversation that I was a little bit concerned about this risk. I said Glenn Close is awfully good, but has she stepped out a little too far? Because Katherine Hepburn...that's a tough act to follow. Why even try to touch something like that?

Glenn: Oh, I'm not trying to touch Katherine Hepburn. I'm trying to be Eleanor of Aquitaine, and I think Goldman's script, which we did word for word, the same screenplay as the original movie, is one of the great pieces of modern screenwriting, and so, as an actor--actress--it's a chance for me to really flex my creative muscle in a way that most parts, you know, don't afford you, so for me, it was a huge luxury, and I was very conscious of walking in or trying to, you know, follow in Hepburn's footsteps, but what a great honor that is.

Tavis: I must say, you pulled it off, and I'm delighted that this classic is now available to be exposed to a new generation of people, but you have to know, even though you're not trying to play Kate Hepburn, those contrasts, those comparisons, are inevitable, are they not?

Glenn: Oh, I'm sure they are. Yeah, absolutely.

Tavis: That didn't stop you from trying?

Glenn: In fact, I've already talked to people who went back to see the original after seeing ours, and so it's great.

Tavis: But that didn't scare you off, though, obviously.

Glenn: No, I did it. Yeah.

Tavis: There are a couple scenes in there that really, really got my attention. The particular scene where you're watching your husband with his mistress.

Glenn: Who I raised.

Tavis: Who you raised, exactly. Tell me how you pull a scene like that off.

Glenn: That scene, to me, was a turning point in the story for her, because she had just seen him manipulate not marrying this woman off, the woman who is his mistress, and all Eleanor wants is to have Henry back. and she says, "I want to see you kiss her," and it's watching that that she realizes that there is something very, very real, there is a love between them, and it's with a woman that she can't compete with. She's not young, you know, all that water under the bridge, and it's a profound, terrible moment for her. Um, yeah, and it makes it very, very real for me. It's about a family. They all happen to be kings and queens and princes.

Tavis: I was about to ask you about that. This movie is about a lot of things, but it seems to me at the heart of this, it's really about familiar relationships. Dysfunctional though they might be, it's really about familiar relationships.

Glenn: Yeah, and I mean, it's a great love story. The bottom line is these 2 towering figures who, historically speaking, were phenomenal in their age. They were--Eleanor was the richest woman in the world. Henry was only 19 when they got married. He went on to become one of the great kings of England, started some of the legal codes and everything, and they were really made for each other, and yet, they were so larger than life, so ambitious in their own right, that they ended up playing this game with their children, and I think the story is very historically correct. I did so much reading about it, because it was so fascinating, and the whole dynamic of the family is actually very close to what actually happened. I mean, he did fall in love with a woman called Rosamond. It did end the marriage as it was at the time. It didn't end their relationship. They had this amazing love/hate relationship through their whole lives.

Tavis: I'm watching this movie, and I knew you had a daughter at the time. I didn't know she was 16, so now you've got a kid with a driver's permit, but I'm watching this movie and the love you have for your eldest son, and I'm preparing for our conversation, and I'm wondering--First of all, I asked my producers does Glenn have a child? And they said, "Why do you want to know?" I said, 'cause I'm wondering, even though it's not--I found it's a daughter in your case--but I'm thinking about the love that you have for your son in this movie, you would do anything for him, and whether or not--Not whether or not, but how that parallels to your own life with your daughter, who I suspect you'd do anything for.

Glenn: I would do anything for my daughter. I would. Fierce. I feel like a fierce mother beast. Yeah. I mean, it changes your life profoundly when you have a child. It's the greatest thing that could happen, certainly to an actor, because there are things that then you know about and you don't have to do just imagination, but also the relationship of Eleanor Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart was again, she raised him in her court, in the court that was full of music and poetry and dancing, and he went on at the same time to become one of the great warriors of the 12th century. He went on the third Crusade and came up against Saladin, and he was from...centuries later was the threat that Muslim mothers would say to their children, "If you're not careful, Richard the Lionheart is going to come and find you," and he was that amazing, so--And that was her... He was put in jail, thrown into jail by the emperor on his way back from the Crusade, and she raised the money and took it in huge caskets over the Alps in order to pay the ransom. She was phenomenal.

Tavis: You answered exactly as I thought--as I suspected that you might--that having a child gives you something to draw on when you're playing a character like that, to have this unending and undying love for a child. The other scene that really got my attention for 2 reasons. When I'm watching the scene where the headpiece does come off, the hair is down, so as I joked earlier, we don't see a whole lot of Glenn Close in this, but the headpiece comes off, the head wrap does, we see you with your hair down, and you realize that you are aging. The reason why you can't compete with this young thing over here is that you're not a spring chicken anymore. You're not as young as you used to be, and 2 things come to mind. Number one, Katherine Hepburn wins 3 Oscars after the age of 60 playing older characters. Secondly, you've been nominated 5 times. There's no dispute, no debate at all about your gift and about your talent, but you are, my grandmother wouldn't let--I can't use the word "old." My grandmother hates that word. You're getting more chronologically gifted. Is that complimentary enough? You look great. Chronologically gifted, all right? How about that? And I'm looking at this scene, I'm thinking, what happens to one in this business when there aren't the kinds of roles to showcase your skills as you stick around longer? Are you having that difficulty now?

Glenn: I really haven't, so far, but I mean, the big, great parts are few and far between. I mean, there's just so--

Tavis: No matter how old you are?

Glenn: Yeah, I think so, and I think there are probably more of them on stage than there are in film, but in film, to get a role as big and as rangy emotionally as the one I have in 'Lion in Winter,' it's rare. But I think in life, it's problematic. I think older women will always have a hard time, because I think it's in the nature of the species for men to want to go younger.

Tavis: But how does she pull off three of them at the age of 60? Some of her best stuff came as she got better...

Glenn: Great roles. I think Oscars are--The role is key.

Tavis: I mentioned earlier that what I love about this film is that at the very least, it allows a new generation to be exposed to a classic film. I was like some of your friends you referenced earlier who had not seen, I confess, the original, so I got interested and wanted to go back and look at the original because of the role that you played here. I wonder, though, whether or not you think that a new generation, even younger than I am, can appreciate a period piece like this and why so?

Glenn: I think they can. First of all, it's a great story.

Tavis: It's on Showtime.

Glenn: It's a great story, and also there's a lot of real wit in it. I mean, you laugh. Even in the tragic moments, you're laughing the next--you know, in the next minute. Masterful writing, has, you know, the sons who are interesting. Also, the language us not off-putting. The language is actually quite modern. It's not like Shakespeare, which I think a lot of people don't get and are intimidated by. He uses modernisms like "best man" or, you know, "ups and downs" or, you know, so it's very--I think it's something that kids can relate to, but it's also--To see the dynamic of these 2 people and the wit and the passion and the cruelty that they lay into each other with, there's something incredibly fascinating, but also highly entertaining about it.

Tavis: Yeah. Speaking of young people, I read a transcript of you speaking to some young people at Sundance and encouraging them to not be afraid to take risk. I wonder if you can expound on that and talk to me about what you say to young people, as I'm sure you get asked pretty routinely about whether they should get in this business, how to succeed at this business. If anybody can tell them that, Glenn Close can.

Glenn: Well, I'm a believer in learning your craft as an actor, which means that you should do some theater. I don't think you can learn your craft the same way in a movie. There are too many people taking care of you, you know? You have to learn a certain discipline, you have to learn language, you have to learn how to deal with a live audience, you have to show up, you know, 8 times a week, and you have to do it as if it's the first time you've done it. It's a real craft. I also think it's terribly important to try to figure out what you personally think is good and then try not to compromise. I mean, it's hard, because you need to work, and you need to make a living, but if you choose something because you think it's going to be a hit or because it's going to get you an award or whatever... Nobody knows anyway, so you should do something that you can relate to viscerally, you know, and subjectively. I'm very subjective about stuff that I choose.

Tavis: Let me close with this. I could talk to you for hours, but they don't give me that kind of time. Here's the extra question...

Glenn: You talk much faster than me.

Tavis: I talk a lot faster because, 22 minutes, you gotta talk fast. You get Glenn Close for 15 minutes, you gotta move fast. Let me ask you as an extra question, since you talk about perfecting your craft and that's the advice you give to young people, how perfected are you in your craft? I mean, you're awfully good, as I said earlier. Are you at the top of your game? Can you still get better at this?

Glenn: Oh, my goodness, yes. I think you always should--I mean, that's the luxury being an actor, because no human being stays the same, you know? We all-- we're different today than we were yesterday, and hopefully, we can get better, and I still have a tremendous amount to learn. I think I've learned a lot, and I think I've probably at some great--I think I'm pretty much at the peak of my powers, though. I can't imagine, you know? But I don't have a formula. I think I approach each part like a blank page, as a new human being to somehow understand and inhabit in such a way that you can communicate heart to heart, you know? I think people want to feel something, they want emotional connection, they want to be taken on some sort of journey, and that's what I seek to do is connect, connect, connect, connect, so it starts with connecting with an actor, and that connection will connect to the audience.

Tavis: You always connect with me, and by the way, if you ever figure out how to create a formula here, you should bottle it and sell it. You'd get rich doing that, not that you need the money. You're doing your thing.

Glenn: Thank you, and you are, too. Bravo to you.

Tavis: Nice to see you. Thanks for coming by. A reminder, the premiere of 'A Lion in Winter' is this Sunday night on Showtime. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR, and I'll see you back here next time on PBS, and until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching, and keep the faith.