Glenn Close on actors and their characters

Unlocking the essence of a film or stage character takes time and patience, and actors must love unconditionally the characters they play, award-winning actress Glenn Close, shown above talking with students, told a packed audience in McCosh 50 Feb. 19. “No matter what her behavior, I must find some common point of humanity,” said Close, perhaps best known for portraying the stalker Alex Forrest in the 1987 film “Fatal Attraction.” “Without love, there’s judgment, and if you’re judging someone you can’t understand them — you’re looking at them with cool objectivity, when to really inhabit them you should be looking at the world with their highly subjective gaze.” Close, delivering a J. Edward Farnum Lecture, described the people and places in her life that influenced and inspired her to pursue acting. She said actors are “required to start seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, walking in someone else’s shoes, [and] talking in someone else’s voice ... all on cue.”