Glenn Close plays an irishwoman who dresses as a man to work as a butler in a Dublin hotel in Albert Nobbs. Photo / Supplied
She might forever be known as Fatal Attraction's bunny-boiling Alex or 101 Dalmatians' dog-skinning Cruella De Vil, yet Glenn Close's real speciality is in characters of women making their way in a man's world.
Most recently she's been powerhouse New York lawyer Patty Hewes in Damages and her credits includes one US vice-president, one Supreme Court Justice, an army colonel and a police captain.
Now Close has taken her masculinity all the way - in Albert Nobbs she plays an Irishwoman who dresses as a man to work as a butler in a hotel in Victorian Dublin.
She's wanted to play Albert on screen for years - she first played him on stage in an adaptation of George Moore's short story, The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, in 1982.
Making a movie of the play has been a pet project ever since. After a failed attempt with Istvan Szabo as director in 2000, five years ago she came on as a co-producer and co-writer with Irish scribe John Banville and she hired director Rodrigo Garcia, who had directed her in ensemble dramas Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her (2000) and Nine Lives (2005).
The intervening years means Albert has aged from his days on the stage.
"Yes I was 20 years younger. I was a young Albert," the trim 64-year-old concedes. "I think I have matured as an actress. It actually probably made the character more poignant that she is older. She is more cemented into her existence and absolutely never thinks of anything other than that."
In the story, Albert, who was abused as a child, is deluded into thinking that she can marry a woman (the money-hungry maid, Mia Wasikowska) and settle down. "Her passion is to protect herself with the money that she had saved up," says Close.
"That was her protection against the poverty and the brutality. She says people who live indecently are unbearable."
It's not as if the film isn't fun - it certainly turns the notion of gender in its Upstairs Downstairs scenario on its head.
"There are scenes where you don't really know what you are looking at ... .gender actually becomes irrelevant and I think that is kind of subversive."
There's an irony to the role - that there are never many good movie roles for women past the age of 30.
"I've had a wonderful career, I can't complain," she says, "I think older women are very hard to write for. I really do, I mean culturally speaking. At a certain age you're supposed to be in the back room, rocking the grandchildren."
With a Golden Globe nomination for the role, it might well be that Albert wins Close her first Oscar after five nominations. If nothing else, it would be nice to put an Academy Award alongside her 2008 Globe for playing Patty Hewes in Damages. She's currently filming the fifth and probably final season of the series, which has her come up against Ryan Phillippe as a Julian Assange-style character.
Just don't confuse her with the legal eagle who's now become her most enduring role.
"No, I'm not like Patty," she remarks softly. "I'm really not into confrontation at all."
Lowdown
Who: Glenn Close
What: Albert Nobbs
When: Opens at cinemas on Boxing Day
-TimeOut
By Helen Barlow
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