Variety's Actors on Actors series has featured some iconic pairings. Recent pairings have seen Zendaya and Carey Mulligan; Daniel Kaluuya and Tom Holland; and Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, to name a few.
However, the latest duo from Actors on Actors features Glenn Close and Pete Davidson – two wildly different human beings coming together for an iconic conversation.
With five decades of screen acting and several Oscar nominations, Glenn was still nervous to talk to Davidson, saying he "just (seemed) so cool." But right off the bat, the two hit it off, chatting about anything and everything: from Cruella de Vil to addiction and mental health.
Glenn called in from her home in Montana, and Pete dialed in from (you guessed it!) Staten Island in his mom's basement. They bonded over the connection they felt with each other's recent films: Glenn's Hillbilly Elegy and Pete's The King of Staten Island. Pete even went so far as to say the interview was "the highlight of my career and life."
Glenn Close to Pete Davidson: "I was nervous when I woke up because you just seem so cool and so on a level I will never be on"
But for those of you who didn't watch the whole 27-minute conversation, here's a quick summary:
They discuss each other's work, where Pete cites Glenn's performance in Fatal Attraction and Glenn asks about Pete's real-life experiences with The King of Staten Island.
Pete Davidson on casting his dad’s real-life friend in #TheKingOfStatenIsland and his “crew” in the film: “The friends that I had in the movie were pretty much spot on with the ones I had in real life.” | Variety #ActorsOnActors presented by @AmazonStudios https://t.co/0qcGboVIOi
Glenn talks about Fatal Attraction's lasting impact, saying she didn't know it would have that big of an effect. "It was a thrilling experience. It was pretty stressful because I was playing a woman who had been incested at a very early age and it made her suicidal. This is from research I did with a psychiatrist. I wanted to know what made people behave like that. I was on a totally different level with that character. I wasn’t playing an evil person. I was playing a person in distress who had no help — and I loved her."
Pete talks about casting his dad's friend in The King of Staten Island and how special that felt. He also talks about his mom bragging that Marisa Tomei played her in the film and how realistic it was to have random people knocking on your window looking for pills. "It's very Staten Island. That's pretty much how it rolls down here," Pete said.
Glenn is very interested in Pete's work on Saturday Night Live, and the two talk about the courage it takes to be a stand-up comedian.
Pete Davidson prefers Weekend Update to #SNL skits: “I had to dress up as Count Chocula... You’re stuck in the outfit for four hours in your dressing room, just looking at yourself in the mirror.” | Variety #ActorsOnActors presented by @AmazonStudios https://t.co/8aKv2E29VC
Glenn tells Pete she loves his writing and acting on Weekend Update, and Pete tells her he much prefers it to having to dress up in wacky costumes. She also talks about her admiration for people like Pete and Robin Williams, who was a good friend of hers, and how their job is "courageous."
“I find standup comedy one of the most terrifying propositions I could think of — and yet, there are people like you, and Robin was a friend of mine. It’s an act of courage in my eyes,” she says. “I once went with Robin to one of the clubs he used to work out new material in, in San Francisco. And it was excruciating because he just didn’t have the crowd. He just kept at it. And at the end, he had them.”
“There’s obviously tons of more courageous jobs,” Davidson responds. “But I do think it is courageous to get onstage in front of people because it is terrifying. The reason why I think I was able to do it is because a shitty thing happened to me when I was really young. We lost my dad. When I was 16, I always wanted to try it because it was what got me by — Eddie Murphy and Chappelle and Bill Burr. My friends were like, ‘You should do it.’ And it went okay.”
The two open up about mental illness and addiction.
Pete Davidson opens up about his BPD diagnosis: “When somebody finally tells you, the weight of the world just feels lifted off your shoulders. You just feel so much better.” | Variety #ActorsOnActors presented by @AmazonStudios https://t.co/0qcGboE7pI
Glenn asks Pete how the mental illness storyline was treated in Hillbilly Elegy, and he tells her it was spot on. They talk about Pete's bipolar disorder diagnosis and addiction, where Pete says: "The way it affects other people is what you really don't think about when you're starving for an addiction because it's just, that is the most important thing at the time: trying to get by and get your fix. It was beautifully done but also so emotional. It was really an honest depiction."
Pete asks about Glenn's iconic performance of Cruella de Vil and strategizes on how to get her an Oscar.
Glenn Close kept all her Cruella costumes by putting it in her contract: “When they found out how expensive they were, they were unhappy... They wanted to make another set for me. I said no.” | Variety #ActorsOnActors presented by @AmazonStudios https://t.co/8aKv2EjLkc
A lot of Pete's admiration comes from Glenn's legendary time as Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians, which were two of his favorite movies growing up. He asks her about why she wanted to take on the role, to which she talks about growing up loving Disney as well and feeling honored to be such a huge part of a Disney story. She also got to keep her costumes, which is incredible.
Then Pete tries to figure out how to get Glenn an Oscar, calling on the internet to help him. She responds by asking if it might be better to be wheeled out in a wheelchair and get the Lifetime Achievement Award; however, she's not sure which she'd prefer.
"First of all, you're fulfilled by your work and that's the process to me is what feeds my soul. But it really is nice when other people like it," Glenn said. "It might be cool to never get one. I wouldn't mind being wheeled out when I'm old and drooling and have a gray wig to cover my bald head."
Watch the full conversation, below.
Share This Article
