Lange was 26 when she starred in the film
Credit: Araya Doheny/Getty; Corbis via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Jessica Lange initially auditioned for King Kong while living in New York and working as a waitress
- Producers were initially uninterested but eventually cast her after a screen test, launching her acting career
- Lange later earned Oscar and Emmy nominations for roles in Frances, Sweet Dreams, and Feud: Bette and Joan
Jessica Lange is opening up about her audition for the 1976 film King Kong.
Speaking on a recent episode of Live With Kelly and Mark, Lange, 77, said, “I had just moved back from Paris. I’ve been living in Paris, I came back to New York because I thought maybe I should do something, you know, study acting or something.”
“So, I started taking acting classes in New York and a modeling agency contacted me because they had been contacted by [famed Italian film producer] Dino De Laurentiis to try to cast, you know, an unknown,” she said of how she first heard about the film.
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Credit: Screen Archives/Getty
Lange continued: “So they asked me if I wanted to fly to Los Angeles and do a screen test. And I thought, wow, should I? I mean, I was working as a waitress as you know, living in a fifth floor walk up in the West Village. And I thought, well, yeah, I can fly to Los Angeles and do a screen test. Why not? So, that’s what I did. I flew out there.”
“They brought me over to MGM, which as a child had been my favorite studio,” she said, adding, “Oh, God. I used to love MGM movies as a kid. And yeah, they took one look at me and weren’t interested.”
Lange added: “So, then the agent in New York said, ‘You flew her out there. Just put her on film. Just take a look at her.’ So, they did. And ultimately, they [hired me.]’
Speaking to PEOPLE in a January 1977 cover story, Lange said of making her film debut in De Laurentiis and director John Guillermin’s audacious 1976 film — a remake of 1933’s King Kong — “Dino says I’m going to be the next Marilyn Monroe.”
“I never imagined that my first acting job would be in a film of that magnitude. It was like, that was not the fantasy I had about starting in the business. … but then you know the film came out and I was completely dismissed. I mean I didn’t get another offer for years.”
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Lange would go on to receive many offers, however, playing Frances Farmer in 1982’s Frances (a role which earned the star her first Academy Award nomination) and Patsy Cline in 1985’s Sweet Dreams (another Oscar nod for that one) as well as Joan Crawford in the 2017 limited television series Feud: Bette and Joan (for which she received Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations).
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