The Many Layers of Jessica Lange

The New Yorker critic Hilton Als talks with Jessica Lange about her beginnings. The actress dropped out of college, travelled around Europe, and trained as a mime in Paris before being cast as the ingénue caught in the clutches of Hollywood’s “King Kong.” Lange now co-stars in Ryan Murphy’s “Feud.” She plays Joan Crawford opposite Susan Sarandon’s Bette Davis. Lange tells Als that she prefers portraying real people to fictional characters. In portraying the actress Joan Crawford, whose persona was crafted by M-G-M, Lange gets to inhabit multiple characters at the same time.