Jessica Lange is sharing a piece of Hollywood history, the audition stumble that almost kept her from landing the breakout role that launched her entire career.
Appearing on Live With Kelly and Mark, Lange walked hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos through the initial rejection she faced before ultimately being cast as Dwan in the 1976 King Kongremake, the role that made her a star.
Lange’s own recollection, shared in a 1991 Vanity Fairinterview, describes the circumstances vividly.
“Foolhardily, I believed I could do anything. I walked into this cattle call, weighing 114 pounds, looking different than the other girls, a lot of big, buxom blondes. Just from sight they weren’t interested in me.”
With the director already gone by the time it was her turn, she ended up doing a screen test with only the assistant director present, until that assistant director called the director back in.
“You better come down here and see this screen test,” he reportedly told him, and she did it all over again, this time before producer Dino De Laurentiis as well.
De Laurentiis ultimately cast her, and the rest, as Lange put it, is history.
On the same Liveappearance, Lange previewed her current project, a return to American Horror Storyfor Season 13, in which she’s reprising four separate characters from across the long-running anthology’s history, a reunion of sorts with the franchise most closely associated with her television legacy.
Lange won four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her various American Horror Storyroles.
Her two Oscar wins, for Best Supporting Actress for Tootsiein 1983 and Best Actress for Blue Skyin 1995, came after King Kong.
The 1976 film also earned her a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year.
2026-09-24 03:50:00
