Glenn Close tries her hand at gender bending on the big screen in a new trailer for the movie “Albert Nobbs.” She follows Julie Andrews, who did the same in the 1982 musical comedy “Victor Victoria.”
Close’s character has a more commercial reason for masquerading as a man. She’s trying to set up her own business in male-dominated 19th century Ireland.
Andrews, whose character explored transvestism, was nominated for a best actress Oscar, and early buzz has Close contending for the same honor.
Close is particularly fond of the character and story. She first played the role in a 1982 stage production and has spent 15 years, trying to get a film version off the ground.
Directed by Rodrigo Garcia and based on a short story by Irish novelist George Moore, the movie is about a star-crossed Englishwoman in Victorian Ireland.
She’s the illegitimate child of a hotel maid, who disguises herself as a man, Albert Nobbs, to get a leg up in male-dominated business world.
When another woman acting as a man comes into her life, a friendship blossoms along with complications about her identity.
Mia Wasikowska plays her love interest, a role that was originally slated for Amanda Seyfried.
“I don’t think she knows [if she’s gay],” Close told the DailyBeast in a recent interview.
“She has no knowledge of sexuality. She disappears for her own protection but she happens to disappear into a job where you’re expected to be invisible, so she’s an invisible person in an invisible job, and that makes her lose sight of herself.”
An interesting conundrum; see if it works in the new Albert Nobbs trailer below: