'The Wife' was in the works for 14 years, says Glenn Close

Veteran actor Glenn Close has revealed that it took 14 years to get her film, "The Wife" made.

The actor stars in the title role of Joan Castleman, a woman who takes a back seat to her husband, Joe's success, born from her own work. Jonathan Pryce plays Joe in the film.

Close said finding actors who wanted to be in a movie called "The Wife" was a difficult task.

"It's two women writers, the novelist and screenwriter, and, you know, starring a woman. No one wanted to it and, most of the money, if not all the money, came from Europe," the 71-year-old actor told The Hollywood Reporter at the Actress Roundtable of her film.

 

She said playing Joan was "fascinating" for her as she had to get into the skin of the character "without any kind of judgement".

"I had never been asked to play a character like that, but also, I had a lot of questions. I knew I'd have to answer those questions in order to play her, and the big one was, why didn't she leave him? It was so much more complex than that..." she added.

Drawing parallels with Joan, Close said maternal instinct aside, women also feel the need to do things for "personal fulfilment".

"We have our children and all that, and the nurturing, natural thing that we do as women. Then we have the need for personal fulfilment.

"We need to feed our souls and our hearts, and I think that's what our work does. You can do both," the actor said.