Shirley MacLaine on Her New Film, ‘The Last Word,’ and the Joke She Wants Made in Her Obituary

Shirley MacLaine at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
Shirley MacLaine at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo: Getty Images)

“Why are people still interested in me?” That was Shirley MacLaine’s modest response to learning how much fans enjoyed her 2014 Role Recall interview with Yahoo Movies. As for her enduring popularity, let’s begin with her legacy. A certifiable screen icon, MacLaine’s long, successful career launched in 1955 with the Alfred Hitchcock film The Trouble With Harry, includes classics like The Apartment and Being There, and features six Oscar nominations, with one win for Terms of Endearment. Six decades later, the 82-year-old continues to release challenging, interesting films.

In her latest comedic drama, The Last Word, MacLaine stars as Harriet, a cantankerous advertising retiree alternately wallowing in loneliness and simmering in hostility until she realizes that she may have burned so many bridges that there may not be anyone left to say anything positive about her when she dies. To rectify that, Harriet hires a skeptical young obituary writer (Amanda Seyfried) to craft a eulogy the control-freak elder woman can personally approve.

In a candid sit-down with Yahoo Movies at the film’s Los Angeles press day, MacLaine talked about her own obituary, hip-hop, selfies, career turning points, last month’s Oscars snafu, and much more.

Harriet is such a dynamic character. What commonalities did you find with her? What could you relate to?
She knew what she wanted. I kind of know what I want. My God, people are so grateful if you know what you want, I’ve noticed. So nobody gets confused. That’s really the truth. That’s why I act this way. I have permission to act this way. Because nobody wants to be confused.

So you think you’re very similar?
Mmm-hmm. Well, I’m not quite as blunt as Harriet. I don’t lead with the spears as she does. But I do when inefficiency becomes apparent. I have a dancer’s mentality: Do your best.

Do you think there are parallels between the battles Harriet had to face as a woman in the business world and what you’ve had to face as a woman in Hollywood?
I never felt that in life, Kevin. I came privileged. I was Hitchcock’s new little child from Trouble With Harry. And I went straight from there. I didn’t audition once. I identified with [what Emma Stone’s character Mia faces in] La La Land to an extent because it was about the time it takes to devote to love and the time it takes to devote to your creativity.

And trying to find a balance.
That’s right. And feeling like you’re letting somebody down. But no, I went from Hitch to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis [in Artist and Models] to [Around the World in] Eighty Days. So I don’t know what that audition process, or trying to fight the system in Hollywood, was. Until I made it, and then I had to decide, “Am I really going to do everything they say?”

Amanda Seyfried, Shirley MacLaine, and AnnJewel Lee Dixon in <em>The Last Word</em>.
Amanda Seyfried, Shirley MacLaine, and AnnJewel Lee Dixon in The Last Word. (Photo: Bleecker Street)

Has the experience of making The Last Word made you contemplate how you would like your own obituary to read?
[Laughs] Yes. I’m going to make a joke here. I want it to read, “I’m not dead. You just think I am.” And that would be folding into my books. No one ever dies. That’s why I don’t go to funerals.

You believe in reincarnation, that you’re reborn.
Of course, that. But that’s another story. I believe as all the scientists, including Einstein, that nothing ever dies — it just changes form. Energy is eternal. So I’m interested in the soul of it all, not the body of it all.

It’s outlandish in Harriet’s case, but many media outlets prewrite obits for public figures and celebrities. Is it odd knowing yours may already be written?
No, it saves time. [Laughs] I would like them to make a joke about my belief that nothing ever dies. I’d like that.

Harriet struggles to find adulation. You’ve had no shortage of that over your career. What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about you?
A friend of mine was at one of my An Evening With [live shows]. The one I’ve done since I’ve gotten old, where I take questions from the audience. And he said the best thing about this is you allow the audience to be themselves. I thought that was the best compliment I ever had. They knew what they wanted to ask, they didn’t want to be shy about it, or reluctant about it in any way. That was the nicest thing — I loved that.

Watch a clip from The Last Word:


I loved the music in The Last Word. Harriet’s a surprisingly hip music listener. She loves the Kinks.
I never heard of them. I don’t know who the hell they are.

Do you keep up with any new music?
Some of it. But you know what I miss? I miss the harmony of the wonderful songs of Dean [Martin] and Frank [Sinatra] and so forth. I miss the lyrics that you can understand. And I miss the rhythms. Of course, the rhythms today are much more sophisticated. And being a dancer, I love that. But I miss the purpose of music, which is to move your heart. Not necessarily your body.

You do move your body a bit in the film. Had you ever danced to hip-hop music before?
No. [Laughs]

How do you feel about hip-hop?
I love all that music. But I miss lyrics and the harmonics of the music.

What is your impression of your co-star Amanda Seyfried? You guys go toe-to-toe in this film.
Oh, she’s wonderful. My golly she’s a nice person. Really brilliant, one of the few I know who can cry on cue. We talked about that; she gave me some of her secrets. And I love that I was privileged to watch the love affair between her and [fiancé] Thomas [Sadoski]. I feel like I’m kind of the godmother to the baby. [The couple is currently expecting.] She’s something else. And her eyes! Her whole face is so open.

Did you give her any of your secrets?
No. I don’t know what that would be.

Do you ever find any of the actors you work with getting starstruck?
Well, they say they are afterward. But I didn’t feel it, no. We just focus on the script and what the scene is about, and what the director wants. It’s not terrifically glamorous. Now what they think about me is another story. But it certainly isn’t to me.

What is a typical fan encounter like for you, when someone approaches you in public?
They usually talk about some moment in their past about 50 years ago [laughs], when they saw The Apartment or something. Or they’ll talk about loving all my bitchy parts, from Steel Magnolias on. Or they’ll talk about the “give my daughter the shot” scene in Terms [of Endearment]. But they usually talk about themselves. I find that so complimentary. Not talking about how good I was, but how it made them feel.

Do people ask for selfies?
Oh yeah.

Do you take them?
I hate it. But I’ll do it if I’m on my way out.

Watch our ‘Role Recall’ interview with Shirley MacLaine:


When we did the Role Recall interview, we talked through what we considered your most iconic roles. But which film of yours do you think is most underappreciated?
Good question. Probably Madame Sousatzka. She was a great artist, a great piano teacher and artist herself. But [it showed] how artists think with aging. What they want from their students. How they want them to be serious about performing and the art of music. It was well done and we got recognized, but I had hoped that the audience would know it better.

I had a wonderful time shooting Wild Oats with Jessica Lange, the one I did right before this that we shot in the Canary Islands. That didn’t even get a release. That was disappointing that they didn’t recognize that one more. Even for the scenery [laughs].

The Turning Point turns 40 this year. I feel like that’s a film people forget got 11 Oscar nominations, even though it didn’t win any. How do you look back at the film?
Very much with nostalgia and appreciation for what my early life was, which was ballet. I was in a ballet class every day of my life from the age of 3 to maybe in my mid-20s. Big deal — that’s my work ethic. Being disciplined, loving the music, working as a team player. And basically doing what’s expected. I might seem like a very iconoclastic [person]. Harriet is a very vinegary and sarcastic put-downer. But that’s not what I am. I’m just about getting the job done.

Did your career have a turning point?
I don’t know, probably Terms. It’s had so many turning points, Kevin, my God. It’s had so many. I can’t really analyze what they’re about, or why they happened. Or didn’t… I never thought that much about it, never planned anything. I’m not good at the diabolic [part] of being famous. I just do what I do, and let the spontaneous moment rule.

You had a great moment with Charlize Theron at the Oscars this year. Did you know her beforehand? Were you aware she was such a fan?
I’ve known her for a while, but never had any idea that she was so inspired by The Apartment until a few days before the Oscars. Really, I didn’t know that at all. And seeing that footage again — every once in a while I’ll run into it on TCM or something, and I just turn it off. But it was interesting watching that. It was almost like when I walked out there with her I was an older version of Fran Kubelik.

The show obviously ended on a surprising note. What did you make of the Best Picture mishap?
Come on, it was very bad for everybody’s sensibility, to tell you the truth. I keep saying, “What if it had been the other way around? What if the people from Moonlight were thanking each other, and then the white guys had to come up onstage?” So you have to look at the plus. It makes you understand that life is basically a series of snapshot moments of triumph and embarrassment [laughs], and everything in between.

The Last Word is now in theaters. Watch the trailer:


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