Kirkland revealed that she has been filming Bobcat Moretti, where she plays the role of Helene Moretti. “It has been great. I did some of the greatest acting I’ve ever done yesterday,” she said.
She is looking forward to Sallywood, which is in the final stages of editing. “That is an incredible movie. Keith Carradine plays my former lover and Eric Roberts plays my agent,” she said. “Maria Conchita Alonso is just a friend.”
Kirkland continued, “The director, Xaque Gruber, was my assistant 15 years ago, and he saw Anna, when he was a young kid, and he fell in love with me, and Anna. He made up his mind to come to Hollywood to sign Sally Kirkland. As fate would have it, I’m a painter also, and I met him at a paint show. He told me my paintings were incredible and that he came all the way from Maine to find me and meet me, and to tell me that I was his inspiration. I hired him on the spot to be my assistant, and he ended up writing this screenplay about being an assistant to Sally Kirkland and all of the extraordinary experiences.”
“A lot of it is factual and a lot of it is exaggerated for film,” she said about Sallywood. “He really wrote a love letter to me. It is very funny and touching,” she said.
She shared that she plays the mother in Cuck, which is available on Amazon Prime Video. “It’s a very dark film but it was brilliant. It was compared to Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix. I play the female lead and it’s about the same subject. Four critics compared it to Joker, and a couple said Cuck was more authentic,” she said. “I got the opportunity to really tear the scenery down.”
The acclaimed actress does a podcast on Mondays on HealthyLife.net, which is distributed to 135 countries. “Mostly, I have people that have something spiritual to say. I’m an astrology buff so I have astrologers on, musicians, and an array of different things,” she said.
“I also did a short film called Lilith, where I play Lilith,” she said. “We did it in Virginia and it’s an amazing role. I get to be very gentle and sweet, and then extraordinarily sarcastic, and then psychotic. It’s one of those roles that you kill to get.”
On the title of the current chapter of her life, she said, “Adjusting to digital, and being a workaholic still.”
Kirkland became a lifelong member of the Actors Studio in New York in 1961 at the age of 20. She became an acting teacher in 1971 at the age of 30 and has since taught over 2,000 students, which include Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Roseanne, Bill Paxton, Amy Madigan, Sela Ward, Sandra Bullock, Kathy Griffin, and Rebecca DeMorney. “I started acting in 1960,” she said.
In addition, she introduced yoga to Farrah Fawcett, Dwight Yoakum, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, Elia Kazan, and Bob Dylan, among others, and has been on staff at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York and Los Angeles.
In 1964, Andy Warhol featured Sally as one his 13 most beautiful women along with Edie Sedgwick, Nico, and Ultra Violet. In July of 1969, Time Magazine dubbed her “The later day Isadora Duncan of nudothespianism.” That same year, she co-starred with Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Rip Torn in the now-classic film Coming Apart.
She has been an ordained minister (reverend) since 1976 with the MSIA church.
In February of 1987, she won the Golden Globe for “Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama” for Anna, and she subsequently received an Oscar nomination for “Best Actress.” “Being nominated for an Oscar was the best moment of my life, especially to be in that group with Holly Hunter, Cher, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep,” she said.
“Winning the Golden Globe and the Independent Spirit Award for Anna was really great,” she said. “It was an extraordinary time in my life, where I had an out-of-body experience.”
In 1991, she starred in The Haunted, which is the Fox network’s highest-rated TV movie of all time. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for “Best Actress — TV Movie” in 1992.
For young and aspiring actors, she said, “I am in my 60th year at this, so never give up. Persevere, and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Don’t wait for Hollywood, take charge yourself.”
Regarding the key to longevity in acting and entertainment, she said, “It takes an incredible amount of self-promotion unless you are under a studio contract.”
Kirkland defined the word success as “to love unconditionally and to find the God in everyone I meet and to share my soul and my work and to be a workaholic.”
To learn more about Academy Award nominee Sally Kirkland, check out her official website.
