'Albert Nobbs' displays another side of Close

TORONTO - Even just five months ago, in the late-summer days of the Toronto International Film Festival, audiences who saw Albert Nobbs knew: Glenn Close, Oscar nomination.

On Tuesday, their presentiment was borne out, and how could it not be?

As the title character of the small-budgeted, bighearted tale of a late-19th-century Dubliner who spends her life disguised as a man, Close is funny, poignant, and so deep into her role that you forget you're watching the psycho-stalker of Fatal Attraction, the debauched aristo of Dangerous Liaisons, the lethal litigator of TV's Damages.

Instead, you're looking at a tiny, timid creature - so lost in the quiet order of her lonely life, so fearful of being found out - that she does everything she can to not be there. Close's Nobbs never looks anyone in the eye, never raises his/her voice, never makes a fuss.

Until, as Albert Nobbs proceeds, it's impossible not to.

"The story touches on so many levels," Close says, holding court the morning after her Toronto festival premiere. "It's about what people do to survive, and the importance of connection, and being able to feel safe. Human beings are very basic, and have very basic needs.

"And also, if you're lucky to have work that will give you a sense of worth - it's about that, too. It's about simple things, but essential things. . . . I love stories that people can bring all their own baggage to."

The film, which received three Academy Award nominations - for Close, supporting actress Janet McTeer, and its remarkably understated but transformational makeup work - opens Friday. It's a project that Close had wanted to do since 1982, when she walked onto the stage of the Manhattan Theatre Club, performing The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs - an adaptation of a short story by George Moore.

The actress won an Obie Award for her work, and Mr. Nobbs - a hotel butler who squirrels away his earnings for a better day - won a place in her heart.

"I hadn't done very many films back then," says Close, who made her screen debut that year opposite Robin Williams in The World According to Garp and had just shot the boomer ensemble piece The Big Chill. "But even then I knew I wanted to bring Albert to the screen. I mean, the character just never left me. I played it onstage every night and it was kind of amazing, because this simple story just left people deeply moved. It slayed them."