“You age out of a lot of parts, that’s just the nature of things,” Jessica Lange, the legendary stage and screen actress, said during a recent recording of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast at the Virginia Film Festival, where she was being honored with the fest’s Visionary Award. The 77-year-old, who also brought to the fest her latest film, a big-screen adaptation of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, was discussing the possibility of retirement and continued, “I wouldn’t mind ending on Mary Tyrone [the protagonist of Long Day’s Journey, a morphine addict in 1912 Connecticut], let me tell you. I would embrace that, because there’s no greater part I’m ever going to play.”

One of only 24 people ever and one of only 10 people still living who have won the “triple crown of acting,” as in, at least one Oscar, Emmy and Tony (she has won two, three and one, respectively), Lange has been a screen actress for 50 years. She made her film debut after being “discovered,” while working part-time as a model, and cast by producer Dino De Laurentiis in his large-scale remake of King Kong (1976). She received a huge publicity build-up, even appearing on the cover of TIME magazine. But the film proved to be such a giant flop that, she explains during this conversation, it shattered her self-confidence and almost destroyed her career.