There will be many tributes to Glenda Jackson, who died yesterday at age 87 after a short illness. You will hear from her fellow actors, from people who worked with her in films, or in 1970s TV sketch comedy, or on Broadway. You will hear from her fellow members of Parliament, in which she served as a Labour MP from 1992 to 2015. You will hear from fans of her performance in Women In Love, which got her her first Oscar in 1970, or her work in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, which earned Jackson her last Tony in 2018.
This is the only one you’ll read from the person who got to tell her what Baby Yoda was.
It was earlier this year. I was working on my profile of Pedro Pascal, and making a wish-list of what we call “secondaries”: the friends or cast-mates of the person you’re writing about, the people who might give you some insight on your subject. In Pedro’s case, this was an especially good list: Sarah Paulson, Bradley Cooper, Oscar Isaac. But then it hit me: Pedro was on Broadway a few years ago, as Edmund in King Lear. Glenda Jackson played Lear in that performance. Would…would Oscar, Emmy, Tony, BAFTA winner and former Parliamentary Undersecretary of Transport Glenda Jackson want to get on the phone and tell me some wild backstage stories about Pedro? Did he play any funny pranks on you, Glenda Jackson CBE? Is he nice?
I mean, of course she would not say yes, but I put her on the list anyway because you have to try in this world.
I sent the list to our entertainment director Randi Peck, and thirty minutes later I had Glenda Jackson’s home phone number.
The panic set in immediately. I WhatsApped my British friend Stephen, partially for advice and partially to boast. “Just remember she’s a Red. The woman is not a pinko, she is a full-on Marx-loving, hardcore unionising Red,” Stephen said. “So don’t get all centrist on her.” I promised I would not.
I dialled. The “hello” was forceful, deep, and when I said I was calling for Glenda Jackson, replied, “Well, you’re speaking to her.” I bumbled through a thank-you, and she said, “Hold on a tic,” then had a quick conversation with a visitor who was leaving and wanted to make sure she was sorted for dinner. “Don’t worry, I have food,” Glenda Jackson assured her, and then apologised, and then we talked Pedro.
“He was a remarkably charming actor,” she said. “A real pleasure to work with and a great pleasure to know. He sort of made friends with everybody, and that’s difficult because he had such a hard person to play.” And then I began to ask another question and she corrected herself: “That makes it sound as though he changed the play to suit his personality. He doesn't do that at all, but if he plays lousy characters who don't like other human beings, he can work his way through that, and produce very interesting attitudes.”
She continued: “He always delivers, do you know what I mean?” And then, again, “NO. I’m making it sound as though he overacts, which he does not. But he gives what it takes so that when you watch him, you are engaged.”
Glenda Jackson was eloquent and passionate and determined to give this five-minute secondary interview her very best effort and hit it precisely on the head, to do it thoughtfully and skillfully, as she did all things, as she did here, and then we didn’t use it because there was only so much space and literally everyone in the world wanted to talk about Pedro Pascal.
Before we got off the phone, I asked whether she was surprised by the massive moment Pedro is having right now, and her reply was succinct: “No, not really, because I'm not aware of what he's doing.” And then I explained to her what The Last of Us was, and The Mandalorian, and Baby Yoda but actually his name is Grogu. I think I got through it quickly, but who even knows. She took it in.
“Well,” she said. “Good for him.”
Legend.
She told me to give him her best wishes the next time I saw him, which I still haven’t, so: best wishes from Glenda Jackson, Pedro Pascal. She liked you.
Dave Holmes is Esquire's L.A.-based editor-at-large. His first book, "Party of One," is out now.
