Glenn Close Reveals How Katharine Hepburn Changed the Course of Her Life in a Major Way: ‘No Regrets’ (Exclusive)

Audiences have Katharine Hepburn to thank for Glenn Close’s 50 years of fabulous performances. 

“The thing I've always loved about Hepburn is she seemed to really know who she was,” Close, 77, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. For the eight-time Oscar nominee, it was seeing the late Hepburn being herself in a rare late-night talk show appearance in 1973 that inspired her to become an actress. 

While painting theater scenery during her senior year at Virginia's College of William & Mary, Close saw Hepburn on The Dick Cavett Show. “I remember she said, ‘No regrets, no regrets.’ Fabulous.” (Close’s impersonation of Hepburn’s voice is spot-on.) 

“She was so phenomenal, so herself,” she recalls. “So the next day I went to the head of the [theater] department and I said, ‘Please nominate me for a series of auditions.’ And from that, I got my first job that fall.”

The star of Lee Daniels’ The Deliverance “had huge respect” for Hepburn, she adds. “Also, the fact we both come from Connecticut and our dads are both doctors!”

Close “went straight from college to my first job on Broadway the fall that I graduated” a year later. “Then I did theater for six years before I got into my first movie, which is The World According to Garp, and basically have never looked back.”

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She also ended up meeting the icon who inspired her. Following her onstage tribute to the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner star at the 1990 Kennedy Center Honors, Close told Hepburn about seeing the TV interview. “She was wearing a black raincoat, a white shirt, black pants and highly polished black Reeboks,” remembers Close. “And everyone else was in gowns and jewels. And she looked fabulous.” 

Close then received “the most fantastic letter” from her hero. Its words continue to resonate, she says: “Aren't we lucky to be in this terrible profession, this terrifying profession, and, let's face it, this delicious way to spend your life?”

As for actors now inspired by Close’s work, she has key advice. “When people say, ‘How do I start?’ I say, ‘I don't think there's any rule for it,’” she says. “It's hard. You have to have incredible resilience, certainly in the beginning because you will have disappointment after disappointment, rejection after rejection. You have to have a crazy engine that keeps you going.”

The Deliverance, costarring Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Mo’Nique, is in theaters now and on Netflix Aug. 30. Close also appears in Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage's Brothers, in theaters Oct. 10 and on Prime Video Oct. 17.