Anjelica Huston names her favourite movie of all time: “It gets me on every level”
An Academy Award winner, a third-generation superstar, a former partner of Jack Nicholson, a frequent collaborator with Wes Anderson, an extremely talented screen performer. However you slice it, Anjelica Huston knows a thing or two about the movies.
After making her big screen debut in 1969 in her father John’s film A Walk with Love and Death, Huston has since gone on to appear in a wide array of acclaimed and popular movies. Most people will know her from her two spookiest roles – the Grand High Witch in The Witches and Morticia Addams in the two ‘Addams Family’ films from the 1990s – but she’s also given performances in everything from The Grifter to Daddy Day Care, Tinker Bell to the ‘John Wick’ franchise. She’s also followed in her father’s footsteps and directed two feature films.
Having such strong connections to the world of cinema, Huston’s opinion on the matter carries a lot of weight. Choosing an all-time favourite film is a tough ask for anyone, especially someone who has actually been in some of the greats, but when asked the question by Movieline, Huston was able to come up with an answer, and it was a cracker.
“It’s gotta be Gone with the Wind,” she said. “It’s just a movie I keep on going back to. It’s a monster, that film! It gets me on every level, and gets me every time. It’s just a phenomenal performance by Vivien Leigh. I always fall in love with one of the boys in the movie. I can never really make up my mind about who I love best – [Leslie Howard] or Clark Gable. So, it’s always rich for me, that movie.”
Released in 1939, Victor Fleming’s adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, as well as the highest-grossing when adjusted for inflation. For her role as Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of a plantation owner who gets caught in a love triangle between two men, Leigh won best Actress at the 1940 Academy Awards. Clark Gable, the actor behind Rhett Butler and Huston’s on-off screen crush, would go on to work with her father on the 1961 film, The Misfits.
The interviewer pointed out similarities between Leigh and Huston’s mannerisms on screen, which their subject must have been thrilled with. “I hadn’t really thought about that until you brought it up,” she admitted. “But that’s probably what makes me attracted to her. I love feeling many ways about characters. That, to me, is the sign of a really good performance. You’re just on board, and you go, ‘Ohhhh, no. Don’t do that. Don’t go there. Don’t go there.’ You’re still there though she’s badly misbehaving. I feel an empathy with her, and particularly in that part. I love Scarlett O’Hara. I think she’s a fabulous woman, and I love southern women. Southern women are the best.”
It might seem like an obvious choice for favourite film, but Huston’s reasons for loving Gone with the Wind are genuine and well-founded. As not only a student of Hollywood, but a living part of its legacy, you can see why she would be drawn to a film with so much history and impact on the business that her and her family have called home for so many years.
