Shelley Duvall Reflects on Retirement From Acting and Recent Return to Hollywood: 'It's Violence'
After more than two decades away from the public eye, Shelley Duvall is opening up about her mysterious retirement from acting, and what has inspired her return to Hollywood.
In a lengthy New York Timesprofile, the 74-year-old discusses her wide-spanning career after she made her acting debut in director Robert Altman's 1970 dark comedy Brewster McCloud. Duvall went on to have acclaimed leading roles in films like Popeye and The Shining and won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the 1977 drama 3 Women. In the 1980s, she went into producing television programming for children and youth, earning two Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
In 2002, Duvall appeared in her final film, Manna From Heaven, before announcing her retirement from acting.
"I was a star; I had leading roles," she tells the outlet. "People think it's just aging, but it's not. It's violence. How would you feel if people were really nice, and then, suddenly, on a dime" -- she snapped her fingers -- "they turn on you? You would never believe it unless it happens to you. That's why you get hurt, because you can't really believe it's true."
Shelley Duvall in 'The Shining'
Dan Gilroy, the actress' partner for over 30 years, recalls their life in Los Angeles, before the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged Duvall's home, and then in Texas, where they moved after her brothers fell ill.
"It was great, all those years in L.A., really terrific," Gilroy tells NYT. "And when we moved, after the earthquake, it was terrific in Texas. Things went downhill when she started becoming afraid of things, maybe didn't want to work. It's really hard to pin it on any one thing."
Gilroy says the stressful toll of events haunted Duvall. "She became paranoid and just kind of delusional, thinking she was being attacked," he says. "She tried to make calls to the F.B.I., and asked our neighbor to protect us... It was just shocking that, suddenly, from normal, it went south like that."
Things took a turn when Duvall was a guest on a controversial episode of the daytime talk show Dr. Phil in 2016. The episode was titled "A Hollywood Star's Descent Into Mental Illness: Saving The Shining's Shelley Duvall," and, according to Gilroy, was filmed without his knowledge.
Dan Gilroy and Shelley Duvall in 1989
"I found out days later from people in town that it had happened," Gilroy tells NYT of the episode in which Duvall made several concerning claims.
"I'm very sick. I need help," Duvall told host Dr. Phil McGraw at one point during the episode. "Well, that's why I'm here," he responded.
At the time, the Brewster McCloud star's statements included the claim that she'd seen the late Robin Williams -- whom she co-starred with in 1980's Popeye -- since he died in 2014. She claimed that he wasn't really dead, and was "shapeshifting." She also claimed that the "Sheriff of Nottingham" had been threatening her, and that there was a "worrying" disc inside of her.
Although the episode never aired in full, the damage was done.
"It did nothing for her," Gilroy says of the show. "It just put her on the map as an oddity."
Last June, the former daytime host appeared on Who's Talking to Chris Wallace, during which he said he doesn't regret the interview, despite many -- including Stanley Kubrick's daughter, Vivian -- publicly criticizing the show for being exploitative and sensationalist.
"I don't regret what I did," McGraw said. "I regret that it was promoted in a way that people thought was unbecoming."
"There are parts of that story that I haven't talked about and won't talk about in specific, but I can say generally that we worked with her family [and] with her for over a year off camera, after the fact, providing her opportunities for inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care. I can't tell you the extent we went through," he added.
Now, Duvall has officially come out of retirement with her role as Mama in writer-director Scott Goldberg's horror film, The Forest Hills.
The film also stars Edward Furlong, Chiko Mendez, Dee Wallace, and Felissa Rose. The Forest Hills follows a disturbed man who is tormented by nightmarish visions, after enduring head trauma while camping in the Catskill Mountains.
Duvall plays the mother of the mentally and emotionally disturbed Rico (Mendez), who serves as his inner voice.
When asked how she came to be involved in the project, Duvall simply says, "I wanted to act again. And then this guy kept calling, and so I wound up doing it."
When the actress spoke with ET ahead of the film's initial release date of March 2023, she was enthusiastic about her return to the big screen.
"I know it's been a long time," Duvall told ET, "but it's been great. It really has, it feels good. Makes me want to do more acting."
"It's actually so much fun to act in a movie," she said of the return to set. "I should appreciate every minute of it."
Duvall's co-stars also spoke up about their excitement to work alongside her. "I could not have done it without her," Mendez said. "We need each other because acting is not acting, it's reacting."
It may have been a long break, but Duvall is confident she's making her return with the right role and cast. "You don't want to have to take every role that comes along, every movie that comes along," she said. "You want to be able to choose."
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