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It always comes back to the mother. After waging a war on the ladies who lunch, Tom Hollander<\/strong>\u2019s Truman Capote faces the final boss in the twilight hours of his life: his mother, Nina Capote\u2014portrayed by legendary actress Jessica Lange.<\/strong> In the final episode of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,<\/em> \u201cPhantasm Forgiveness,\u201d it\u2019s not Diane Lane<\/strong>\u2019s duplicitous Slim Keith<\/a>, or Calista Flockhart<\/strong>\u2019s acerbic Lee Radziwill<\/a>, or even Naomi Watt<\/strong>\u2019s beautiful Babe Paley<\/a>, but Lange\u2019s striving and resentful Lillie Mae who looms largest in Capote\u2019s psyche in the last moments of his life.<\/p>\n Born Lillie Mae Faulk, Capote\u2019s mother always longed to escape her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama and join society\u2019s elite up in New York City. After divorcing Truman\u2019s father when Truman was two years old, Lillie Mae changed her name to Nina and moved north in search of a more glamorous life, leaving Truman in Monroeville to be raised by her relatives. Eventually, Truman joined his mother and her new husband, Jos\u00e9 Garc\u00eda Capote, in New York City, where, despite her best efforts, Lillie Mae was never fully embraced by the Park Avenue crowd that Capote would later infiltrate and set aflame. Lillie Mae would ultimately take her own life when Capote was 29.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tough, isn\u2019t it?\u201d says Lange of Lillie Mae\u2019s fate. We\u2019re speaking over the phone from Los Angeles the day before she\u2019s set to present the best-actress award with fellow Oscar winners Charlize Theron,<\/strong> Sally Field,<\/strong> Jennifer Lawrence,<\/strong> and Michelle Yeoh.<\/strong> Regarding Capote\u2019s mother, she puts it succinctly: \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of mother you don\u2019t want.\u201d<\/p>\n As Feud<\/em> comes to a close, Lange chats with VF<\/em> about bad mothers, her meticulous research, and her lack of interest in the ladies who lunch.<\/p>\n Vanity Fair:<\/strong><\/em> The finale of<\/strong> Feud<\/strong><\/em> really focuses on Truman\u2019s relationship with his mother. What was it like getting that final script and unpacking the complicated mother-son relationship?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jessica Lange:<\/em> Well, in classic Ryan Murphy<\/strong> fashion, I\u2019d [only] gotten the first couple scripts. It was literally two scenes\u2014there was the first episode, and then the Black and White ball<\/a>. Then he said to me, because they were still writing, \u201cWhat would you like to play? Because most of your scenes will be in the eighth episode.\u201d<\/p>\n Having done some research reading the book, Capote and His Women,<\/em> I thought, Well, what\u2019s really interesting would be Truman\u2019s childhood, which, of course, informs so much of his life and who he became. So I said, \u201cWell, can we do a flashback to his early years?\u201d So we had those couple scenes. And then, in classic actress fashion, I said, \u201cWhat about her suicide scene?\u201d Not to be maudlin or mawkish, but that would be an amazing scene to play. So we kind of went from there. I haven\u2019t seen it, but I felt like they wrote some really great scenes.<\/p>\n