NORA ZEHETNER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RIE RASMUSSEN
STORY AND INTERVIEW BY STEPHANIE BRANDHUBER
STYLED BY NEAL ST.ONGE

Imagista: Your latest role is playing Annie Glenn in the Disney+ series The Right Stuff. What attracted you to the role?

Nora Zehetner: Mark Lafferty’s script was one of the best pilot scripts I’ve ever read. And Annie Glenn is such an inspiration to so many, including me. It was rather daunting to try and fill her shoes but I was excited to try.

Imagista: How did you prepare for the role?

Nora Zehetner: I went down an internet rabbit hole and tried to find every detail I could about her life. I watched all of her interviews, though they were all almost exclusively taken later in her life. Although she was incredibly famous at the time I was playing her, she rarely gave a televised interview due to having an 85% stutter. She went to an intensive speech program when she was 53 and was able to almost completely cure it. Her husband, John Glenn, said he cried when she called him and was able to talk on the phone for the first time. They really had the most beautiful relationship. After that she began giving speeches and was a huge advocate for people with disabilities and speech impediments.

But I think a lot of my portrayal of Annie wound up being based on letters that my co-star, Patrick Adams, was able to pull from the John Glenn archives. There were just stacks of letters they wrote to each other when they were in their early twenties and newly married when he was stationed overseas in the war. The intimacies I was able to pull from those were everything to me.

Jacket & pants @balmain Earnings @xivkarats

Imagista: Are there any similarities between you and Annie?

Nora Zehetner: I think we’re both pretty feisty. I would like to think I have some percentage of her kindness, warmth and strength. She’s pretty hard to measure up to!

Imagista: Annie Glenn sadly passed away earlier this year. What would you like viewers to take away from your portrayal of her?

Nora Zehetner: I hope they see her perseverance in the face of adversity.

Imagista: Has playing Annie Glenn taught you anything about yourself?

Nora Zehetner: Good question. I think I’m learning to be kinder to myself. Patience.

Jacket & pants @balmain Earnings @xivkarats

Imagista: The men chosen to be astronauts were deemed to have “the right stuff.” What do you think “the right stuff” was in order to be an astronaut’s wife at the time?

Nora Zehetner: Well, at the time I think “the right stuff” for most of the wives involved looking the other way and smiling for the cameras while raising a family under pretty crazy circumstances. Annie and John Glenn were quite different in that respect as he was a very, very dutiful husband and father. But they were all certainly required to keep up a certain image that thankfully we are not held up to today. That narrow view of “perfection” must have been exhausting.

Imagista: What was the most rewarding thing about being involved in The Right Stuff?

Nora Zehetner: Oh, so much. Firstly, getting to tell Annie’s story which I hope we get a chance to delve into further down the line, because right now we are just scratching the surface. And the people I met and got to work with were pretty incredible.

Imagista: The Right Stuff explores the concept of instant celebrity through looking at these astronauts and their families’ rise to fame.  Did you draw on some of your own experiences of celebrity for the role?

Nora Zehetner: I can’t imagine the level of celebrity that Annie experienced! Honestly, the rare times someone has jumped in front of me with a camera on the street, I’ve looked all around me to try and see who they were taking a picture of before I actually realized it was me! So I was more drawing on others’ experiences of it and my own imagination to navigate what that must have been like. But yes, that idea of going from a military wife to the cover of Life magazine overnight is mind-blowing.  And also interesting because they didn’t really sign up for it, their husbands did, but it was a decision that changed their whole lives. I doubt they realized that was going to happen.

Imagista: As an actor, do you think there are similarities between the way the idea of celebrity was treated then, in the 1950s and 1960s, as it is now?

Nora Zehetner: I think there was the same level of fascination then as there is now, just not as much saturation. I have these old movie gossip magazines from the 1950s that someone gave me and they are so fun to go through. Images were more carefully cultivated then, things were more easily swept under the carpet. I think it’s more difficult for people to keep anything hidden these days and often people willingly air their own dirty laundry for relevance. It’s interesting.

Imagista: Have you ever dreamt of going into space? 

Nora Zehetner: Yes! Of course as a kid I always did! And as an adult, I still want to. They would have to give me lots of space ice cream though. I love space ice cream.

Imagista: The Right Stuff deals with fear and conquering it, or sometimes just plain ignoring it. Is there a fear that you have conquered?

Nora Zehetner: It’s a constant battle! I don’t like failing at anything. So it’s very hard for me to do things that I might fail at or to pick myself up and try again if I do fail. But if you don’t open yourself up to failure, you miss out on so many things. So I am working on conquering my fear of failure.

Imagista: 2020 has been a particularly challenging year for a lot of people. How have you been keeping calm and mentally healthy during the past few months?

Nora Zehetner: Well, speaking of failing, I’m learning guitar and taking singing lessons! Not sure that either of those come naturally to me but I’m loving the challenge and I find it very calming.

PLEASE FOLLOW OUR CONTRIBUTORS!
Nora Zehetner @norazehetner
Styled by Neal St. Onge @nealstonge
Photography by Rie Rasmussen @rierasmussen
Assisted by Caleb Jermaine @iamcalebjermaine
Hair & Makeup by Dale Johnson @bdale38
Interview by Stephanie Brandhuber @stephbranded
Imagista @imagista