At the Venice Film Festival, Ellen Burstyn’s Golden Lion moment takes an emotional turn

Moments before she walked onstage at the Lido, Maggie Gyllenhaal told the crowd that Ellen Burstyn had recently taken a fall and was fine, just moving a little slower — a note that drew warm applause from the room, per Variety. Then the 93-year-old actor took the mic, visibly moved by the weight of the night.

“You can’t imagine how meaningful this is to me,” she said. “It ’s one thing to win an Oscar, a Tony or an Emmy, all of which I’ve won. But this … it’s a lot.”

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement adds a new peak to a résumé that already includes acting ’s rare Triple Crown:

• Academy Award — Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (directed by Martin Scorsese)
• Tony Award — Same Time, Next Year
• Two Emmys — for television work

For American audiences, Burstyn’s legacy stretches from single mom Alice Hyatt in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore to Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist , and the indelible Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream — roles that helped define five decades of screen acting.

“At 93, it means you have a far amount of lifetime to look back on,” she said, adding that perhaps the honor is “not just a record of what you’ve accomplished, but what you’ve learned.”

A 100-year-old Marilyn

Venice is also premiering a surprise new turn: in Gyllenhaal’s 17-minute short Flesh Impact, Burstyn plays Marilyn Monroe at 100, while Dakota Johnson portrays Monroe in her younger years. The film reframes Monroe’s life and legacy through fantasy and the personal perspectives of the three women.

In the short, Burstyn’s Monroe arrives at a theater to audition for a play — a simple act that becomes a what-if portrait of the icon aging on her own terms.

The collaboration comes with an Actors Studio throughline: both Burstyn and Gyllenhaal trace their craft to the teachings of Lee Strasberg, the mentor who also loomed large in Monroe’s real life and training.