Chalk it up to one big-time crush

SOME actors need bells and whistles to stage their comebacks. Others do just fine with some dog kibble and a little baby oil.

Academy Award-nominated actress Jill Clayburgh, who has spent the last two decades focusing mostly on her children and her family life, makes her first high-profile film appearance in nearly a decade in “Running With Scissors,” the film adaptation of the 2002 bestselling memoir. Clayburgh is profoundly unrecognizable as Agnes Finch, the withdrawn, disillusioned wife of the eccentric (and perhaps insane) psychiatrist at the center of author Augusten Burroughs’ heart-rending childhood.

When Augusten (Joseph Cross) is abandoned by his mother (Annette Bening) and forced to live at the chaotic and cluttered Finch household, it is Agnes who captures his affection by encouraging him to dream and stay optimistic.

A quiet and complex woman who snacks on dog kibble and cares little about her appearance or tidying her house, Agnes taps into Augusten’s soul in a way no other adult in his life can. She gives him a cosmetology book so that he can pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist; she gives him cash to help him break free; and, on occasion, she fixes Hamburger Helper for him for absolutely no reason.

“I really wanted to do this, but it was a pretty big stretch,” said Clayburgh, who is currently performing “The Clean House” on Broadway. “Had it not been [director Ryan Murphy], I never would have gotten that part. It’s not how people think of me. It’s not how people see me. It was all his imagination.”

And it was a long time coming. Unbeknownst to her, Clayburgh captured the adolescent hearts of Murphy and Burroughs, who say they were “obsessed” with her in the ‘70s when she starred in “An Unmarried Woman” and “Starting Over.” Later, when Murphy created “Nip / Tuck,” he met Clayburgh through one of the show’s writers and offered her a guest role that earned her an Emmy nomination in 2005.

When it came time to cast the strong but fatigued Agnes, Murphy says he thought of no one but his childhood idol. Never mind that, at 62, Clayburgh, lithe and beautiful, is nothing like the stooped, mousy, greasy-haired Agnes of Burroughs’ real life. A bare face, a little baby oil in her hair and a hideous wardrobe took care of that. The actress also spent time with Burroughs, quizzing him about the kind-hearted Agnes.

“I know she would go home at night and be paralyzed with fear,” Murphy said. “The part was so hard. It’s very hard to take somebody that extreme and make them a real person, and Jill did that. This movie is about two mothers -- the mother he had and the mother he found -- and Jill just became Agnes. I think people forget that Jill was really the Julia Roberts of her day. But I never forgot her.”

Murphy “dropped out of heaven on my shoulder,” said Clayburgh.

“Ryan has just championed me and believed in me so much,” she said. “He just took it on himself that I wasn’t getting the roles that I deserved and that, to him, I was someone that he really wanted to see have a resurgence and a rebirth. I think that sense of my being around, of my being a force, is because of Ryan.”

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maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com