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Sometimes you're reading something, and you don't know it will be important in your life. You're reading this script, and you start to get involved. It's not an intellectual experience.
Annette Bening -
I never thought my private life would be newsworthy.
Annette Bening
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I think when you're at your best as an actor, it is cathartic.
Annette Bening -
I've played parts that were just likable people, and there's a certain pleasure in that. And that's that.
Annette Bening -
If you're an actor, you have to find a way to make peace with all the media attention.
Annette Bening -
Somebody said something really smart: It's like you end up being the defense attorney for your role. Your job is to defend their point of view. You're fighting for what they want. You learn that in acting school - it's Acting 1A: 'What do you want? What's in the way?'
Annette Bening -
Glamour is really fun.
Annette Bening -
We all get lost along the way, but hopefully we figure out some sort of path. It helps if you can imagine the process as well as the goal. Those kinds of dreams are easier to achieve.
Annette Bening
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I think people have a right to their point of view.
Annette Bening -
I've tried to take roles with great demands.
Annette Bening -
I find the reality of our emotional lives interesting.
Annette Bening -
Acting is not about being famous, it's about exploring the human soul.
Annette Bening -
There are so many different kinds of relationships, so it's sort of difficult to define what is considered normal.
Annette Bening -
It's always 'busy' with four children; it's chaos.
Annette Bening
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I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.
Annette Bening -
Find the story you want to tell. If you don't want to write it, find somebody to write it.
Annette Bening -
What really motivates you to try to work things out as an actor is in large part fear, because you want to get into that narrative and bring the audience along.
Annette Bening -
When I started in the theater, I'd do plays by Shakespeare or Ibsen or Chekhov, and they all created great women's roles.
Annette Bening -
When I watch my kids, and I see the primal level at which the sibling relationships are formed, then I completely understand what these unresolved adult sibling problems are based on. You know, 'Mom liked you better' and, 'You got your own room and I didn't.'
Annette Bening -
I remember hearing someone say that good acting is more about taking off a mask than putting one on, and in movie acting, certainly that's true. With the camera so close, you can see right down into your soul, hopefully. So being able to do that in a way is terrifying, and in another way, truly liberating. And I like that about it.
Annette Bening
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I think what's interesting about the whole paparazzi thing is that unless you're Brad Pitt or Madonna, you can pretty much avoid it. You know when you're going to an opening that you will be photographed, so that's fine. And you know the restaurants that have paparazzi, so you don't go to them.
Annette Bening -
I wanted to be a classical actress. I plodded along. I went to junior college in San Francisco, I was in a Repertory Company. My hero was Eva Le Gallienne, who was a great theater actress at the turn of the century who created her own company, and she wrote these hilarious autobiographies at the time.
Annette Bening -
It's kind of a mystery to me, as far as my own life experiences and what I've witnessed - why some people can just move on through traumatic experiences, in childhood particularly, and why other people are just paralyzed by it. I just don't know how and why that is.
Annette Bening -
I read 'Game Change.' If you want to relive the campaign, that book is unbelievable. It's great. It's the book of that campaign. It brought all the memories back of everything with Clinton and Obama, and Sarah Palin and McCain, and choosing her, and John Edwards. It was an interesting book.
Annette Bening