Annette Bening Quotes
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I don't see myself as competing with other actresses. I mean, I went through a time when I was in New York, and I was going to lots of auditions and trying to get parts, but even then, you're not really competing with the other actresses. There is a competition going on, but it's not like something you can win in that way.
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Critics have a responsibility to put things in a cultural and sociological or political context. That is important.
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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.
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I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.
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Even with a stable character, you want something surprising to happen, hopefully because that's what the camera loves the most. That's what is great about film.
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I never thought my private life would be newsworthy.
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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.
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It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery.
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There's so much of our psychological makeup which is impermissible for us to explore because it's inappropriate or perverse or scary. I'm interested in exploring that in myself. I try to be honest with myself about everything that I feel. I'm not saying I'm able to do that all the time, but it's something I'm interested in.
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I think people have a right to their point of view.
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I have huge chunks of time when I'm not working.
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I think when you're at your best as an actor, it is cathartic.
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I still remember the five points of salesmanship: attention, interest, conviction, desire and close.
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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.
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I always wonder about people's history and their lives, especially people that are a little bit more distant, who obviously have had some kind of a thing, and you know there's some reason why they're not able to connect. It's not because they don't want to. They don't have the ability.
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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.
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Anyone who is drawn in broad strokes either negatively or positively is generally not very interesting to play.
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When I started in the theater, I'd do plays by Shakespeare or Ibsen or Chekhov, and they all created great women's roles.
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I've tried to take roles with great demands.
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My dad was in the life insurance business, so I learned about selling when I was about 14 because I started working as a secretary.
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There are so many different kinds of relationships, so it's sort of difficult to define what is considered normal.
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If you're an actor, you have to find a way to make peace with all the media attention.
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A lot of directors in my experience are very receptive. They see what you do first, and then they want to find a place to put the camera, and they tweak you here and there.
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It's always 'busy' with four children; it's chaos.