Annette Bening
Annette Bening
Annette Carol Beningis an American actress. She began her career on stage with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival company in 1980, and played Lady Macbeth in 1984 at the American Conservatory Theatre. She was nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in Coastal Disturbances. She is a four-time Academy Award nominee; for the films The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Juliaand The Kids Are All Right. In 2006, she received a star...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth29 May 1958
CityTopeka, KS
CountryUnited States of America
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.
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.
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.
My sister and I fought a lot when we were kids. I was the little bratty sister, and she would kind of walk away, not wanting to be associated with me.
It's hard to make a living in this business. Unions aren't as strong as they used to be. For a journeyman actor - someone who doesn't have a famous name but has consistent work in theater or film or TV - it has become harder to get through, harder to raise a family.
I think you sort of shed skins as you go along in life. You get into your 40s, and you feel like, 'OK, no more pretending.' You get to just be who you are.
I think in the past, around the time that method acting became so prevalent, it used to be that American actors were thought to be the kind that would work more from the inside out, and that the English actors worked more from the outside in.
I saw a Shakespeare play when I was - I guess I was in junior high. And I just fell in love with the theater because, for me, it was a combination of big ideas and feeling.
I feel very, very lucky to have come from the family I did. We have our dysfunctions and our problems, just like any family. But my parents are extremely loving people.
I feel really lucky that I'm able to pursue the work that I love. I want my children to see that. I want them to have that for themselves, something that they love, that they do, that they pursue in their lives as a way of growing and learning.
I do have to take care of myself, not only because I'm in the movies, just for mental health reasons. I exercise for me. You know, maybe it would be nice to not have to do that in order to feel good, but I do. I feel like I have to, to feel good. To clear my head and all of that, so.
I didn't picture myself as a movie actress. I began to think about it around college. I remember thinking, 'Well somebody has to be in them,' so maybe I could do that eventually. It's all been a surprise.
I didn't do a movie until I was almost 30. I'm grateful for that because it gave me a chance to be an adult in the world and do work in the regional theater that very few people cared about. I loved it and I wanted to do that stuff.
Getting all dressed up and putting on fancy clothes - all of that's a great thing, but oddly, it doesn't really have a lot to do with acting most of the time.