Jennifer Beals

Jennifer Beals
Jennifer Bealsis an American actress and a former teen model. She is best known for her role as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 romantic drama film Flashdance, and starred as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word. Beals earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former. She has appeared in more than 50 films...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth19 December 1963
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Love is the most dangerous thing in the world.
In North America, people get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don't know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don't know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else.
Women are so often segregated to their sexuality, and how they appear. In fact, there's a lot of talk, even now, I think in most jobs this is true...people will say, when a woman rises to power, they ask, 'who did she sleep with?' You know, it couldn't possibly be about her acumen, it couldn't possibly be about her intelligence. It's got to be about her body, because that's how women get ahead.
[On how she goes about trying to live authentically] Well really listening to my point of view and if I am on a set, say, that doesn't really value a woman's point of view, regardless of how they feel, continuing to give my point of view and try to find a way to be heard and not diminishing myself because other people are diminishing me. Because that, I think, is the worst temptation that, you know, you judge yourself by how others are judging you, and to fall into that trap is to walk into the realm of self-annihilation.
Oh, this absolute loneliness and the game - loving to play the game, loving to go and tell stories to men that certainly weren't true, just for the sport of it, just to see how they would react.
When I was younger, I enjoyed being strong, and I loved it when my heart was very strong, but I think it was also about submitting to the cultural idea that if you're a 22-year-old woman, you have to look a certain way. I'm not into that anymore. But I do appreciate it when my clothes fit.
At any given moment in your life, you have the choice between love and fear. And that's a choice you make. You make the choice of how you react to events.
There is this incredible, indelible community that has sprung up around the show, a community that gathers in homes and clubs, from Los Angeles to Topeka, Kansas and around the world. A community that, in some places, meets quietly in a lesbian bar that doesn't even exist depending on whom you ask.
[On handling stress] When you start projecting on the future "Oh my God, I gotta do this and I'm not there yet" well, of course you're not there yet because you're here now. That time will come...I try to stay in the moment as much as I can and find whatever joy I can in that moment, no matter what it is. Then it doesn't feel as stressful.
[B]eing part of The L Word made me realize how much more television can be that what I had experienced in my lifetime in terms of being able to be of service to people. I had so many fans come up to me who were really deeply appreciative of the show and what it had meant for them and their own sense of identity and their own sense of inclusion in our society and in our culture.
[On meditation] ...that's the single most important thing that I do...there's something about understanding who you truly are. The essence of everyone is so beautiful that it's startling.
Of course, the surest way to free yourself from an existential crisis is through comedy.
I hope through The L Word to become an honorary member of the gay tribe. I cherish the thought that some young girl or woman somewhere may one night turn on the television and for the first time ever see her life represented -- not as an isolated incident but as a multiplicity. Her overwhelming fear may have been that she might never find her tribe, she might never find love and now she knows that they are both out there waiting for her.
Love is the greatest light, the brightest torch, and will always be the greatest instrument of change.