Top 55 Annette Bening Quotes

I like that I’ve been through things, that when something happens, it resonates with something that already happened. It’s not that things like loss are more or less painful. But they’re deeper. I find that fascinating.

I find the reality of our emotional lives interesting.

I’m still very critical of myself in film.

I think people have a right to their point of view.

I think we as celebrities have a lot more control.

By the time I was in high school, Roe v. Wade had passed, so that was also happening; girls were getting pregnant and getting abortions – and that happened in my school too.

When I look at women, older than I am, in their 50s, 60, 70s, 80s, and I see women that I admire, I think, ‘Oh, I get it; that’s how I’m going to be.’ I’m not scared. I want to be that.

Our children see us a certain way, and we want to be seen by them in a certain way. I certainly want to be a strong, stable, loving, consistent presence in my children’s lives. But we are human beings, too.

I love being busy, and I love having a lot going on; it’s exciting.

And if there’s anything movies can do in a way that I just love, and I love as an audience is, ‘Show me something I don’t know about. Show me something I haven’t seen.’

It’s always ‘busy’ with four children; it’s chaos.

I have huge chunks of time when I’m not working.

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.

I’ve played parts that were just likable people, and there’s a certain pleasure in that. And that’s that.

I feel that certain things are best kept inside a family and not discussed with anyone else.

It used to be the one or the other, right? You were the ‘bad girl’ or the ‘good girl’ or the ‘bad mother’ or ‘the good mother,’ ‘the horrible businesswoman who eschewed her children’ or ‘the earth mother who was happy to be at home baking pies,’ all of that stuff that we sort of knew was a lie.

With movies, so much of it is, ‘Who is the human being that is going to be directing it?’ Because it is their medium. In a way, you are serving the director, and when it is someone that you feel you can have a lot of confidence in, it can make a big difference.

My mother is not somebody who’s troubled by aging.

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.

Acting is not about being famous, it’s about exploring the human soul.

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.

I’m lucky: almost all my family has lived to be very old. I have one grandfather who lived to be 100.

I never felt like I had made it.

The tension I feel is the moment they say, ‘Action!’ Movies are like lightning in a bottle, and you always want to find when you possibly can catch a surprising moment.

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.

My parents were very supportive. They went to every show. And they never told me not to do what I was doing.

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.

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.

The time I spend with my kids informs every fiber of who I am.

There are so many different kinds of relationships, so it’s sort of difficult to define what is considered normal.

Yes, I know I’ve played these women, but I’m not really conniving at all.

I am really looking forward as I get older and older, to being less and less nice.

I think for all of us, as we age, there are always a few moments when you are shocked.

Most people are looking for something to give their life meaning.

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.

Anybody who has children and children who are well feels a sense of responsibility towards parents and kids and families that are struggling and that aren’t well.

Glamour is really fun.

Right now, I love the fact that I have so many opportunities, but I know this privileged position cannot last. That doesn’t mean that I’ll stop working. I picture myself as an old actress doing cameos in films with people saying: ‘Isn’t that that Bening woman?’

I think when you’re at your best as an actor, it is cathartic.

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.

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.

I feel very lucky I don’t have to be a critic.

Most women would say they relate to ‘Hedda Gabler’ – there’s a part of her in them. Ibsen was writing about a deep ambivalence that many women feel about domesticity. I think about myself and friends of mine – we have some of Hedda’s qualities and traits.

I don’t see myself as having to compete with younger actresses; I don’t feel that.

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.

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.

I still remember the five points of salesmanship: attention, interest, conviction, desire and close.

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.

I like things that I feel comfortable in.

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.

I love the luxury of the camera. The camera does so much for you. I like the secrets a camera can tell.

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.

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.

Critics have a responsibility to put things in a cultural and sociological or political context. That is important.

I’m certainly not a perfect mother, but I am an avid mother, let me put it that way.