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" I studied acting for 10 years before I went for an audition. I studied with Lee Strasberg and Actors Studio teachers, and went to the High School of Performing Arts. "
Ellen Barkin
Acting
Teachers
School
Related Quotes:
" I just would never go audition, and yet I was in very visible places where people would come looking for actors. I say I'm lazy, though I'm sure if I were in therapy for a lot of years, it would turn out to be a lot more than laziness. After awhile, it was, like, too embarrassing for me not to go on auditions. I had to be humiliated into it. "
Ellen Barkin
Say
Looking
Me
" The way Hollywood portrays mothers - you're either all good and saint-like, or you're all bad. And I think the real honesty of motherhood is not given a voice in movies. I miss that as an audience member. "
Ellen Barkin
Voice
Good
Honesty
" When I played Leonardo DiCaprio's mother, they liked that Leo had very hooded eyes and a rounded nose with a ball. They said, They look like they could be mother and son. "
Ellen Barkin
Said
Son
Eyes
" I'm tenacious, I think - I know - and I do also have a quality where if you tell me I can't do something, if I know I can't do it I'm the first to raise my hand and say, 'I can't do that.' But there is a big Bronx, New York Jew in me that just says, 'Really? Really? You think I - yes, I can. I can do it. I can do it.' "
Ellen Barkin
Quality
Me
New York
" I have no problem being 53. Why would I want to be 35 again? I want to discover who I am in my 50s. And if I tried too hard to look younger, it would seem that I was uncomfortable with who I am, wouldn't it? "
Ellen Barkin
Look
Want
Problem
" It's no stretch to picture me standing next to Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. Those are ethnic New York men. I'm an ethnic New York girl. Everybody has their limitations. I mean, I should never be cast as Queen Elizabeth. "
Ellen Barkin
Men
Girl
Me
" People tend to remember my performances, not me. "
Ellen Barkin
People
Tend
Remember
" I have huge hands and feet. I'm 5'6" and wear a size 10 shoe. "
Ellen Barkin
Wear
Feet
Hands
" I remember my first friend who got sick. It was 1981, and the disease was called the gay cancer. I don't think the word 'AIDS' came out until '84. I just remember it being terrifying as more people got sick. We didn't know how you could catch it, you heard all kinds of crazy things. "
Ellen Barkin
People
Think
Remember
" I like being married. I like taking care of people, having someone to make dinner for. "
Ellen Barkin
Like
Someone
People
" I am to a fault an introspective person. But I am not a reflective person - except for a big mistake, and then I really think about it. "
Ellen Barkin
Person
Fault
I Am
" I'm just curious, who's more fit to raise a child? A loving committed same-sex couple or an unmarried 15-year-old with no income and really no skills to parent? "
Ellen Barkin
Child
Skills
Parent
" When a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, so desperately wants a baby what she's looking for is the kind of unconditional love a child gives a mother and a mother gives a child. "
Ellen Barkin
She
Child
Looking
" It is clear I was never the Pretty Girl. I had my two front teeth knocked out when I was 10 and didn't fix them until I was 19. I have a crooked smile and a nose that looks like it's been broken 12 times but never has been. My nose was always red, so people called me Rudolph. My whole face is off-center. "
Ellen Barkin
People
Smile
Face
" My husband thinks he's compromising if we have one cook instead of three. "
Ellen Barkin
He
Cook
Three
" My first movie was 'Diner.' My second movie was 'Tender Mercies.' I did really good work. "
Ellen Barkin
Good
Work
Diner
" I'm not limited by my gender, and I don't think anyone else should be either. Because I am the age I am and I sort of rode the crest of the first profound post-suffragette feminists, I wasn't fighting to burn my bra. Those women fought that fight just seconds before I came into womanhood. "
Ellen Barkin
Fighting
I Am
Think
" Acting is a matter of giving away secrets. "
Ellen Barkin
Acting
Secrets
Matter
" The more powerful you become, some people especially don't like it that you're a woman. I stick up for myself. "
Ellen Barkin
Up
Woman
You
" I would love to do a television show in New York City. "
Ellen Barkin
City
New York
Television
" A successful marriage isn't necessarily one that lasts until you're dead. "
Ellen Barkin
You
Successful
Marriage
" But one of the hardest things for me to do was to access anger. I could do it on stage. But when I did it on film it was hard for me. That probably has to do with the intimacy of film. And my own personal issues with expressing anger. So I had to learn how to do that. "
Ellen Barkin
My Own
Own
Personal
" With all of the divisiveness that is going on in the country we live in, so much of it is based around just fear of the other. And anyone who does not look like me, walk like me, talk like me, have sex like me, they're the other and I'm afraid of them. And hopefully we will learn that it's just not scary. There's nothing to be afraid of. "
Ellen Barkin
Fear
Walk
Me
" When they make a woman's picture, they treat it like a 'woman's picture.' In the '40s, they didn't treat Joan Crawford movies like that, but as the big movies of their year. I'm upset that there's no 'Terminator' with a woman in Arnold Schwarzenegger's role. Because that would make just as much money. "
Ellen Barkin
Treat
Woman
Picture
" Skinniness is not your friend when you're over 40. I'd like to gain a good 10 pounds, but I did always have a fat, round face that plagued me when I was young. When I started to make movies, I couldn't look at myself. "
Ellen Barkin
Me
Good
Friend
" I guess if you're lucky enough not to have to pay your rent, then you or I take much more seriously the kind of work that I do, what it takes for me to leave two teenagers of my own and six stepchildren and a husband and four grandchildren. "
Ellen Barkin
Work
Me
Husband
" My nickname was Skinabo - 'skin and bones.' "
Ellen Barkin
Nickname
Bones
Skin
" I guess I worry about weird existential things, like how do we spend our final act. This is a very emotional question. I can't answer it without crying. I think, You're 56 years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do now that is as meaningful as that? I don't know the answer yet. "
Ellen Barkin
Good
You
Worry
" I'm a little more extreme than a homebody. Unless there's some event I really have to go to, I don't like to leave my house. "
Ellen Barkin
Like
Go
Leave
" I'd never say I'll never have a facelift, but I'm way too scared of looking like a different person. I have no philosophical or political position on plastic surgery; I just don't want to look crazy. And I don't like not being able to tell how old someone is: It's creepy. "
Ellen Barkin
Look
Political
Say