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" The real work of an actor goes on inside, and I don't think it changes from director to director - I always go for broke! But I don't get a lot of direction, unfortunately. "

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" The interesting thing about doing a play is to find a way to make it fresh and do it as though you were doing it for the first time. "

Ellen Burstyn

Way

You

Time

" I've lived most of my life in Manhattan, but as close as Brooklyn is to Manhattan, there are people who live there who have been to Manhattan maybe once or twice. "

" I've liked all the directors I've worked with a lot. And the ones I like best are the ones that have really good taste about what take was best. "

Ellen Burstyn

Good Taste

Good

" When we did 'The Last Picture Show,' the whole cast was unknowns, and we all got careers from it. Well, I don't think this could be done now. "

" I wanted to work on this central problem of killing. How you go about killing. Now, in the film I had to kill my children - well, I didn't want to get that far. "

" My mother was very glamorous. She was very beautiful, and she had a lot of friends; she was fun and loved to drink. "

" I feel eager to learn as much as I can, not only about my craft but the world and the cosmos and how we got here and whether there's any purpose to our being here. "

" Nobody would want to leave that film to go get high. "

" I've always wanted to work with my friend Al Pacino. "

" I do like to work with young directors because it's such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt. "

" All of my life I have asked the question, 'Who would I be if I had grown up in a loving home?' And I have no way to answer it. I don't know if I would be placid and satisfied with whatever is around me - a happy, jolly, sedentary person. "

Ellen Burstyn

My Life

Happy

" We can all live longer, better, than we ever could before. You don't have to retire. "

" When I was 19, I took a train from Houston to New York, and I had in my lap the collected works of William Shakespeare. The play I read on that journey was 'Titus Andronicus.' "

" Today, people like Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep have vowed to improve the opportunities for women, but those promises are still unusual. "

" I left my career in Hollywood, moved back to New York, and went to Lee Strasberg and studied with him for the rest of his life. "

" With all the awards I've won, you'd think that I'd at least be able to make a living. It's a really terrible situation. "

" Directors tend to kind of let me do what I want to do. "

Ellen Burstyn

Kind

Tend

" She goes from one addiction to another. All are ways for her to not feel her feelings. "

" So I was at the Actor's Studio, thinking about this, and I happened to glance over to the other side of the stage and I saw the ugliest chair I have ever seen. And I thought, 'Well, I could kill that chair!' "

" It's been awhile. My Oscar is getting kind of tarnished. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought I really needed a new one. "

" What happens is you submit your script with an idea of what the budget might be, and the financier will offer you less than that. In order to do it for less, it means cutting out the art, usually. "

" What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be. "

" I talked to women who lived there, to get their speech patterns and outlook on life - and how narrow that is. "

" There's no doubt that the patriarchy that we live in also controls the movie industry. The heads of the studios are men, and it's reflected in the scripts they buy and the work that gets made. "

" I couldn't kill a chicken, I couldn't kill a cow - I was a vegetarian too at that time - so I thought, well what is there that I could kill? I couldn't kill this and I couldn't kill that. "

" It's a sin to have your films not to make money. "

" It's interesting: John Calley at Warner Bros. helped me put 'Alice' together. It was very unusual back then for a studio to support an actress the way he backed and supported me. He even asked me if I wanted to direct the film, which I didn't feel prepared to at that point. "

Ellen Burstyn

Interesting

Feel

" It's about avoiding reality through various escape routes that become addictions and lead to Hell. My character is addicted to television, chocolate, coffee, to her dream of her son, which has no basis in reality. "

" I'm interested in the cosmos. I want to know what's out there and how connected we are. "

" I eat healthily and exercise, and I'm not giving up and saying I'm too old - I'm just determined to keep on marching with enthusiasm and interest and curiosity. "