Annette Bening: A Private Star

Q: Was he coming for the kid or for you?

A: No, you go for the kid.

Q: How badly was your house damaged?

A: We have to start over. It's devastating. It's harder for Warren because he built it. It was incredible that nobody was hurt. All the windows in the living room, in the whole house actually, broke.

Q: Wasn't it close to where Brando and Nicholson have their homes?

A: About a mile away. Warren's been great about it. He always says, "It's fine, it's just a house." I was newly pregnant and you honestly do feel like that, like, the house, who cares? It's just a house. But as time went on I saw the kind of deeper trauma of it. It's that whole readjustment. There's lots of nuts and bolts issues and people you have to deal with, which is the hardest part of it. Although I hate to complain because we are so lucky, we don't have to worry about finding disposable diapers like women I read about in the Valley.

Q: What did the earthquake teach you about your fear?

A: That if you're a parent, all you think about is your child. In the moment you don't register the fear. In retrospect, when I think about it, it can really scare me. I've lived in California most of my life, San Francisco for seven years, so I've been in a lot of little earthquakes. I wasn't a worrisome person--it was always, "Nothing will happen." Now that's changed. It can happen, and it can wipe you out. And if you have children--what if they're somewhere else? That's the stuff that's out of your hands. That's the scariest.

Q: Mike Nichols, who directed you in Postcards From the Edge, said he was impressed with your sexiness and intelligence.

A: Really?

Q: What impressed you about him?

A: His sexiness and intelligence. [Laughs] He's a friend, he's just smart and funny. He has this way of making you feel totally competent, and he has great taste.

Q: What was your childhood like?

A: Happy.

Q: Any memories of leaving Wichita at seven to move to San Diego?

A: One vivid memory I have is pulling away from a curb when we were leaving. I was sitting in the front seat in the middle because I was the youngest and the smallest of four kids and I remember crying--as a kid you feel the enormity of the moment, but you really don't know what it is. You just feel emotion. It still happens to me.

Q: Were you treated differently because you were the baby in your family?

A: If you'd asked me that a few years ago I would have said no, because we were all so close in age, we were four in five years. But maybe I was because I was always kind of a ham. And a mimic. It's so bad to hear that from an actor, but it's true. I was a mimic and was doing the little plays in the backyard. It was a very loud, boisterous, raucous, kind of messy childhood. We had our dysfunctions, but it was generally loving.

Q: Did you and your brothers and sister fight much?

A: Yeah, we all fought like crazy. All the time.

Q: Were you always coming out the loser?

A: No, I don't remember losing all the time. 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.

Q: When did it become hard for your parents?

A: When we were teenagers we were extremely difficult.

Q: Were those the years you worked for your dad as his secretary?

A: 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.

Q: What did the experience teach you?

A: What it taught me was a lot about my father. I saw him in this whole other way. He was very extroverted and animated as a teacher.

Q: Were you ever cynical about his profession, put it down the way Willy Loman's kids did in Death of a Salesman?

A: No, I didn't put it down. What I remember is how rude some of the men were to me. I was pretty cute and I didn't understand or feel able to handle the way some of the men treated me. Which was rude. Making sexist remarks. I remember being unable to deal with it. So at the time my experience was confusion. Later, when I took my first women's study class when I was in college I began to understand what I was feeling at the time, the anger that I felt.

Q: Did your parents ever warn you about men?

A: No. I wish my parents had talked to me about it.

Q: I have a 14-year-old daughter and I've already warned her that all boys her age and older are interested in one thing, and she should be prepared for that.

A: What's missing from that is her feelings. What about her sexual feelings?

Q: I don't want to know! Could you have talked to your parents about your sexual feelings at 14?

A: I would have liked it if they would have brought it up, yeah.

Q: Like what?

A: Just: "You'll have sexual feelings, you might have some, there may be people around you having sex, it's a personal decision that you make, it's something that everybody goes through. Sometimes sexual feelings are confusing. Sometimes you might feel attracted to somebody... you're able to have a child... you should be aware." There's a zillion things you can say that don't demand responses.

Q: You seem to be including some sort of approval among your things to say. Must you tell a 14 year old that it's her personal decision to make?

A: Well, my parents were very strict sexually. It just was not discussed. Also, they were not aware of how sexually active everybody was in the culture. There were a lot of girls that were on the pill when I was in the ninth grade.

Q: What about drugs?

A: They weren't aware of what was going on. I did my share of drugs. I don't anymore. I was able to experiment and do a lot of drugs, then I stopped because I didn't care anymore, I wanted to pursue acting, I had this thing I had to do. But there are a lot of people that didn't happen to, who have never gotten out of it. I'm close to a lot of those kinds of people. Most of the people here are recovered and they are, like, all of our best friends, because they're the most interesting people.

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