"In retrospect, it's all sort of hilarious," says Annette Bening of the media circus in which her current life as star, mother, and wife of Warren Beatty began. Here she opens up about why she dislikes feminist complaints about Hollywood, what actors intimidate her, and just how unlikely it is her husband would approve of her doing a nude scene like the one she did in The Grifters.
_________________________
She wanted to meet at a restaurant, but with all that I had been reading about Annette Bening and how she drove frustrated reporters to write about their experiences rather than what she didn't have to say, I certainly didn't want to try my luck in a public place.
She's married to Warren Beatty, so she obviously has been learning from the master of interview avoidance and nonrevelation. She agreed to come to my house and drove up in her white BMW dressed in white stretch pants and a loose-fitting white shirt. She looked good and seemed friendly. I told her I had once interviewed Warren many years ago--I didn't tell her 20 years ago, because that would make her 16 and I didn't want to seem that old. She was still in high school in San Diego then.
The Bening family was originally from Wichita, Kansas, but Annette was seven when they moved to California. She grew up in San Diego, where her father was in the insurance business. She had a normal, unremarkable childhood, went to the local junior college where she began to act, and ended up at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT). She got married and she and her husband moved to Denver to do theater.
Later, in New York, she landed a play called Coastal Disturbances and was nominated for a Tony. She made a TV pilot but she was dropped when the show got picked up. Then she auditioned for a John Hughes movie, The Great Outdoors, and won a part opposite Dan Aykroyd. Mike Nichols cast her in a cameo in Postcards From the Edge. Milos Forman cast her in Valmont. Then Stephen Frears put her in The Grifters and Annette Bening was noticed. Big time. Her cunning role earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Other parts came readily: she played De Niro's wife in Guilty by Suspicion, Harrison Ford's wife in Regarding Henry and Bugsy Siegel's girlfriend Virginia Hill in Warren Beatty's Bugsy. She and Beatty fell in love, and the Playboy of the Hollywood World became Mr. Annette Bening.
Bening won the plum role in Batman Returns as Catwoman, only to give it up when she became pregnant. Other films were offered to her, but the one she waited to do was a remake of Love Affair (which was already remade once as 1957's An Affair to Remember), in which she starred with her husband.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: Reading about some of your past interviews made me a bit wary. Are you amused or annoyed when you read how you seem to journalists?
ANNETTE BENING: Oh, neither. I feel bad, because I don't want to annoy people, or make it frustrating for them. If anything, I want to please people too much. But the fact is, there are some things I just can't talk about, because then they somehow become less valuable to me.
Q: What reporters have said about you has also been said about your husband over the years. Has Warren ever talked to you about dealing with celebrity?
A: Sure, yes, he's very helpful about that, because he's real smart about it. It happened to him so young.
Q: What did he talk to you about?
A: How it affects your life and your friends, your family, which I was very naive about. I didn't understand the ripple effect and what it does to your siblings.
Q: Did Warren talk to you about how to handle the press?
A: Yeah, we're kind of similar in that way. I have mixed feelings about it, as does he.
Q: Your feelings about Love Affair, I assume, are also similar. As the producer, did Warren have to talk you into doing it the way he did Katharine Hepburn?
A: No, he didn't have to talk me into it. I remember him being away, in New York, I think, when I was watching the original 1939 version, which is the one I really love and was inspired by. I got to the big moment, before they come together, and I was totally engrossed in the movie, sitting in our kitchen crying, when he called. Which I thought was a nice synchronistic kind of thing.
Q: How did you feel about updating Irene Dunne's performance?
A: Somewhat in awe. Her performance was so luminescent. I felt a bit intimidated by that.
Q: And your feelings after you saw what you and Warren did?
A: Proud. It's entertaining, it's the kind of movie people have a good time going to see.
Q: Warren's courtship of Hepburn caught the attention of the press. Did you think he would get her?
A: No. It's a great, great movie itself: his determination, and her reluctance, and yet her delight in being courted. I was as into it as he was, because the scene between these two women is the center of the picture. It has to do with passing on wisdom. I felt we really needed someone people would sit up and listen to when that moment came. If there's anybody people are going to sit up and listen to, it's her! Talk about movie star quality. I've never seen anything like it. All of the talent is still there.
Q: Did you get to know her at all?
A: No, I was intimidated by her. She's tough. Tough. Everybody told me how much she liked me, but I was very reluctant to make any demands on her, like ask her, "What was The Philadelphia Story like?" I just stood back, waiting for anything she needed.
Q: Did you say anything at all to her?
A: I offered an answer to a question once, and she said something to me like, "Why would you know all the answers?"
Q: I can see why you stood back. How about Warren, how was he with her?
A: In heaven. He completely doted on her. They were adorable together. He's nuts about her and she really likes him. She would make jokes that cut him down to size, right? And he would always be very good-natured about it. It was a whole other drama in itself.
Q: What about acting with Warren--did he ever surprise you?
A: All the time. Warren never talks about his acting. He's not selfconscious about it in the way that some actors are. He's one of those people who's very subtle and doesn't seem to be acting.
Q: With Warren as producer and your co-star, how were you able to separate your professional and your personal lives?
A: It's all the same... it's all life.
Q: Did you talk about it at home?
A: All the time. We even rehearsed a bit at home.
Q: How about in the editing room? Were you welcome there?
A: Oh yeah, sure. I might say, "I would prefer the other take." Didn't mean it got used, just meant I had a chance to make my case. It was very humbling.
Q: Did you work your schedule around your second pregnancy?
A: No, I got pregnant at the very end. What happened was, we had our first baby and then it was a year-and-a-half later when we started the movie.
Q: So you were basically on hold for those 18 months?
A: Yes. There was one film, and possibly two, that I would have done had I known.
Q: Which films were they?
A: I don't really like to say because it's kind of bad form, but there were a couple of pictures I was offered and because of Love Affair I didn't do them. And then it turned out I probably could have. Then by the end of the movie I got pregnant, so it all worked out fine.
Q: Didn't the big earthquake happen while you were making Love Affair?
A: Yeah. It was supposed to be the last day of shooting and we were just finishing up the last scene, so it was dramatic. Warren had gone to bed very early and wanted to get away so he could have quiet, so he was in another part of the house. When it hit we were both coming for the kid from opposite directions.
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.
Q: What will you tell your children about experimenting with drugs?
A: You can't keep your kids from doing it--if you think you can, you're very naive. With my kids I hope I could be honest and tell them what it's like and say, "I understand, I can't control what you're going to do. If you choose to do them you're going to choose to do them." It's the same with sex. Why fool yourself and your children about that?
Q: Does religion figure into this at all? How were you raised?
A: Episcopalian. But I don't practice any religion right now, and I don't know what we're going to do concerning the children.
Q: Whose idea was it to get married, yours or Warren's?
A: We sort of did it together. It seemed the natural thing to do with us.
Q: Somehow marriage and Warren Beatty never seemed exactly natural. Did his reputation concern you at all?
A: No, no, it didn't.
Q: Were you prepared for the intense media interest in you guys?
A: No. No. How could you ever be prepared for that? In retrospect, it's all sort of hilarious.
Q: How good a father is he?
A: Totally involved. Loves the kids. A very concerned father. Very affectionate.
Q: Does he change diapers?
A: Sure. He doesn't change them a lot, but he changes them.
Q: How long did you nurse?
A: I nursed Kathlyn for a long time, eight months. I won't go as long this time.
Q: Didn't you once appear on "Sesame Street" for your daughter?
A: I did it when she was a baby, a year-and-a-half ago. I did it for her mainly, but she never says, "Mommy, I want to watch it." I had a request--I wanted to work with Grover and with Cookie Monster because when I was a kid and I was babysitting, that's when "Sesame Street" happened. I fell in love with all these characters and especially Grover. So they accommodated me. I got to work with Grover, who is Frank Oz, who also does Cookie Monster. It was really fun, and very fast. I have great respect for that show. I felt honored to be part of it.
Q: When you're working, can you look at yourself objectively?
A: As an actor? No. I'm better than when I first started. I'd never seen myself act and so I found it very jarring when I began doing films, because I realized how much I depended on an illusion in my head about how I looked.
Q: What was the biggest realization you had about film?
A: I was naive. I didn't understand at first that you're there for the director and you have to really give up your performance, literally, to be sane about it.
Q: Would you consider acting better therapy than seeing a psychiatrist?
A: If you use it for that it can be very dangerous. There's no question that you can explore aspects of yourself through roles that you play and you get a chance to investigate yourself, that's healthy and it's therapeutic in a way. But if you're indulging yourself, exploration at the cost of the story or the project, that's not good. I don't like self-indulgence in people's work or in my own. If it's good writing, you have too much responsibility to what the writer's conception is and it's not about you. I wouldn't want to do a lot of therapy because I wouldn't want to uncover all of my demons. Those demons that haven't been dug out of the unconscious are useful.
Q: You definitely sound like someone who's had formal training. Was it at ACT where you played a pregnant Lady Macbeth?
A: That was the idea of the director. Oh God, when I think about that now, I don't know how successful that was. It was probably pretty awful.
Q: Didn't you also teach during your time at ACT?
A: One summer. I loved it. I really, really loved it. It was the summer I got married.
Q: How long were you married to your first husband?
A: Six years. We were together nine years.
Q: How difficult was your divorce?
A: Terrible. It was really painful.
Q: Do you still have contact with him?
A: Yeah. We're very close and I really love him. I'm lucky.
Q: When did you start thinking about the movies?
A: When I was in college. And when I was at ACT I came down here and I felt real awkward. I didn't want to talk to anybody, I didn't know how to go in for these interviews. I would see other girls and they looked so hip, they were all much more comfortable than I was. I was very nervous, so I didn't think I could get into film by doing auditions. I felt I could get in by doing a play. That's why I went to New York.
Q: Did getting a Tony nomination for Coastal Disturbances change your life, make you feel like you had made it?
A: Oh, it doesn't feel like that. I was just working really hard, going out on anything I could go out on--TV, film projects.
Q: You landed a TV pilot ["It Had To Be You"] that actually got picked up--only you were dropped?
A: I was devastated. I thought, I'm a terrible actress, I'm not going to work on camera. I really felt hurt.
Q: What did your first film experience, The Great Outdoors, teach you?
A: That there was a tremendous amount of money spent. That people behave badly and there's a lot of lack of discipline.
Q: Did you also learn that the film was nothing like the script?
A: Yeah. Because these guys were ad-libbing a lot. Anything they said was always better than what had been written. It was really a kick.
Q: Was Valmont also a kick, in spite of the fact that Stephen Frears was making a similar film, Dangerous Liaisons, at the same time?
A: I was up for both films and I was glad I got that part. I was in Paris, I was playing this period part--God, it was a total dream come true for me.
Q: Valmont's director, Milos Forman, said that you were so perfect he thought you were fooling him. Many people have talked about your mystery.
A: I always think that's strange. I don't feel like a mysterious person. I feel like I have no mystery and that it's just something people write because otherwise there would be nothing to write about. I think Milos was just trying to be flattering or to say something provocative.
Q: How ironic was it that after you finished with Forman you went to work for Frears on The Grifters?
A: I wasn't the first choice for that, I think Geena Davis was offered the part. But Milos showed some of Valmont to Stephen, which was incredibly generous of him. He is a true friend, Milos.
Q: Without The Grifters do you think your career would be where it is today?
A: Probably not.
Q: Didn't you research that part by reading a book about American women in crime?
A: Actually, yes, I found it on a rack at the drug store. It looked like a really cheesy book [Good Girls Gone Bad: American Women in Crime] but they were first-person interviews, so they were very valuable.
Q: Were you at all intimidated working with Anjelica Huston?
A: I don't remember being intimidated by Anjelica. But when I worked with Meryl Streep, oh God, I was so intimidated.
Q: I read that you did the nude scenes in The Grifters because you felt they were comedic rather than dramatic.
A: I thought I could do them because of the context it was in. It made sense to me. It was appropriate to the part, it wasn't exploitative. I'd also just been in Europe and they have such a superior attitude about nudity, so much more relaxed about it. So I was feeling very liberated at the time.
Q: Could you do such scenes now that you're married to Warren?
A: It's pretty unlikely.
Q: Would you have to talk it over with him?
A: I discuss everything with him, sure. Ultimately, I would make up my own mind. I'd say, "What do you think?" And he'd say, "Don't do it!" [Laughs] No, he wouldn't say that. He would say, "You should do what you want to do." But he would give me his point of view.
Q: Which would be reasons you shouldn't do it. After The Grifters you were called the "thinking man's sex symbol." How does that sit with you?
A: Are you kidding? That's really nice.
Q: You were nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Were you disappointed you lost out to Whoopi Goldberg's performance in Ghost?
A: I wasn't that disappointed because I felt like such a luck-out. I didn't really expect to win. Of course, at the last moment when they're saying it, you're thinking, Will they say my name?
Q: After the awards, did Whoopi take all the nominees to dinner?
A: Yeah. We got together before the ceremony and we said, "Let's get together next week and whoever wins, pays." I was working on Bugsy at the time and I got a big bouquet of flowers in my trailer from Whoopi. She did it all so well. The card said, "Meet at the such-and-such restaurant." Whoopi's great. So Mary McDonnell, who had done Dances With Wolves, and Diane Ladd, who was in Rambling Rose, and I had dinner with her. She gave us little chocolate Oscars and gardenias. So classy.
Q: Did you eat your chocolate Oscar?
A: God, good question. No, I don't think I did. I saved it.
Q: You played opposite an often-nominated actor, Robert De Niro, in Guilty by Suspicion. Was he scary to work with?
A: When I was up for the part I went in to meet with him and I was very nervous. I thought I didn't do a good job. I spent a lot of time trying to break his concentration, which is so impeccable and I have such a lack of it. I kind of goof around a lot when I'm working, as a way of getting my mind off it.
Q: Harrison Ford thought you were easy to work with in Regarding Henry. Were you surprised the movie didn't do much business?
A: I suppose I was disappointed, sure. I really liked working with him.
Q: When you worked with Warren and writer James Toback and director Barry Levinson on Bugsy, did you feel like the odd lady out?
A: No, I never felt like they were trying to exclude me. I didn't participate as much before the shooting, but once we started I did.
Q: Laura Dern said, "Bugsy really annoyed me when Annette Bening got off on Warren Beatty making that guy bark like a dog, there's just no reason for that."
A: Maybe it's a politically incorrect thing for a woman, but I think it's human.
Q: Bette Midler was recently quoted saying, "Women are treated like dog meat, they get the worst roles, the shittiest parts, and it's only going to get worse... the movie business has been hideous to women." Do you agree with her?
A: No.
Q: Do you agree with Glenn Close, who said, "The recent roles for women have been horrendous, they are hookers or mothers or harridan wives"?
A: To a degree she's right. But Glenn is extremely smart about her career. She plays all kinds of different people. But it's true, there aren't a lot of parts and the older you get as an actress, the fewer there are. I don't have anything terribly original to say about that. Yes, it's terrible, and it's a double standard. But I also feel hesitant to complain about it, because I feel: If you believe this, then why don't you think up a story? Men are supposed to write these for us? Why are they responsible?
Q: What does money mean to you?
A: Freedom. When I didn't have a lot of money I wasn't unhappy, so it kind of doesn't scare me in that way. But having money, I feel very fortunate.
Q: Do you have many regrets?
A: Yes and no. I won't say what they are.
Q: What about not playing Catwoman in the second Batman because you got pregnant?
A: No, I have this gorgeous two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. I would love to have played that part, but I also really wanted to have a baby.
Q: Was the baby planned?
A: I hate talking about it in that way. It was not an accident, no.
Q: Do you want more?
A: Maybe.
Q: It must be tough being an actress in demand, as you are, wanting to still have kids. One must find the right times.
A: There's never a good time, if you're an actress, and if you're fortunate enough to have parts that are available to you, as I feel I am. But I also have a strong desire to have children.
Q: You've worked twice with Warren in the movies, ever think you might work with him on a political campaign where he might run for office?
A: I don't know if that will happen or not, but if he chose to do it, I would completely back him up. He's got great political sense. He has a very studied and unique perspective. If he ever chose to do it, I would be good at being with him.
Q: Are your political leanings similar to his?
A: Sure. Although I was raised in a much more conservative way than he was. His parents were more liberal than my parents. We really didn't talk about politics much in my house.
Q: How's Warren with your family? Is he a close or distant brother-in-law to your brothers and sister?
A: He's a great brother-in-law. He's interested mainly because of our children--in their having cousins and an extended family. Also, Warren loves medical issues and my sister is a doctor in Orange county.
Q: She's a gynecologist, isn't she?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you dream much?
A: I'm a deep sleeper and I don't tend to remember my dreams. I dreamt about my first agent the other day. Why I was dreaming about him, I don't know. I read Jung's Memories, Dreams, and Reflections and was just thinking about that when you asked about dreams. His memories and dreams were so vivid.
Q: What else have you been reading?
A: A couple of books about raising children. I read Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which I'm considering doing. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which is very good.
Q: Who's your favorite author?
A: Truman Capote.
Q: Do you like to write yourself?
A: I do, but I don't like to talk about it. It's purely for myself. It shows me what I think, that's the value.
Q: How complicated do you think you are?
A: It depends on the day. The more I get to know myself, the more complicated I feel. But I feel like the more I can simplify my life and my own attitude towards myself, the easier it becomes.
Q: Are you stubborn?
A: I'm not aware of how stubborn I am, but I am very impatient. And I can be very emotional. Very.
Q: What would be sinful to you?
A: To have a cigarette. I've smoked on and off. I'm not smoking now.
Q: Five years from now, where do you see yourself?
A: Probably disorganized and trying to juggle children, a husband and work. Similar to what I'm doing now.
Q: Not moving into the governor's mansion?
A: I don't know where we'll be living. I kind of like that feeling. Not knowing exactly where we'll be... or what I'll be pursuing.
______________
Lawrence Grobel interviewed Alec Baldwin for the May Movieline.