Annette Bening
Bening Talks Running with Scissors
“When I was approaching the part I just so
wanted Diedre to be real in the picture,” said Bening. “I didn't
want to do it in fact unless I felt from [writer/director] Ryan [Murphy]
the same kind of interest in the care of the mental illness part of her
character was done. Just had a real aversion to the other way of approaching,
as something as kind of funny or glamorous. I mean, she's a very funny woman
obviously. I love that part of her. She's hilarious, but just in terms of
playing someone with mental illness I felt an incredible responsibility
to being responsible about that and making it real.”
There are plenty of Diedres in real life, and Bening knows the type. “I
think that we all have. In real life people with that kind of illness are
incredibly destructive themselves often and to those around them and there
is nothing funny about that, but since the story is about something, the
story has something really serious to say I think and I hope, or at least
I felt that when I was read it, that it's about someone who's trying to
address the story of their childhood. He lived to tell the tale and tell
it with wit and humor and insight and is really trying to dump that baggage
and is trying to live as a grown up. I think that we all have that to a
degree. So that's why I wanted to do it.”
Another challenge for Bening was leaving Diedre at work. “I'm usually
so relieved to get home by the end of the day. This one we shot here [in
L.A.] and so that was so wonderful for me. I felt so grateful. That was
another thing about the film that was so great for me. It was easier to
kind of manage my whole family thing. So I really make a point of it especially
on a picture like this not to take it home with me. I'm pretty good about
that. I think that I've had my days when I was unable to shake it. I might've
been short tempered or something and I certainly have those days, but generally
speaking I'm just kind of relieved. I feel a greater sense of like, 'Oh,
my God, my children, normal life. Thank God.'”
Of course, Bening is a success. Is the only difference between her and Diedre
that Bening had the talent, and Burroughs needed someone to tell her to
find another dream? “Oh, I think that there had probably been a lot
of people who did. I think so. I mean, she got a lot of rejection. There's
that scene where she got the rejection letters. There are so many people
I think who feel that way. It's a mystery. I mean, certainly in Los Angeles,
I'm sure that you meet people a lot and I know that I meet people sometimes
who have aspirations, but what they really are aspiring to or what they
really want I think is a feeling inside of worthiness, something meaningful.
Who can deny someone that? But they attach it to things that are really
not what they think they are. Even sometimes with actors I think, sometimes
when I'm speaking to people who are aspiring, not always, but sometimes
or when I talk to someone or someone writes me a letter or something I find
myself thinking, 'If you actually got the job could you really deal with
it?' It's one thing to have an illusion about doing it and it's another
thing when they say, 'Okay, now go.' And everyone else is doing this and
they turn the camera on and go, 'Okay, now do something.' That's when you're
really faced with the reality of it. There is nothing glamorous about that.
It's the work. So that's the part that I feel like I have a hard time articulating
to young people who are sometimes seeking a kind of attention.”
Running with Scissors opens this Friday, October
20th.
More interviews coming.
Stay tuned for updates.
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