Ellen Barkin Quotes

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.

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.

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.

I would love to do a television show in New York City.

I have huge hands and feet. I’m 5’6″ and wear a size 10 shoe.

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?

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.

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?

Gabriel Byrne is an extraordinary human being. We have two extraordinary kids and we work at it. We were always friends. He stuck by me through very hard times, and I hope he’d say the same about me.

My husband thinks he’s compromising if we have one cook instead of three.

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.’

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.

I wish I had a little more ambition. But then what would I do? Turn down more roles with more vehemence? Me no likey worky.

Old is the new sexy.

You’ve got a movie where the pro-choice family gives their daughter no choice. The pro-life family murders. What seems to be the good mother, the kind of hippie painter, sweet and cute mother has no love for her daughter really.

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.

Men who love their mothers treat women wonderfully. And they have enormous respect for women.

There is a certain androgyny to my appeal.

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.

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.

The more powerful you become, some people especially don’t like it that you’re a woman. I stick up for myself.

People tend to remember my performances, not me.

I eat cheese and salami and a lot of fried chicken. I eat a big bag of oatmeal-raisin cookies every night and I don’t gain weight. I still look OK as long as I’m dressed.

There’s no slow build anymore where you get a little part, then you get a little better part, then a better part, until one day your agent calls you us and says, ‘guess what, you’re a movie star,’ and you say, ‘Thank you!’

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

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.

Would you just strap some toe shoes on and dance ‘Swan Lake?’ No. Would you just put a violin in your hand and – ? No. I felt that way about acting, and I was taught to feel that way. I didn’t come to it on my own.

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.

I was trained by Method acting teachers and we were taught that aside from whatever gift you may or may not have or the level of that gift, that you were obliged to know how to build a table. It’s a craft. It’s like being a ballerina or a violinist.

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.

My first movie was ‘Diner.’ My second movie was ‘Tender Mercies.’ I did really good work.

I have skinny genes. My mother weighs 90 pounds.

No more bare bodies in film scenes for me. For my children’s sake, I must stop. The other kids at school keep throwing it up to my children, and they are not kind.

‘Normal Heart’ was my most transcendent moment as an actor.

I like being married. I like taking care of people, having someone to make dinner for.

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.

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.

A successful marriage isn’t necessarily one that lasts until you’re dead.

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.

My nickname was Skinabo – ‘skin and bones.’