Annette Bening

I think you sort of shed skins as you go along in life. You get into your 40s, and you feel like, 'OK, no more pretending.' You get to just be who you are. ”

Most people are looking for something to give their life meaning. ”

I never thought my private life would be newsworthy. ”

We all perform our lives in a way. And the actor is a perfect metaphor to get at that theme of 'how do we find our authentic selves?' And that we all - whether we're actors or not - perform ourselves. As a way of searching. As a way of fumbling around and trying to say, is this my voice? Is this who I am? ”

I knew I wanted children in my life. The acting was always in relation to it. Life at home is chaos. They're wonderful. They're such interesting human beings. I just love it. I'm lucky. ”

It's hard to make a living in this business. Unions aren't as strong as they used to be. For a journeyman actor - someone who doesn't have a famous name but has consistent work in theater or film or TV - it has become harder to get through, harder to raise a family. ”

We all get lost along the way, but hopefully we figure out some sort of path. It helps if you can imagine the process as well as the goal. Those kinds of dreams are easier to achieve. ”

I wanted to be a classical actress. I plodded along. I went to junior college in San Francisco, I was in a Repertory Company. My hero was Eva Le Gallienne, who was a great theater actress at the turn of the century who created her own company, and she wrote these hilarious autobiographies at the time. ”

I've always been pretty levelheaded. In show business, you need to have a certain internal stability. ”

There's love for your parents, your family, your spouse, your partner, your friends, but the nature of the connection you have with your child, there's nothing like it. It has its own character and it's so serious and so powerful, and so it's a prism through which I see everything. ”