Ellen Burstyn Quotes

I always wanted to play Joan of Arc. I've always wanted to do that. Now I'm thinking, 'Maybe there's a story in Joan of Arc's mother!' If I don't hurry up, her grandmother!

Well my taste wasn't very good when I first started out. But later, when I began to appreciate the art of acting, I would say the actress I most admire is Vanessa Redgrave.

I did my famous cabbage soup diet, so I was able to do it.

Regret is a toxin that I try not to allow in my body.

It's a sin to have your films not to make money.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.

I've lived most of my life in Manhattan, but as close as Brooklyn is to Manhattan, there are people who live there who have been to Manhattan maybe once or twice.

She goes from one addiction to another. All are ways for her to not feel her feelings.

To me, it's a very moral film. If my son were a teenager now, I would drag him to see it.

It's been awhile. My Oscar is getting kind of tarnished. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought I really needed a new one.

Bob Duvall is a great actor because each time out, he creates a whole, complete character. You have the feeling that you're not seeing an actor at all, but a fully realized human being. Think of how he was in The Godfather. If you didn't know Bobby, you'd think that he really was Tom, the consigliere. Then you see him in Santini, and he's completely different. He's not only a personality, he's a consummate actor.

I had a dream that I was being drowned in a flood and I realized it was a flood of people.

I sketched out a rough story for them and the director said, well it's a good story but we have the go-ahead from Universal to make this script and did I want to do it. I said no, and they left.

Nobody would want to leave that film to go get high.

I talked to women who lived there, to get their speech patterns and outlook on life - and how narrow that is.

She loses 50 pounds in the film, and goes from fairly sane to totally out of her mind. So for the first part of the film I was wearing a 40 pound fat suit, which is very, very uncomfortable. But the worst part was the neck.

They pulled Resurrection out of the theatres, so it was running in New York and I was nominated for the Oscar and there was no ad in the newspapers to say it was running. So it was literally killed.

I do like to work with young directors because it's such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt.

Then in came this script with another very low offer, and another drug addict and a depressing and difficult part to play. I thought, 'Why should I put myself through that for hardly any money?'

Their life is about getting enough money to put food on the table to feed their children, and that's it.

The interesting thing about doing a play is to find a way to make it fresh and do it as though you were doing it for the first time.

When you recognize what your talents are, a happy life is developing them to the greatest extent you can.