One of the things on a very practical level as an actor or actress is that when you do a play, you do the entire story every time you do it. You have eight shows a week. You have a rehearsal process of four to five to six weeks. And then once you're in performance, everybody else goes away and you're there with your fellow actors and the audience and the material and your life becomes about that. And you go through the story from the beginning to the end every time you do it and depending on how long you do it, that's where the craft comes in.

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

You read something and you know it's not there yet. There's a little section here that... this part's good but that is a little not, it doesn't quite work. That doesn't quite work. That's easy. To say, "OK, now, this is what I think will fix it." That's harder. And most people can tell you what's wrong with something. Very few people can say what they would do to fix it.

Right now, I love the fact that I have so many opportunities, but I know this privileged position cannot last. That doesn't mean that I'll stop working. I picture myself as an old actress doing cameos in films with people saying: "Isn't that that Bening woman?"

The films that are interesting you never can stop... there's no end point, you just keep thinking and musing about it.

We're not all evil or all good, and we all make mistakes to one degree or another.

I remember hearing someone say that good acting is more about taking off a mask than putting one on, and in movie acting, certainly that's true. With the camera so close, you can see right down into your soul, hopefully. So being able to do that in a way is terrifying, and in another way, truly liberating. And I like that about it.