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!'
Ellen BarkinI 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.
Ellen BarkinI 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.
Ellen BarkinI just would never go audition, and yet I was in very visible places where people would come looking for actors. I say I'm lazy, though I'm sure if I were in therapy for a lot of years, it would turn out to be a lot more than laziness. After awhile, it was, like, too embarrassing for me not to go on auditions. I had to be humiliated into it.
Ellen BarkinIโm tenacious, I think โ I know โ and I do also have a quality where if you tell me I canโt do something, if I know I canโt do it Iโm the first to raise my hand and say, โI canโt do that.โ But there is a big Bronx, New York Jew in me that just says, โReally? Really? You think I โ yes, I can. I can do it. I can do it.
Ellen Barkin