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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.

Ellen Barkin

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Ellen Barkin
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 16
Actress
Film Actor
Film Producer
Stage Actor
Television Actor
The Bronx
New York City
Ellen Rona Barkin
Take
Guess
Stepchildren
Enough
Husband
Stepchild
Work
Pay
Teenagers
Much
Lucky
Rent
Kind
Leave
Grandchildren
Takes
Teenager
Four
Seriously
Two
Six

More quotes by Ellen Barkin

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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.
Ellen Barkin
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My nickname was Skinabo - skin and bones.
Ellen Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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Men who love their mothers treat women wonderfully. And they have enormous respect for women.
Ellen Barkin
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I 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 Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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I'm a little more extreme than a homebody. Unless there's some event I really have to go to, I don't like to leave my house.
Ellen Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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There is a certain androgyny to my appeal.
Ellen Barkin
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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?
Ellen Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.
Ellen Barkin
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There have been advances in the technology of beauty that I think are great. & you know what? Use it.
Ellen Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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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.
Ellen Barkin
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I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction, and then, yes, you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you, and it's all caught on film or onstage.
Ellen Barkin
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The more powerful you become, some people especially don't like it that you're a woman. I stick up for myself.
Ellen Barkin
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I don’t want to be a mentor in my bedroom.
Ellen Barkin
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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 Barkin