Quote

Would you just strap some toe shoes on and dance 'Swan Lake?' No. Would you just put a violin in your hand and - ? No. I felt that way about acting, and I was taught to feel that way. I didn't come to it on my own.

Ellen Barkin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Feels
Taught
Swan
Way
Hand
Swans
Would
Acting
Violin
Felt
Lake
Didn
Toes
Hands
Lakes
Come
Shoes
Feel
Dance
Strap

More quotes by Ellen Barkin

Image
My nickname was Skinabo - skin and bones.
Ellen Barkin
Image
I don’t want to be a mentor in my bedroom.
Ellen Barkin
Image
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
Image
It's no stretch to picture me standing next to Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. Those are ethnic New York men. I'm an ethnic New York girl. Everybody has their limitations. I mean, I should never be cast as Queen Elizabeth.
Ellen Barkin
Image
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
Image
I have skinny genes. My mother weighs 90 pounds.
Ellen Barkin
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I 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 Barkin
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There is a certain androgyny to my appeal.
Ellen Barkin
Image
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
Image
I like being married. I like taking care of people, having someone to make dinner for.
Ellen Barkin
Image
When I played Leonardo DiCaprio's mother, they liked that Leo had very hooded eyes and a rounded nose with a ball. They said, They look like they could be mother and son.
Ellen Barkin
Image
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
Image
I'm just curious, who's more fit to raise a child? A loving committed same-sex couple or an unmarried 15-year-old with no income and really no skills to parent?
Ellen Barkin