Quotes by Ellen Barkin

About Ellen Barkin:

Ellen Rona Barkin is an American actress, known for her roles in the films Buckaroo Banzai, The Big Easy, Sea of Love and Switch. She won an Emmy Award in 1997, for Before Women Had Wings and a Tony Award in 2011, for The Normal Heart.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I'm not limited by my gender, and I don't think anyone else should be either. Because I am the age I am and I sort of rode the crest of the first profound post-suffragette feminists, I wasn't fighting to burn my bra. Those women fought that fight jus...

Ellen Barkin

But one of the hardest things for me to do was to access anger. I could do it on stage. But when I did it on film it was hard for me. That probably has to do with the intimacy of film. And my own personal issues with expressing anger. So I had to lea...

Ellen Barkin

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

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

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 w...

Ellen Barkin

I guess I worry about weird existential things, like how do we spend our final act. This is a very emotional question. I can't answer it without crying. I think, You're 56 years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do no...

Ellen Barkin

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

My first movie was 'Diner.' My second movie was 'Tender Mercies.' I did really good work.

Ellen Barkin

Skinniness is not your friend when you're over 40. I'd like to gain a good 10 pounds, but I did always have a fat, round face that plagued me when I was young. When I started to make movies, I couldn't look at myself.

Ellen Barkin

With all of the divisiveness that is going on in the country we live in, so much of it is based around just fear of the other. And anyone who does not look like me, walk like me, talk like me, have sex like me, they're the other and I'm afraid of the...

Ellen Barkin

When a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, so desperately wants a baby what she's looking for is the kind of unconditional love a child gives a mother and a mother gives a child.

Ellen Barkin

Men who love their mothers treat women wonderfully. And they have enormous respect for women.

Ellen Barkin

I would love to do a television show in New York City.

Ellen Barkin

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Ellen Barkin

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

My husband thinks he's compromising if we have one cook instead of three.

Ellen Barkin

My nickname was Skinabo - 'skin and bones.'

Ellen Barkin

I 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 Barkin

I'm tenacious, I think - I know - and I do also have a quality where if you tell me I can't do something, if I know I can't do it I'm the first to raise my hand and say, 'I can't do that.' But there is a big Bronx, New York Jew in me that just says, ...

Ellen Barkin

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

Author Bio

  • NameEllen Barkin
  • DescriptionAmerican actress
  • BornApril 16, 1954
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionActor