Which are your favorite Ellen Barkin quotes?
Ellen Barkin is an American actress and producer.
She first gained public attention after she made an appearance in the film ‘Diner.’
She has received a Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the television film ‘Before Women Had Wings’ in 1997.
After her breakthrough, she booked several notable roles in films like The Big Easy’ and ‘Sea of Love.’
Throughout her career, she has been featured in many tv-series and movies. Other than acting, she also works behind the scene as a producer.
Here’s our collection of the best Ellen Barkin quotes:
50 Wonderful Ellen Barkin Quotes
1. “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
2. “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
3. “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
4. “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
5. “What television has afforded us is just this wide world of experimentation.” – Ellen Barkin
6. “People tend to remember my performances, not me.” – Ellen Barkin
7. “Men who love their mothers treat women wonderfully. And they have enormous respect for women.” – Ellen Barkin
8. “I have skinny genes. My mother weighs 90 pounds.” – Ellen Barkin
9. “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
10th of 50 Ellen Barkin Quotes
10. “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
11. “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
12. “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
13. “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
14. “No more bare bodies in film scenes for me. For my children’s sake, I must stop. The other kids at school keep throwing it up to my children, and they are not kind.” – Ellen Barkin
15. “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 now that is as meaningful as that? I don’t know the answer yet.” – Ellen Barkin
16. “I like being married. I like taking care of people, having someone to make dinner for.” – Ellen Barkin
17. “Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.” – Ellen Barkin
18. “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
19. “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
20th of 50 Ellen Barkin Quotes
20. “My nickname was Skinabo – skin, and bones.” – Ellen Barkin
21. “I take unbelievably good care of my skin. I never go to bed without washing my face and I never wake up without washing my face. And I sleep in a mask every night I sleep alone.” – Ellen Barkin
22. “I would love to do a television show in New York City.” – Ellen Barkin
23. “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
24. “I worked with some really iconic actors of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and now. They really taught me a lot. I might not be as talented as they are, but I do have enough intelligence to try to help my younger [co-stars].” – Ellen Barkin
25. “You can’t go back again, even if you wanted to. But you can own your own life, mistakes and all.” – Ellen Barkin
26. “I have huge hands and feet. I’m 5’6″ and wear a size 10 shoe.” – Ellen Barkin
27. “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
28. “I don’t want to be a mentor in my bedroom…” – Ellen Barkin
29. “A successful marriage isn’t necessarily one that lasts until you’re dead.” – Ellen Barkin
30th of 50 Ellen Barkin Quotes
30. “I eat cheese and salami and a lot of fried chicken. I eat a big bag of oatmeal-raisin cookies every night and I don’t gain weight. I still look OK as long as I’m dressed.” – Ellen Barkin
31. “My husband thinks he’s compromising if we have one cook instead of three.” – Ellen Barkin
32. “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
33. “Television is very different than movies and stage. But it’s kind of reignited me. I see there’s a whole world of my own creativity that for some reason I’ve yet to tap into. Not just in terms of the character, but in terms of my own technique of acting.” – Ellen Barkin
34. “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 a while, it was, like, too embarrassing for me not to go on auditions. I had to be humiliated into it.” – Ellen Barkin
35. “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
36. “My first movie was ‘Diner.’ My second movie was ‘Tender Mercies.’ I did really good work.” – Ellen Barkin
37. “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
38. “I’m being given the room to take some big chances. At my age, that’s rare. I love this job.” – Ellen Barkin
39. “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, ‘Really? Really? You think I – yes, I can. I can do it. I can do it.” – Ellen Barkin
40th of 50 Ellen Barkin Quotes
40. “Normal Heart’ was my most transcendent moment as an actor.” – Ellen Barkin
41. “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 learn how to do that.” – Ellen Barkin
42. “I am not a beautiful woman by [classical] standards. I have never felt that way nor have I ever felt that it was important for me to feel that way. What makes me an attractive woman comes from in here. [places hand on chest].” – Ellen Barkin
43. “You know, I don’t plan for the future and I never want to be anything I’m not. I don’t look over my shoulder. I was taught that by a brilliant acting teacher who was really a mentor of mine.” – Ellen Barkin
44. “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
45. “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
46. “The more powerful you become, some people especially don’t like it that you’re a woman. I stick up for myself.” – Ellen Barkin
47. “There is a certain androgyny to my appeal.” – Ellen Barkin
48. “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
49. “There have been advances in the technology of beauty that I think are great. & you know what? Use it.” – Ellen Barkin
50. “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
Summary
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