Ellen Burstyn Quotes

• So I was at the Actor’s Studio, thinking about this, and I happened to glance over to the other side of the stage and I saw the ugliest chair I have ever seen. And I thought, ‘Well, I could kill that chair!’

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Actor, Studio, Thinking

• The interesting thing about doing a play is to find a way to make it fresh and do it as though you were doing it for the first time.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Interesting, Thing, Play

• It’s been awhile. My Oscar is getting kind of tarnished. I looked at it a couple of years ago and thought I really needed a new one.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Thought, Oscar

• I do like to work with young directors because it’s such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Young, Directors

• I’ve lived most of my life in Manhattan, but as close as Brooklyn is to Manhattan, there are people who live there who have been to Manhattan maybe once or twice.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Brooklyn

• I couldn’t kill a chicken, I couldn’t kill a cow – I was a vegetarian too at that time – so I thought, well what is there that I could kill? I couldn’t kill this and I couldn’t kill that.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Vegetarian

• I always wanted to play Joan of Arc. I’ve always wanted to do that. Now I’m thinking, ‘Maybe there’s a story in Joan of Arc’s mother!’ If I don’t hurry up, her grandmother!

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Thinking, Story

• I wanted to work on this central problem of killing. How you go about killing. Now, in the film I had to kill my children – well, I didn’t want to get that far.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Problem, Killing

• I sketched out a rough story for them and the director said, well it’s a good story but we have the go-ahead from Universal to make this script and did I want to do it. I said no, and they left.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rough, Story, Director

• I think that the change began… I made a film a few years ago called The Spitfire Grill, and that didn’t make much money either, but it was a good film and an independent film.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Money

  Tags in Film

• I did my famous cabbage soup diet, so I was able to do it.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Famous

• I talked to women who lived there, to get their speech patterns and outlook on life – and how narrow that is.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Women, Speech, Pattern

• It’s a sin to have your films not to make money.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Money

  Tags in Films

• Nobody would want to leave that film to go get high.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Film

• Their life is about getting enough money to put food on the table to feed their children, and that’s it.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Children, Life

• They pulled Resurrection out of the theatres, so it was running in New York and I was nominated for the Oscar and there was no ad in the newspapers to say it was running. So it was literally killed.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Resurrection, Theaters, New York

• She goes from one addiction to another. All are ways for her to not feel her feelings.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Addiction

• Then in came this script with another very low offer, and another drug addict and a depressing and difficult part to play. I thought, ‘Why should I put myself through that for hardly any money?’

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Money

  Tags in Myself, Depressing

• To me, it’s a very moral film. If my son were a teenager now, I would drag him to see it.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Moral, Film, Teenager

• Well my taste wasn’t very good when I first started out. But later, when I began to appreciate the art of acting, I would say the actress I most admire is Vanessa Redgrave.

  Ellen Burstyn

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Actress, Acting

Ellen Burstyn (23)

Birth:	7th December, 1932
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Actress

About

Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She is an American actress. Burstyn's performance in the acclaimed 1971 ensemble drama The Last Picture Show brought her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination. She received a second Academy Award nomination for her lead performance in The Exorcist, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress the following year for her work in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. In 1975, she won the Tony Award for her lead performance in the Broadway production of Same Time, Next Year. She is one of the very few performers to have won the Triple Crown of Acting. She served as president of the Actors' Equity Association from 1982 to 1985. In 1997, Burstyn was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.

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