New baby on way, new movie, an Oscar? New state of Bening by Paul Fischer
Annette Bening
has plenty to smile about these days. She's entering her ninth year as wife of
former wild man Warren Beatty. She's pregnant with their fourth child,
due in April, not to mention the fact that at the time of our interview, she was
just Oscar-nominated for her role as a real-estate wife in American Beauty.
Arriving with a giant shawl covering her very pregnant state, Bening, with this her second nomination, is genuinely thrilled, yet quietly understated. "It's thrilling and affirming, especially with American Beauty, because it's such an unusual movie. One that we all made because we thought it could possibly be good and that maybe some people, if we got it right, might see it and like it. However, nobody thought it would necessarily be popular, you know, so for it to have this life was wonderful." Bening says that she "loved making it which is not always the case even with good work, as you know. Sometimes it comes from disharmony and sometimes it comes from people getting on well. In this case, it was a very joyous set and I loved the experience of doing it. Then I saw it and I thought 'Oh, my God. It's good. It's really good.' But, of course, then I thought: Who knows if other people will think it's good? Who knows if people will go?"
On the subject of awards, Bening notes "that this whole thing about prizes, awards and nominations really makes me introspective and I think: 'Okay, now, well, really what does it mean and does it matter to me or not matter to me?' All those questions come up."
In something of a coincidence, Beatty, Bening and baby-to-be will attend the Academy Awards on March 26 as honoured guests. Beatty will be picking up a lifetime achievement Oscar for his efforts as a producer, which for this wife and mother, are more exciting than her own nomination. "It means a lot to him, you know. He started producing at a time when no actors were doing that. Now everybody's got a production company and everybody's name's on every movie as a producer but he started that when nobody else was doing it, so he's really earned this distinction."
While critics were dazzled by her dark work in American Beauty, they'll get to see a much comically broader aspect of her opposite American TV icon Garry Shandling, in the sci-fi comedy, What Planet Are you From? In the movie, directed by veteran Mike Nichols, Bening plays a recovering alcoholic who is targeted by Shandling's alien as the perfect female reproductive specimen. The alien's goal is to save his male-only world from serious extinction. A lot of giggling was going on during filming of What Planet Are You From? Besides some outrageous lampoons referencing the difference between the sexes, there is the alien's humming penis.
"I think it's safe to say that the physical comedy with the humming goes about as far as Mike Nichols has ever gone," Bening says. Nichols, Shandling and especially Bening understood this film was a played strictly for laughs. "You never really know how something is going to turn out," she says. "But I wasn't worried; once I want to do something, I become biased."
In
Planet, Bening plays a woman who ultimately craves a child. One wonders
whether she drew from her own maternalism in playing aspects of this character.
"To a degree but I kind of like how the fact at the beginning of the movie she's
not somebody who's pining for a child, because it is a bit of a cliché.
Now that's not to say there aren't a lot of women who are reaching. I've many
friends who are single, around my age, a few years younger, a few years older
who haven't had children who are dying to have children but not everybody. So
I kind of like the fact that it doesn't really occur to her until this guy says:
Well, my mission is to have a child. She then suddenly realises "wait a minute,
you know, maybe I do too."
As with her other births, Bening has no qualms now of taking some time off following the birth of this child. "I've stopped ever since I started having children, so stopping isn't new. It's just sort of how it's perceived. I sort of appear in your lives and then I disappear but, see, in my life it's all life continues so, I mean, from the first time I had a baby, my first pregnancy I stopped. After I had the baby I stopped for a year-and-a-half or so after that, so I didn't work for a couple of years."
Now expecting at 42, Bening doesn't get stressed the older she gets.. "Well, there are all these children everywhere, who are very demanding, so it's a lot but I'm very lucky. You know, knock on wood, as I have very healthy pregnancies so I really can't complain." Bening says that being a mother has changed the way she selects material these days as an actress. "I think motherhood has probably made me more empathetic and more kind of having experienced that part of life. I understand it more so I would be able to relate to something that I wouldn't necessarily relate to as well if I hadn't been a mother."
Though about to take a post-birth break, Bening says that she is determined to stay in the game as long as possible. "Right now, I love the fact that I have so many opportunities but I know this privileged position cannot last. That doesn't mean I'll stop working. I picture myself as an old actress doing cameos in films with people saying: 'Isn't that that Bening woman?' "It's a wonderful, rewarding life."