Annette Bening on "Mother and Child" 

 

MakingOf: The movie is really a love letter to mothers everywhere. Do you think it will shift the way you view Mother’s Day this year?

 

Annette Bening: Oh, well I suppose so. It’s always this incredibly important date for me. Without... I guess it’s kind of like having your birthday or something. There is something special about the whole day and emotional about it. You know, I have four kids. I’ve got three teenagers and a ten year old. So, yeah, I guess this year will be different. And there is just so much love in this movie and people really trying to connect and that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of painful, complicated relationships between mothers and daughters because there are. And that certainly is reflected in the film. 

 

MO: Your range in the movie is just so tremendous. 

 

(AB): Oh, good.

 

MO: Did you find that it was difficult to be able to go from being so distant and cold to kind of warming up towards the end, or is that part of the fun?

 

(AB): That is part of the fun and I think it would be really hard if I only got to play the beginning part of the movie. Although, in a way, I always end up feeling kind of like it’s my job to defend my character in a way, and I like those moments. I like the more prickly moments too, because to me they feel like real life. I mean, if that is going somewhere, obviously, then it’s also much more gratifying. If that was the only thing that happened, then it wouldn’t be very interesting. But knowing that I am playing somebody who’s going from being in a sort of agonized state to someone who is able to drop some of the baggage of life and embrace the present, then it becomes worth it. And I also found her funny, even in these prickly, difficult moments. 

 

MO: When you are filming and then they yell cut and you have a break, do you find that you carry that with you in between, or is it just like that’s that and now it’s back to me?

 

(AB): Sometimes I do carry it. I think when you are at your best as an actor, its cathartic. Just like it is in life when you go through something and you have, to be sort of obvious about it, if you have a good cry, a good cry as they call it, then afterwards it’s necessary to go through that thing, but then once you are through it you feel better and you wouldn’t feel the betterness you feel had you not gone through the sort of bad part. So, when you are at your best I think as an actor, it is a cathartic experience, but then also, of course, sometimes you have to keep doing it. So then there is that, there is that of sometimes you have to keep doing the scene. So maybe you have already been through the cathartic part, but guess what, there are more takes to do or you have to turn the camera around or whatever and I guess that is where, i guess, the craft and the skill comes in. But there is so much love in the picture, and is so much yearning and ache and kind of longing that that gets you through it. Knowing that it is part of a larger picture. And also, it was just a wonderful set. It was a wonderful group of people. I really like Rodrigo. I felt very comfortable with him. And I was trying as best I could to just be as simple and as real as I could and not act, which is of course what you are always trying to do, but particularly with this. This is a woman I felt like you maybe see at the drug store. You see her in the library. Or I don’t know where. And you think, oh, what’s her story? And that’s the kind of character she is. She is very much a real person.