Annette Bening Discusses "The Kids Are All Right"

MakingOf: What does a director need to have that impresses you and that helps you to bring out your character?

Annette Bening: Well, you know, it's a pleasure to be able to talk about that.  I mean, when I was starting out I was just trying to get a job, so it was like whatever qualities they had it was fine just, can I work, you know I need to make a living.  But now I guess, I was thinking about "American Beauty" because Sam Mendez, who directed "American Beauty," had never done a film before.  He had done a lot of theater and he was sort of this boy wonder in London, but he hadn't made a movie and, I don't know I just sat down with him.  There was something about him.  It wasn't any one thing he said.

AB: Lisa Cholodenko, who did this picture, she's just very calm, she's very sweet, I mean, she works very very hard.  They worked on this script for about five years so I had a lot of confidence in that, and also based on her other movies, "Laurel Canyon," "High Art," I mean, she's got a really specific way of looking at this world and I like her taste.

MO: What's your decision process in these choosing these amazing roles?

AB: Well with this picture, with "Kids Are All Right" I just really liked it when I read it.  I knew that Lisa Cholodenko was directing it.  She had co-written it with a guy named Stuart Blumberg.  So that's so much of it in movies is who's the director, and it means a lot if I can really believe in the person.  Although, I think, I always feel for directors because I think it's hard to describe what a director does.  I think it's hard to describe what it is that you want to do, but I already knew her work, I had met her.  We live in the same neighborhood and I had met her.  So I knew all of that about it, and then I just loved the narrative.  I thought it was a great family story and I was involved in it emotionally right away.  So that's so much of it.

MO: What was the most challenging part of playing Nick?

AB: That's a good question, I think just, trying to find a way where the behavior that's going on looks like real life.  And it's sounds kind of funny to say that, but in a way it is really a tricky thing because it's not, you know, it's a set.  There are lots and lots of people around.  Although, when I'm thinking about a script, and I'm thinking about working on something, I never picture all the people and when I get to the set I'm like 'Oh yeah, right.'  There are cameras and the  microphones, and the wardrobe people, and the makeup, and all this stuff that happens. 

AB: So in making a film, trying to just capture these little moments.  Not only the more dramatic moments which is of course more challenging emotionally, but the little things.  Little things that happen in life that you want to try to bring to the moment when the camera is rolling.  That can keep you awake at night thinking 'Can we make that work?'

MO: Can you talk about your experience at SF State?

AB: Sure, I loved it.  I was living in San Diego, where I grew up, pretty much.  And I had gone to college there for a couple years and so I wanted to get out of San Diego.  Not that San Diego isn't a great city, love it.  But I wanted to go to a city.  I didn't want to go to LA, and SF State had a great reputation as a great theater school, which it was, a big theater school.  I think there were about 500 majors.  I don't know what it's like now.  And I loved it.  I had a great time studying not only theater but everything else that I got to study and, just moving to San Francisco and, I started my life here and I ended up at ACT after that and so it was a great time for me.

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