"I remember hearing someone say that good acting is more about taking off a mask than putting one on, and in movie acting, certainly that's true. With the camera so close, you can see right down into your soul, hopefully. So being able to do that in a way is terrifying, and in another way, truly liberating. And I like that about it."
Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas) is an American actress.
She is a five-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia, and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films, as well as Nyad, and she won a BAFTA and a SAG award for her performance in American Beauty.
However, it's entirely possible that her greatest achievement was capturing the heart of the notorious playboy Warren Beatty, whom she married in 1992.
Selected filmography:
- The Great Outdoors (1988) as Kate Craig
- Valmont (1989) as the Marquise de Merteuil
- The Grifters (1990) as Myra Langtry
- Postcards from the Edge (1990) as Evelyn Ames
- Regarding Henry (1991) as Sarah Turner
- Bugsy (1991) as Virginia Hill
- Richard III (1995) as Queen Elizabeth
- The American President (1995) as Sydney Ellen Wade
- Mars Attacks! (1996) as Barbara Land
- The Siege (1998) as Elise Kraft / Sharon Bridger
- American Beauty (1999) as Carolyn Burnham
- Liberty's Kids (2002 — 2003) as Abigail Adams (voice)
- The Sopranos (2004) as herself (episode: "The Test Dream")
- Open Range (2003) as Sue Barlow
- Mother and Child (2009) as Karen
- The Kids Are All Right (2010) as Dr. Nicole Allgood
- Ruby Sparks (2012) as Gertrude Weir-Fields
- 20th Century Women (2016) as Dorothea Fields
- Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) as Gloria Grahame
- Captain Marvel (2019) as the Supreme Intellgence & Mar-Vell / Dr. Wendy Lawson
- Georgetown (2019) as Amanda Breht
- The Report (2019) as Senator Dianne Feinstein
- Death on the Nile (2022) as Euphemia
- Nyad (2023) as Diana Nyad
Tropes
- Production Posse: Has appeared in three different Mike Nichols films. They are Postcards from the Edge in 1990 in a bit part, Regarding Henry in 1991 and What Planet Are You From? in 2000.
- Urban Legends: Many believed that she is the muse/inspiration for the Columbia Pictures logo. In fact, it is one of Hollywood's most popular myths (the true model is Jenny Joseph, although What Planet Are You From? references the myth by putting Bening's face on the Torch Lady at the start of the film).
- What Could Have Been:
- She was originally cast to play Catwoman in Batman Returns but was pregnant by the time the film went into production and had to drop out. She was replaced by Michelle Pfeiffer.
- She was hired to play the romantic lead in the sitcom Just In Time. After the first table read, the producers fired her saying they "wanted to move the character in a new direction".
- Turned down Robin Wright's role in The Playboys in 1992. Ironically, 17 years later, Wright turned down the role of Bening's daughter in Mother and Child in 2009.
- In 2001 she was in talks to star in a biopic of Judy Garland titled "Rainbow's End," but the film never came to be.
- Replaced Julianne Moore for the role of Deidre Burroughs in Running with Scissors and in Imagine. She and Moore would costar in The Kids Are All Right.
