A Quote by Ellen Burstyn

When we did 'The Last Picture Show,' the whole cast was unknowns, and we all got careers from it. Well, I don't think this could be done now. — © Ellen Burstyn
When we did 'The Last Picture Show,' the whole cast was unknowns, and we all got careers from it. Well, I don't think this could be done now.
Sometimes I feel I have no idea what I'm doing as an actor. I just did a tape for the TV remake of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show,' and I think it could be the worst thing I've ever done.
With 'The Last Picture Show,' Peter Bogdanovich brought the script to the company that made it. They liked it, and they gave him the money he needed to make the film. He cast it with the actors that he thought were right for the parts. Now, it's the reverse.
What goes through one's head when Disney asked for 52 more shows? I remember seeing that in the supplemental features...When they first said "52" I literally laughed, I thought they were kidding. They said, "Well, how many do you think could do?" And I said, "Well, we've got 6 scripts in the works, so 6 obviously we could do. We did 13 last year, I think we could do 13 this year without a problem." I said, "If we really pushed it, I think we could do 18." And they said, "What about 52?" I started laughing but they were serious and eventually they did get the 52 episode order.
When we finally had a cast and could see what they could do, here was an opportunity to go back and modify things. We didn't actually do that much modifying, but we did enough to make it feel as if they fit in their own skin, and we got a lot of good input from them. They're a terrific cast. They worked really hard.
There has been a whole lot. Just to combine a musical career with the last year on high school was enough as it is. I didn't think it should fare as well as it did, but apparently it did.
Not long ago, every time I did a picture shoot for a magazine, the photographer would ask me to show up wearing jeans and cowboy boots. They seemed to think I was a hillbilly. Now it's different. Now they're not quite sure what to make of me. And I show up wearing whatever I want.
Think about last time you were broke ... now how well did it go with spending your way out of it? Did that work?
The whole reason I did a bodybuilding show was to see how far I could push my own discipline. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. When I made the switch to acting, I was able to break that down into small, measurable goals like I did with bodybuilding.
Every last cast is actually a first cast. The first cast and first chance to catch the next fish. The next time you anguish about whether to make that last cast, forget it - the anguish that is - and cast away. The next fish caught on a last cast will not be the first.
Michael [Douglas] was just leaving the TV series The Streets of San Francisco and he said, 'Dad, let me try it.' I thought, 'Well, if I couldn't make it...' So, I gave it to him and he got the money, the director and the cast. The biggest disappointment for me, I always wanted to play McMurphy. They got a young actor, Jack Nicholson. I thought, 'Oh God. He will be terrible.' Then I saw the picture and, of course, he was great in it! That was my biggest disappointment that turned out to be one of the things I'm most proud of because my son Michael did it. I couldn't do it, but Michael did it.
You may dream about turning it around as quickly as we did, but you wouldn't expect it to become reality, ... But we jelled quickly and got it done. We're a whole new defense compared to last year.
Now we are in the second term of the government of a united nation and the government has done very well. One thing they have done, one thing people could not be blind to, was the achievement this government has made in giving human beings dignity, which they did not enjoy before. They now have dignity.
You don't often get what you ask for, and I got exactly that. I got a show that was on cable, that I could shoot five months a year and go be mommy the rest of the time, and be with a cast and crew that I really, really love, adore and respect. I got all of that.
Me and Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel and Dana Carvey wrote a script called 'Hans and Franz: The Girlyman Dilemma,' and it was going to be co-produced with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he was going to co-star in it. We had a deal with Sony, we got paid to write it, and it was a musical, but it never got made because...I think Arnold kind of backed out at the last minute because he was getting cold feet because ;The Last Action Hero' had come out, where he was parodying himself. But it was a really funny script, and I wish it could've seen the light, because I think it would've done really well.
I met all these important people and did all these stories, but I always had such excellent producers and assistants. I could show up to interview a world leader or a criminal and they would have things so well prepared anyone could have done it. It wasn't about 'me,' it was about 'us.'
In the entertainment industry, careers don't last very long - and online, careers last an even shorter amount of time.
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