Interview: Annette Bening on Running with Scissors

"Running with Scissors,” produced, directed, and written for the screen by Ryan Murphy (creator of the provocative television drama "Nip/Tuck”), is a blistering comedy and mesmerizing tale of how a young man survived a nightmare childhood while keeping his sense of humor and his sense of forgiveness intact.  Based on Augusten Burrough’s harrowing personal memoir of the same name, the film depicts Burroughs’ unsettling, humor-filled and highly personal recollections of growing up under the most berserk and often shocking circumstances. 

In this warped, out-of-control, 70s-era coming of age tale, Murphy has crafted a strikingly universal story about the strange power of families, the wonderment of childhood, the madness of adulthood, and the revelation of finding your way in spite of it all. The film stars Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jill Clayburgh, Evan Rachel Wood, and Joseph Cross.

For director Ryan Murphy, one of the most vital characters in his new film, "Running with Scissors,” was always Deirdre Burroughs, a bright but barely functional mother and unpublished poet who loves her son very much but is obsessed with fame and freedom and given to psychotic episodes.  She not only drives the events of the story but emerges as a deeply complicated and fascinating woman of her times beneath her often painfully hilarious words and actions. She begins the film as Augusten’s co-conspirator and confidante but, buffeted by wild bipolar mood swings and an insatiable hunger for artistic success, will later abandon him in a betrayal that takes years of hard-won wisdom to forgive.

In some ways, Murphy viewed Deirdre as typical of many 70s moms who were confused and torn between their roles as selfless matriarchs and society’s feminist dreams of "self-actualization” He also saw her as the most tragic kind of artist – the type whose work never quite reaches the starry heights of her ambitions. Yet Deirdre was also very much a victim of her own messed-up chemistry, a woman desperately trying to survive an out-of-control inner landscape of delusions.

Murphy understood that he would need an extraordinarily versatile actress in order to get at Deirdre’s particular mix of humor, pathos, psychosis and heartbreak – which is why multiple Academy Award nominee Annette Bening was one of the very first actors he approached for the film.

"You must be able to empathize with Deirdre, a character who is not always empathetic,” explains Murphy. "Annette, who for some years has wanted to do a picture about mental illness, was able to do that. That is a gift she has. Hers is one of the most harrowing portraits of mental illness I’ve seen. She was very specific, very prepared. She did an enormous amount of research and spoke to many authorities. She knew how someone would speak on a certain drug, how her speech should be slurred, where her focus should be slightly off. She made sure that it was always about the truth.”

Murphy especially admired Bening’s willingness to take an enormous risk in playing a mother who ultimately neglects her child and puts him in danger’s way. "It was very important to Annette that although you don’t agree with what Deirdre did, you understand why she did it,” says the director. "We worked very hard to present both sides of the character because if it wasn’t carefully modulated, she could be a modern day Medea. Annette gave a truly daring performance, throwing herself into it full force. Not many actresses would be willing to be this exposed, naked or raw.”

Benning was an immediate fan of the screenplay. "What I loved about it is that it’s the story of someone who not only lived through a harrowing ordeal but who lived to tell the tale with wit, intelligence and insight,” she says. "What really moved me is that Augusten was able to address his past and move on.”

At the Los Angeles press day to promote "Running with Scissors,” Annette Bening sat down with Movies Online to discuss what it was like working with "Nip/Tuck” director Ryan Murphy and author Augusten Burroughs, creating the role of Deirdre, and playing opposite such an impressive ensemble cast. Here’s what she had to say:

QUESTION: HAVE YOU KNOWN ANY DEIRDRE'S AND HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH PEOPLE LIKE THAT?

ANNETTE BENING: Oh, boy – very carefully. When I was approaching the part, I just so wanted Deirdre to be real in the picture. I didn't want to do it in fact unless I felt from Ryan [Murphy] the same kind of interest in the care with which the mental illness part of her character was done because I just had a real aversion to the other way of approaching it as something as kind of funny or glamorous or whatever. I mean, she's a very funny woman obviously. I love that part of her. She's hilarious, but just in terms of playing someone with mental illness I felt an incredible responsibility to being responsible about that and making it real because you asked me if I've ever known anyone like that – yes, I have. I think we all have and in real life, people with that kind of illness are incredibly destructive to themselves often and to those around them and there is nothing funny about that, but since the story is about something, the story really has something serious to say, I think. I hope people feel that. I felt it when I read it that it's about somebody who's trying to address their childhood, that he lived to tell the tale and tell it with wit and humor and insight, and he’s really trying to dump that baggage and live as a grown up. I think we all have that to a degree. So that's why I wanted to do it anyway.

Q: WERE YOU FAMILIAR WITH HIS STORY BEFORE?

AB: I was not familiar with it, no. I hadn't read the book. I read the script first and the script is very much it's own entity and Ryan had such a personal connection to it and when he went to Augusten [Burroughs], I think that’s probably what Augusten saw. There were people who were more experienced and fancier than Ryan was, and he gave it to Ryan because I think he felt that, and I saw it when I met with him. I saw that he was somebody who really wanted to do something that was funny and entertaining and interesting that had something to it, but that he had a very strong connection to it and as an actor you're really so much serving the director. It is their baby. If you are fortunate enough to be able to work with somebody who's got that kind of connection to a piece of material, then it really makes it worth it because you are serving them. I think that's what good movie acting is about. It's about serving some vision that is overall and I think that this movie is very much steered by Ryan, that everybody's performance is in the whole because the characters are so kind of eccentric and extraordinary that unless there was some sort of guiding force in there keeping everybody real, it would've been unfortunate. And that’s why I didn't want to fall into that.

Q: WAS IT DIFFICULT NOT TO JUDGE HER BECAUSE SHE IS A REAL PERSON AND SHE DID A LOT OF THESE THINGS? WAS THAT DIFFICULT FOR YOU PLAYING HER?

AB: At first when I looked at it, I was just like anyone. I was just looking at the story, but then once I start to work on something – a good actor doesn't judge the character. None of us do. You have the luxury and the pleasure of just trying to get behind somebody and say, 'Now, why?' That's the task. It's actually much easier to judge. It's harder to then say, 'Well, why does someone do what they do?' That doesn't mean that I can't still look at some of the things that she did and not feel horrified as a mother. I certainly do. Watching the movie – I haven't seen it in a couple of months, but the last time I saw it I just got a stomach ache. I just wanted to save the child. I just wanted to jump out of my seat and say, 'No. Wait a minute. Stop. Someone needs to protect this child.' But I think that's probably a reflection of the movie being a good movie because you feel that dramatic tension and for me it's worth it because of where it goes. Because he eventually does say, 'Okay, enough. I'm getting out of here. I'm going to transcend it.'

Q: WHEN YOU PLAY WOMAN WHO'S OVER THE EDGE LIKE THIS DOES THAT TAKE A TOLL ON YOU OR IS IT THERAPEUTIC?

AB: I think it's therapeutic. I hope. There are days it feels more like it's taking a toll, but I think that if you're at your best, it's cathartic. I wish that I could always feel that. I did a play recently and I wanted to have that cathartic feeling every night and I feel like in a way that's what one should have, but some days you don't feel it as much and some days you feel that it's more of a wear and tear. It's so different on a film because you're really only working on a given scene for maybe a day or two days. So you really only have to go down that road those times. It's not like repeating it over and over and over. So on those days there is an excitement even if it's a very painful thing. It'll be that thing of, 'What will happen?' That's the feeling. Maybe something surprising will happen, and that's what I want. I want to be off balance. I want to have that controlled anarchy because you are the author of your own out of control-ness. You want to find yourself on uncertain ground, not just playing someone who is unstable. Even with a stable character you want something surprising to happen hopefully because that's what the camera loves the most. That's what is great about film. It's that something that happens that's unexpected. It's great to even be in the room when you're trying to do that or when you see somebody else do it. It's very palpable. I know you watch a lot of movies and you can see when something is planned, and when it's not, that's the hardest thing to do because the whole mechanism conspires against it. There's all these traps and there's all these people and you're in your trailer and it's like, 'What time are we shooting it?' All of that stuff that hopefully in the end you're not even aware of when you're watching the film. You're just thinking all of these people are in the room, and in fact there were like fifty people around sticking microphones in your face. So being able to block everything out and like you say feel that sense of catharsis, that is the best. And on some days you feel like, 'Ah, that was good.' But most of the time you don't know that. Most of the time you wonder. Most of the time you're in this kind of uncertain state of like, 'I think that was okay. I'm not really sure.' But you’ve always got the next thing you have to do so you can't always be celebrating because you’ve got the next thing to do. So it's more being able to tolerate that uncertainty. When I talk to students, acting students, I talk a lot about that because there's an enormous amount of uncertainty not only in the profession, but just in the day-to-day of the work and you have to learn how to tolerate that because it doesn't go away.

Q: IS IT HARD NOT TO TAKE IT HOME WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE MOM AND YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY MARRIED TO ANOTHER ACTOR WHO WOULD UNDERSTAND IF YOU DID, BUT YOU DO HAVE ANOTHER ROLE TO PLAY?

AB: Yeah, there are times. I'm usually so relieved to get home by the end of the day. This one we shot here and so that was so wonderful for me. I feel so grateful. That was another thing about the film that was so great for me. It was easier to kind of manage my whole family thing. So I mean I really make a point of it, especially on a picture like this, not to take it home. So I'm pretty good about that. I think that I've had my days when I was unable – or I might have been short tempered or something and I certainly have those days, but generally speaking I'm just kind of relieved. I feel a greater sense of like, 'Oh, my God, my children, normal life. Thank God.'

Q: DO YOU THINK THAT DIEDRE MIGHT'VE BEEN BETTER OFF IF SOMEONE HAD TOLD HER THAT SHE WASN'T A BRILLIANT POET?

AB: Oh, I think that there had probably been a lot of people who did. I think so. I mean, she got a lot of rejection. There's that scene where she’s got the rejection letters. That to me is a fascinating question about creativity and just dreams in general. Now, Augusten of course ended up becoming a writer and transcended everything that happened to him through his creativity and having the will power and the dream. So why does one person  get their dreams sort of answered as it were more than another? I found her desire – I don't think her desire to have a serious life and a life that really had some meaning as different than anybody else's and who of us can judge another and say, 'Well, you have less right to have the life that you're sort of imagining than someone else.' So I found that very much in the writing. The writing at its heart is about that. That's one of the things that it almost inadvertently questions. It's that whole thing about creativity and aspiration. Now, I know a lot of it with this character was about being famous and what she imagined that life to be and part of that was because she was this kind of really eccentric and bright and interesting woman and then as she got more and more ill I think that it became more a reflection of her delusions rather than her real aspirations. But she did have all of that and I find that moving.

Q: IT JUST SEEMED LIKE A LOT OF HER TROUBLES CAME FROM THIS FEELING THAT SHE HAD THIS WORK OF BRILLIANCE INSIDE OF HER THAT WAS SOMEHOW BLOCKED.

AB: I know. I know, and there are so many people I think who feel that way. It's a mystery. I mean, certainly in Los Angeles, I'm sure that you meet people a lot and I know that I meet people sometimes who have aspirations, but what they really are aspiring to or what they really want I think is a feeling inside of worthiness, something meaningful. Who can deny someone that, but they attach it to things that are really not what they think they are. Even sometimes with actors, I think. I mentioned speaking to young actors and sometimes when I'm speaking to people who are aspiring, not always, but sometimes or when I talk to someone or someone writes me a letter or something and I think, 'If you actually got the job, could you really deal with it?' Because it's one thing to have an illusion about doing it and it's another thing when they say, 'Okay, now go.' And everybody else is doing this and they turn the camera on and they say, 'Okay, now do something.' That's when you're really faced with the reality of it. There is nothing glamorous about that. It's the work. So that's the part that I feel like I have a hard time articulating to young people who are sometimes seeking a kind of attention.

Q: YOU'VE CERTAINLY GOTTEN THE FAME PART, BUT SHE WAS SEEKING THIS SORT OF ACCEPTANCE. IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE, DO YOU REALIZE HOW MUCH OTHER ACTORS ADMIRE YOU? I'VE NEVER TALKED TO AN ACTOR WHO DOESN'T TALK ABOUT YOU, WHETHER THEY'VE WORKED WITH YOU OR NOT WORKED WITH YOU, IN THE MOST GLOWING TERMS.

AB: Thank you, that's very kind of you to say that. I'm really flattered and it means more to me than anything. It really does, in fact, probably to a fault. I was really thinking about this yesterday because I went to see the opera downtown – Manon - which was just fantastic and I was thinking about how excited I get when I see something. I'm almost more of an audience than I am an actor. That's how I wanted to be an actress because I went and saw something in the theater and I thought, 'Oh, I want to be a part of that.' So I have to say that part of it is just watching people. Like when I was watching Alec Baldwin, for instance, on this picture I was thinking, 'How does he do that? How does he just walk in and do that when we haven't rehearsed. I don't think we rehearsed.' We got along extremely well. I adore him and I think he's so brilliant. You probably just saw 'The Departed' and he was so great in that, and he came in and I think that character is so fully realized, that sad – anyway, I want to do another picture with him. I really did just watch him and I find that inspiring. I don't know if I can articulate this, but it's like one of the reasons that being human is so fascinating is that we only can inspire each other. We can't inspire ourselves in the same way that somebody else can inspire us, and it's so funny that that's how it seems to be set up. I don't know quite why that is and why a story is the thing that sometimes can move us more than even our own lives. That's how we see. Sometimes drama or fiction or whatever, sometimes non-fiction, is the way we can experience what life means. So I think she was somebody who had all of those yearnings and all of that churning and why is it that one person has those churnings and interests answered and why somebody does not. I don't know. It's a mystery.

Q: HOW DID AUGUSTEN HELP YOU IN TERMS OF FLESHING OUT THE CHARACTER? DID HE GIVE YOU ANY PERSONAL….?

AB: Have you talked to him?

Q: No.

AB: Well, you will see when you meet him. He's so interesting. I called him up when I was working on it, and as I said, this is not his mother in my point of view. This is me playing somebody that Ryan wrote about. This is an interpretation. This is a fiction. This isn’t a documentary about her, but it's clearly inspired by her, and so I had questions and he's so interesting to talk to.  I don't know, but I find as I get older I've always been introspective and I've always been somebody who looked at my childhood and my personal life carefully and that as you get older, you continue to go back to those stories and that when you go back, the way you see certain events continues to change and who is highlighted at that Thanksgiving dinner or whatever event you're going back to in your childhood, the main characters change and the themes change and what it all means is this kind of ongoing search. It goes on your whole life. Right? And I think that he's somebody who did it in a really penetrating way for himself and a life that had a lot of pain to it where he was not being protected when he should've been protected. He's got a lot to say and he's very articulate and he's very funny, and I just find him fascinating as a human being to talk with about just about anything. You'll see when you meet him. He’s a really interesting person because he kind of went through what he went through and was able to make something of it.
 
Q: I HEARD A RUMOR THAT YOU'RE UP FOR THE LEAD FEMALE ROLE IN 'SWEENEY TODD.' CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT?

AB: [Laughs] You're the first person who has asked me that. I will neither confirm nor deny it. I've done depositions before.

Q: YOU ARE GOING TO DO RYAN'S NEXT FILM, RIGHT?

AB: I would do anything that Ryan asked me to do. I really would. I have enormous respect for him and he asked me to do this and I feel really grateful and he completely collaborated with me. I think about it now and I think that he didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, we didn't rehearse everything. He put a lot of faith and trust in me and I really appreciate that. It's such a privilege to be able to work closely with people. It's a thrill. I would do whatever he wanted. I know he's writing. He's got a number of things he's writing. He's always got ideas and he's always calling me up with ideas. So I know that a couple of things have been in the trades and such and so whenever he gets them written and sends them to me, I'm there.

Q: SO 'DIRTY TRICKS' ISN'T A DONE DEAL YET?

AB: Well, I think that he has proposed this idea and I assume that they've made a deal with him to write it. So that's all I kind of know.

Q: HAVE YOU EVER HAD A WEIRD EXPERIENCE WITH A THERAPIST OR A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL?

AB: [Laughs] Not to this degree. No. I believe in the therapeutic process for sure, but no. Thank God. No, I have not.

Bening will be seen next in writer/director Ryan Murphy’s "Dirty Tricks,” an adaptation of the hit off-Broadway play, opposite Meryl Streep and Gwyneth Paltrow, and "A Hole in the Earth” with William H. Macy.
"Running with Scissors” opens in theaters on October 20th.