U.S. actress Annette Bennings, nominated to the Oscar for American Beauty, and winner of a Golden Globe for The Kids Are All Right, told OnCuba the latter is the film which has given the most satisfactions to her.
The actress, who has starred in films like Being Julia and The American President, is at Havana´s Film Festival wherein she stated to be "by accident and happy."
The celebrated interpreter of other blockbuster films as Valmont, by Milos Forman where she shared set with the English Colin Firth (Mama Mia, The Diary of Bridget Jones) is part of delegation of the Hollywood´s Academy, headed by its President Hawk Koch , which attends the most important Latin American film festival in the region.
During our conversation she said she was shocked to be in the Hotel Nacional and steps away from the Comedor de Aguiar restaurant, where in 1947, was decided the fate of capo Benjamin ¨Bugsy¨ Siegel, the man who created Las Vegas, by order of the Mafia families headed by Lucky Luciano.
One of the most important Bennings´ performances was precisely in Bugsy, a film that chronicles the events described above, playing the role of Virginia Hill, the lover of the mobster, performed by her famous husband Warren Beatty with whom she has four children and who was also considered "the eternal bachelor in Hollywood."
Bennings added in relation to Valmont, by the Czech-born director Milos Forman (Amadeus), another version of the epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisons; she felt Forman´s strong pressure on her, she, with her American theatrical training, a Kansas girl, facing a portent as Oscar winner for the film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Nicholson.
“Forman´s demands on me in a Europe movie-themed were strained, sometimes came to hurt, but that served lot in my career and in the end we were very good friends, "she said.
As for her legendary relationship with the star Warren Beatty (Reds, Shampoo), qualified in Hollywood as "hopelessly single" until he met her, she said after they coincided in Bugsy, they decided to start a relationship that has lasted 20 years and with four children "which means that we have kept the film in the real life ".
Bennings also praised the director of The Kids Are All Right, for her work, which led her to win a Golden Globe Award "is the film which has satisfied me the most "she said, when I first met its director, Lisa Chodolenko, we had an immediate and effective communication that also allowed us to consider some exchanges on the script ".
She also had laudatory expressions to Rodrigo Garcia, son of Nobel Prize laurate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who directed her in Mother and Child: "He is a very talented director who has his foot on the ground, his father is a major influence on him, no doubt, but Garcia stands on his own and has a great film concept, both in realization as directing actors ".
About Being Julia (2004), by the acclaimed Hungarian director István Szabó (Colonel Redl, Mephisto), she told us it was an experience back to another issue with Europeans, where were included Englishmen Jeremy Irons (Oscar for Reversal of Fortune), Michael Gambon, disciple of Sir Lawrence Olivier and star in the Harry Potter saga.
"Being Julia included comedy; it was a strong artistic exercise, with a great influence of his director´s points of view.”
Finally she told she has no complaints on her career, she started something late, at the age of 30, but she has achieved much despite current situation of the movie industry and its dislike for mature women.
Throughout her prolific career she has won the Golden Globe awards for Best Actress –Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Being Julia (2005), and The Kids Are All Right (2011); BAFTA Awards for Best Actress in a leading role for American Beauty (1999); SAG Awards for Best Actress for American Beauty (1999), in the International San Sebastian Festival the Donostia Award.
