Valuable I'm Always Here To Listen quotations
I always say, when I work with younger actresses, "I'm here.
" Reese says it, too: "We've lived it. We know things. So if there's anything you want to know." I'm careful not to be the preacher, like, "Now, listen to me!" But I do want to be available. Even in terms of things like finances - where do you learn that, if you don't have people you can ask, "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
After a few days in hospital, I was thinking, Oh, gee - I raised in a church, Protestant upbringing which I'd rejected as an adult - I'm lying in bed thinking, Hmmm, maybe I ought to pray. They always say there are no atheists in a foxhole... and I thought, Here I am in a pretty good-sized foxhole... and I thought Naahhh. I wouldn't respect any God who would listen to me after I'd rejected him so vociferously.
I'm being explicit about really horrifying experiences in my life, but my hope has always been to be responsible as an artist and to avoid indulging in my misery, or to come off as an exhibitionist. I don't want to make the listener complicit in my vulnerable prose poem of depression, I just want to honor the experience. I'm not the victim here, and I'm not seeking other peoples' sympathy. I don't blame my parents, they did the best they could.
