WHAT A GAL!

"The very things our arts must not be is ordinary. The arts--all of the arts--are extraordinary: they represent the ability of seemingly ordinary people to expand upon the human condition and express it more clearly. It is, above all, an ability to communicate a story, a character, an emotion in a heightened manner that can be shared by all. We are not ordinary people. We are artists. This does not mean that I feel superior to anyone else--except on a sound stage, perhaps. I still move and breathe and have to live, but I am not like other people. I do not understand why it became necessary or desirable for artists to announce that they were simply regular people, just doing a job. I look at interviews with actresses today, and they act as if they were driving to the secretarial pool. You know, just punching a clock and doing a job. And you know what? They are very good at what they do, because they are wholly ordinary. I have a very hard time differentiating one actress from another. Except for [Meryl] Streep: She's very big and daring. She's an artist. But the others? I think they're just very lucky girls whose greatest acting triumph is in appearing ordinary. What a waste of time and film."-Miss Bette Davis