Bening: Acting Is Like Purging

Annette Bening has made 15 films over the past 15 years, and has a pretty good track record when it comes to Academy Award nominations, receiving them for "The Grifters," "American Beauty," and "Being Julia."

Now the Oscar buzz has begun again for her portrayal of an unbalanced mother in "Running With Scissors."

On The Early Show Friday, Bening was candid about the impact of playing a mentally disturbed person.

Asked by co-anchor Hannah Storm how difficult it was to leave the intensity of that character behind and then go home to her four kids and husband, Warren Beatty, Bening said it was "a relief! I think, when you're at your best, you're getting it out of you. It's like a purge.

"I was listening to a writer talk about writing a story and writing this fiction. It happened to be sort of a dark piece. And the writer said, 'Well, in a way, it's like purging something out of yourself.' And I think acting can be like that as well.

"Once you're done, then it's a relief. It's fascinating to go to those places and, in this character, some of those places are pretty dark. But then, at the end of the day, hopefully, you can let it go. It makes going home all the better."

Told by Storm that she admires remarks Bening has made recently about work and motherhood and achieving a balance between the two, Bening said one helps the other.

"I think (acting is) fuel. I mean, creative work is such a privilege. I love what I do. I love my craft. I work very hard at it. So I think that in a way, it all becomes part of the same thing. I don't really think of them as separate, sort of my private life and my public life, or my professional. It's all sort of part of the same thing. But I just feel lucky that I can work. I can stop and start. So I'm really able to be with my kids but also, when I take a role, I can really dive into it and get really get into it and put myself there."

Bening observed that the balance starts, in a sense, at home: "I have a great mom. I do. I have a great mom. I love my parents. I have two brothers and a sister. We're all still close. And I think that helps a lot. I had great parents and they're still in our lives. I think especially as you become a public person, the more you're able to find a private life that is fulfilling, then it kind of makes it all — it helps make sense of life."

The actress' character in "Running With Scissors," Deirdre, "sees greatness in herself and can't get there," Storm pointed out. "She's tied to this alcoholic husband played wonderfully by Alec Baldwin."

And Bening said playing a mentally ill woman who descends through the movie "was very difficult. It was a fascinating role to work on, because she starts out as a housewife who just wants a serious life and wants to be a writer and a poet and wants to be taken seriously as a person. And the movie takes place in the '70s, when everything was changing so much for women and suddenly it was OK to be a professional woman. So after what starts out as a sort of ambition to be more and to have a more serious life, she then becomes ill and has manic depressive illness. That sort of morphs into kind of delusions of grandeur. But it was a wonderful challenge. It's a real privilege to try to play someone like that. I wanted to make it as real as I possibly could."

Bening admitted she'd "love" to work again with Beatty, saying, "I want to get him maybe to direct me in something. He's such a great director. So I hope so. I would love it."