Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.
BETH HENLEYIt’s really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don’t get in trouble.
More Beth Henley Quotes
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My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.
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That’s what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?
BETH HENLEY -
There are probably brilliant people, geniuses, alive today who don’t even know how to say, “Hello, how do you do?” because their minds are absorbed with electronic images.
BETH HENLEY -
But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn’t a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don’t have to be very smart.
BETH HENLEY -
I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.
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And all writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to bother doing it themselves.
BETH HENLEY -
I love writing for the screen.
BETH HENLEY -
I love to work, although sometimes I can spend whole days doing nothing more than picking the lint off the carpet and talking to my mother on the phone.
BETH HENLEY -
I’m very into the first production of the show.
BETH HENLEY -
It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
BETH HENLEY -
In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.
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The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.
BETH HENLEY -
But here’s the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.
BETH HENLEY -
It’s really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don’t get in trouble.
BETH HENLEY -
I was just restless with being in school; so I went out to Los Angeles.
BETH HENLEY







