It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
BETH HENLEYIt was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
BETH HENLEYI just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.
BETH HENLEYBut 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 HENLEYI grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
BETH HENLEYSomehow 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 HENLEYThe impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.
BETH HENLEYI was just restless with being in school; so I went out to Los Angeles.
BETH HENLEYI love writing for the screen.
BETH HENLEYThe most glorious thing about working in the collaborative art is when you have somebody like Susan Kingsley or Kathy Bates who are better than your play.
BETH HENLEYIn movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.
BETH HENLEYPart of that is that New York has proved to be too much fun for me to live and work; I love New York so much.
BETH HENLEYI 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 HENLEYWhat I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn’t you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.
BETH HENLEYAnd all writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to bother doing it themselves.
BETH HENLEYI did write a couple of original screenplays, but I’d rather write plays.
BETH HENLEYThat’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