PicoBlog

I'm what you call a made actress. You know Carrie Nye? Oh, she's great. I saw her early in her career and said to everyone 'Get her!' and I did. We worked together several times. She's a born actress--she came out with all the necessary goods. I had to make myself into an actress. I'm like Kate Hepburn, another made actress. The two of us are tough women of strong intention who made it happen, and now it's impossible to imagine us doing anything else. Well, can you? 

Carrie Nye was dithering one day about whether or not she should play Lady Macbeth, and my jaw dropped. She looked at me like I was having a seizure or something. 'What's wrong?' she asked. 'Listen,' I said, 'don't piss on Lady Macbeth. You get offered it, you play it. You fail or your fly, but you're bound to learn something.'  She played it. She was good. She got better. Don't pass up opportunities. Don't think you know everything. Don't think there's going to be a better deal or a better team down the road. You don't know the road, but you know what's happening today. Stick with today.

You shouldn't be cocky, but you also shouldn't be surprised when you succeed. Part of having intention is having the belief that you belong and that you're doing good work, so when someone pats you on the head and tells you you're good, you shouldn't duck your head and pull on a hair shirt. You shouldn't be amazed that you got it right: You've worked your whole life to get it right, to get every damn thing right. Why be surprised?

Better to be grateful. And I am. The right deal came down the right road with the right people several times for me, and I got to be good. That makes me happy and it makes me grateful, but it doesn't surprise me. It's what I was working toward!

When I won the Oscar for Rosemary's Baby, I had to point out that I had made my first film in 1915, and here it was 1969, and I don't know what took me so long, and I didn't! I always thought I had intention and was working hard and well. I also meant it when I told them how encouraging it was--at 72 to win an Oscar. Well, it did re-invent me, give me a boost. Great! I intended it that way.

Kate Hepburn won that night as well [for The Lion in Winter, her third Oscar], and she called me a few days later and marveled that the two Yankee girls no one believed in had won the prizes. Can you think of two actresses who were fired more often than Kate and me? Can you think of two actresses who were derided as odd more than the two of us? Don't even bother: you won't find any. We win.

We didn't marvel that it had happened. We didn't marvel that some mistake had been made. We marveled that the dreaming soul and the power of intention had worked! 

Never let anyone stop dreaming, and never let anyone misplace their intention. So many people deserve their great, golden moment.

Intend for it to happen for other people.

Telephone Interview with Ruth Gordon

Conducted by James Grissom/1984

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