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The actress on life, love and beauty.
Written By Evelyn Crowley
Photography By Cedric Buchet
Makeup By Yumi
Hair By Serge Normant
Nails By Gina Edwards
Styled By Sabine Schreder
— ELLEN BARKIN , ACTRESS / PHOTOGRAPHY BY CEDRIC BUCHET
FASHION CREDITS
- ROBERTO CAVALI DRESS
- seaman schepps bracelet
There’s an unspoken rule that actresses in Hollywood should strive for physical perfection, or at least the illusion of it. But Ellen Barkin never was one to play by the book, and she is not about to start now. For her VIOLET GREY photo shoot, which took place at New York’s historic Carlyle hotel, the 60-year-old actress asked that her appearance not be altered or retouched, come what may (blemishes, undereye circles, the odd errant hair). It was a brave, even provocative, decision that required no small amount of self-confidence.
In other words, it was very Barkin.
Born in the Bronx and educated at New York’s prestigious High School of Performing Arts, the actress has forged a critically-lauded career playing steely, hard-luck heroines in such hits as Diner (1982), Sea of Love (1989), and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). She’s also enjoyed considerable success on Broadway, most recently in The Normal Heart (2011) for which she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Her latest film, The Cobbler, co-starring Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi, premieres at the Toronto Film Festival next month.
Offscreen, Barkin lives up to her shoot-from-the-hip persona. In the below interview she chats candidly with good friend, journalist and author Carole Radziwill, about such hot button issues as aging, cosmetic surgery, and dating younger men (she has two adult children with ex-husband, Gabriel Byrne). She also opens up about her decision to have longtime stylist, Serge Normant, chop her chin-length bob into a Jean Seberg-esque pixie cut on the set of the VIOLET GREY shoot.
Unabashedly imperfect, Barkin is, in her own words, “owning it”.
Born in the Bronx and educated at New York’s prestigious High School of Performing Arts, the actress has forged a critically-lauded career playing steely, hard-luck heroines in such hits as Diner (1982), Sea of Love (1989), and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). She’s also enjoyed considerable success on Broadway, most recently in The Normal Heart (2011) for which she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Her latest film, The Cobbler, co-starring Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi, premieres at the Toronto Film Festival next month.
Offscreen, Barkin lives up to her shoot-from-the-hip persona. In the below interview she chats candidly with good friend, journalist and author Carole Radziwill, about such hot button issues as aging, cosmetic surgery, and dating younger men (she has two adult children with ex-husband, Gabriel Byrne). She also opens up about her decision to have longtime stylist, Serge Normant, chop her chin-length bob into a Jean Seberg-esque pixie cut on the set of the VIOLET GREY shoot.
Unabashedly imperfect, Barkin is, in her own words, “owning it”.
wiretapped
VIOLET GREY listens in on a conversation between friends Carole Radziwill and Ellen Barkin
FASHION CREDITS
- ADRIAN LANDAU JACKET
- LORRAINE SCHWARTZ RING
CAROLE RADZIWILL: I HAVE TO ASK YOU ABOUT YOUR HAIR. I'M STUNNED. WHAT MADE YOU CUT IT?
ELLEN BARKIN: It was a direct response to watching the Oscars alone in my bed and saying, “You know what? I’m done.” As women age, they start hiding their faces more with their hair. So the bangs get longer and you see like this much of their face. I am taking everything off of my face, and I am going to say, this is what it looks like, nothing is hidden, you can see my forehead, my jawline, my neck, this is it. And ladies, it’s not so bad.
CR: IT IS [ABOUT] HAVING THE COURAGE TO BE LOYAL TO THE FACE YOUR LIFE CREATED.
EB: I am not a beautiful woman by [classical] standards. I have never felt that way nor have I ever felt that it was important for me to feel that way. What makes me an attractive woman comes from in here. [places hand on chest]
CR: THERE'S A SEXINESS ABOUT YOU THAT COMES FROM YOUR CONFIDENCE AND MAYBE THAT'S WHAT WOMEN SHOULD BE THINKING ABOUT; WAYS TO FEEL MORE CONFIDENT THAT DON'T HAVE TO DO WITH THE COLOR OF THEIR HAIR OR THE FULLNESS OF THEIR LIPS.
EB: Right. I [was] a very fragile teenager with squinty eyes — at the time I had two knocked out broken front teeth — and a lopsided grin. And I thought, you know what, as an actor, I know I’m not going to get certain jobs. I’m never going to be the Bond girl. But I still thought that there was a place for me, a career, that wasn’t heavily influenced by what I look like. I went to a performing arts high school and…they would call my parents and tell them that they really should take me out of the school because I was never going to become an actress, I was extremely unattractive and I had no “spark”, an adjective that will live with me into my grave.
CR: I FEEL LIKE YOU'RE ALL SPARK ELLEN.
EB: My nickname for a while was “Sparky Barky”.
CR: I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE VIOLET GREY SHOOT. YOU LOOK INCREDIBLE.
EB: I feel strongly about retouching. I looked at those pictures and I knew they expected like seven x’s to come back on the bags under my eyes or the lines around my mouth or my neck but I thought we could do something special here. Those pictures with the dark circles under my eyes are exactly what I look like.
CR: I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SAY SOMETHING LIKE, “IS 60 THE NEW 30?” BECAUSE THEN WE’RE SETTING IT UP THAT 30 IS THE IDEAL.
EB: Just like when people say, “You look great for your age. I can’t believe you’re 60!” I’m like, what about just, “You look great.”
CR: NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE YOU’RE 60. WHAT ARE YOUR GO-TO BEAUTY PRODUCTS?
EB: Except when I am working, I never wear makeup. Like right now I have nothing on my face but eyebrow pencil, because as a young girl I tweezed all my eyebrows off. Given that, I take unbelievably good care of my skin. I never go to bed without washing my face and I never wake up without washing my face. And I sleep in a mask every night I sleep alone.
CR: DO YOU FEEL LIKE THAT’S OUT OF VANITY?
EB: No. Even if I never left my house ever and no one ever saw me, I’d still want to look like the best version of myself.
CR:YOU’VE NEVER BEEN UNDER THE KNIFE?
EB: I have not been under the knife. I laser. And I’ve tried every type of laser out there. Now I’m into the Ulthera Laser. I do it once a year. It’s extremely painful. You don’t have any downtime at all. And I am religious about my Fraxels. It gets rid of discoloration and smooths out the surface of your skin. I still have hardly any pores on my face.
CR: GLORIA STEINEM SAID, “WOMEN MAY BE THE ONLY GROUP THAT GROWS MORE RADICAL WITH AGE." DO YOU AGREE?
EB: 100 percent.
CR: IT DOESN'T HAPPEN WITH MEN.
EB: Maybe they don’t get smarter as they get older. Maybe they kind of stop. After they’ve done their collective time, they figure they know it all. I’ve passed the point where I was fearful about being myself. I used to hold it back a little. Now I’m getting very aggressive about what my opinions are. And now I have no hair, how about that? I probably would not have done that at 50. So that is more radical.
CR: NOW THAT YOU’RE 60 WHAT IS 70 GOING TO LOOK LIKE?
EB: I’m not a good look-to-the-future person. I never planned my life. I certainly am spending more time thinking about my third act than I thought about my first act or my second act. I loved turning fifty. That was my favorite birthday. At thirty-five I felt I had found my voice. At forty, I felt like I could use it and at fifty I felt like, “Oh I’m f*cking using it”.
CR: YOU CAN OWN IT.
EB: I’m owning it. This is my seat. When I was pregnant both times, I gained an enormous amount of weight and I was really happy. It was the first time in my life that I took up room in the world. I realized, “Wow this feels great.” It was really a physical version of what I was feeling inside. And now I feel like, not only have I earned it but, as you said, I am going to own it and no one is shutting me up.
FASHION CREDITS
- LORRAINE SCHWARTZ EARRINGS
- HAIDER ACKERMANN BLAZER AND TROUSERS
Barkins'
bon mots
Barkin never shies away from speaking her mind. Here are some of her quotable remarks (bon mots) from her two-hour conversation with Radziwill.
On DATING YOUNGER MEN...
I don’t want to be a mentor in my bedroom. I don’t want to sit at dinner with someone and explain who Martin Amis or Philip Roth are—I just don’t.
On DATING OLDER MEN…
When I was young I was interested in learning and growing and so I was very much drawn to older men who were smarter than me. Sometimes they were quite substantially older than me…like my professor in college.
On AGING IN HOLLYWOOD...
When I was young, I based my [acting] choices around playing fringe, undervalued women. You know, working class single mothers, the woman whose husband didn’t love her because she wasn’t pretty enough. Now, I’m not playing some 60-year-old sad sack because that’s not how I feel and, by the way, that’s not how the girls I know feel.
On HER SEXUALITY…
I think as you get older you become, hopefully, much more familiar with your own sexuality. I was always very comfortable with my sexuality. Even as a young girl when I felt very unattractive, I never felt unattractive in bed. It’s a weird contradiction.
On ADVANCEMENTS IN COSMETIC DERMATOLOGY...
It’s like ignoring antibiotics. There have been advances in the technology of beauty that I think are great. And, you know, what? Use it.
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VIOLET GREY has a file on everything from
the genius of Pat McGrath to
the best eyelash curler in the world.
in polite
society
SHE'S
SO VIOLET
— Tim Boxer / Getty Images
“
”
Tweet ThisShe forged a
CAREER
that didn't stem from the fact that she has the best
boobs in Hollywood.
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