Art & Creativity Quote by Ellen Burstyn

There is a sly little confession hiding inside Ellen Burstyn's compliment: the real story isn't Vanessa Redgrave, it's Burstyn's former self. By admitting her "taste wasn't very good", she punctures the myth that great actors emerge fully formed with impeccable instincts. Taste, here, is treated like a muscle you build, not a trait you're born with. For an actress who came up through a Hollywood system that often rewarded obedience and surface polish, the line reads as a quiet declaration of independence: she learned to want something harder.

The phrase "began to appreciate the art of acting" is doing heavy lifting. It's a pivot from acting as job or survival to acting as craft, maybe even as moral inquiry. Redgrave is a loaded choice because she's not just technically formidable; she's also unignorable. Her work carries an old-school theatrical rigor and a political spine that can make audiences uncomfortable. Admiring her signals a shift toward performances that refuse to flatter viewers, that treat emotion as something earned rather than displayed.

There's also a subtle class of humility in the way Burstyn frames it. She doesn't claim she became the best; she claims she became better at valuing the best. In an industry that sells certainty, this is a rare kind of authority: the authority of someone who changed her mind, and is brave enough to narrate the upgrade.