Annette Bening scored her fifth Oscar nomination this year for playing Diana Nyad, and it’s highly likely that she walks out of this awards season still 0/5. Was Nyad an innovative film? No, except to the extent that it’s still novel in the 21st century to have a film centered on the friendship between two women in their 60s. But I agree that Annette’s performance was better than the film itself (same goes for Jodie Foster, who’s up for supporting actress). Though she’s a long shot compared to her fellow leading actress nominees, Annette is definitely campaigning. Harvard’s Hasty Pudding theater troupe just bestowed her with their Woman of the Year award, and she spoke with them about the quality of women’s roles today, and how her kids voted against her joining social media:

Strong, flawed women: “I do think that our understanding of women is growing, given what we’re able to do in film and TV, and then the nuance that is afforded in the way things are written now. There’s a lot of talk about strong women and strong women’s roles, and that’s great. But when you think about it, a strong woman is also a flawed woman and is also a woman with weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And so it’s not a question of just strong women’s role. It’s real women. And that’s what we want.”

Challenging yourself is not just a young woman’s game: Bening said that no age becomes the finish line for a woman’s evolution. “Just like we see in real life around us, just as we see among the women that we know, there isn’t a point at which a woman stops evolving and changing,” she said. … She said that since she started in film 35 years ago, there are “fewer stereotypical pictures,” but that goes for roles for men too. “I think a lot of people want to stay challenged as they grow older, not just in work, but in life and in relationships and in what they might do day-to-day,” Bening explained. “It doesn’t have to be a marathon swim to feel like you want to challenge yourself. You want to do something new, you want to change and grow. And that’s true of many of the women that I know.”

Stay off Insta, Mom! Bening, who has been married to actor Warren Beatty since 1992 and has four children with him, is also mindful about how much of her life she puts out in public. She said she once considered joining social media to boost some of the causes she’s passionate about. But ultimately, her children advised her against it. “I did ask one of my kids, I said, ‘You know, should I start? Should I go on social media?’ And they’re like, ‘No, Mom,’” Bening laughed.

Sounds like she wouldn’t have been on much, anyway: In a digital age when smartphones capture everything, Bening said, she would recommend that young actors and actresses maintain a sense of privacy. Looking back, that’s the advice she’d give herself. “I would say to my younger self, keep something of yourself to yourself, and to the people that you love and the people that you trust,” she said. “And I would certainly say that to people starting out now. There’s so much pressure on young actors and actresses to make themselves public and to talk about events in their lives in their publicity. And obviously, some is OK. There’s not some hard-and-fast rule, but to always find a way to keep the things that matter to you most private.”

[From Yahoo! Entertainment]

So her kids just didn’t want their mom on social media, right? Didn’t want her seeing their accounts? LOL. I’m sticking with this interpretation until and unless Annette expands her answer. As for her advice that aspiring actors protect their privacy, I am wholeheartedly and spiritually with her in theory. In practice, I don’t think Annette is fully appreciating how much a young actor’s online following is factored into the business these days. I mean, even frickin’ Elle Fanning lost out on a role for not having enough Instagram followers, and she’s had a high profile in the industry since she was, what, four?! Again, I’m not advocating for this way of casting. I’m just saying that it’s a bigger reality than perhaps Annette was leaving room for. So yes, the roles being written may be getting richer, more honest, more complicated. But the question hovering over that is — on what criteria are actors being considered to play them?

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: IMAGO/London Entertainment/Splash/Avalon, Getty and Netflix press