AP Photo / Tammie ArroyoBrilliant Kids Are Alright star Annette Bening recently put off reporters at the Deauville Film Festival, where journalists were told any questions to do with her family were verboten.
It's not the first time Bening abruptly shied away from potential media attention on her family. As we first reported three years ago, Bening pulled out from a play at the Geffen Playhouse due to what we were told was an "urgent family situation."
Bening's rep adamantly denied this.
Now, her husband, Warren Beatty, was nowhere to be seen during his wife's most recent Kids media tour, and rumors of strife at home have been dismissed as "ridiculous" by Bening's rep. Still, the Beattys have seldom been seen out and about, as of late, and something appears to be brewing:
"Their family is having a bit of a crisis right now," a source who has a very close working relationship with the Oscar-nominated Bening told us. "It's private, and they want to keep it that way."
As do we, if it's anything to do with the Beatty's children.
However, two things are at issue: (1) Bening has just delivered one of the finest performances of her career, playing a lesbian mom in Kids, and chances are quite high she'll be nominated for her fourth Academy Award, come Januray.
The resulting media questions about how she drew from her own unusual home life (she landed—and had four kids with—the world's most notorious womanizer), are bound to arise, over and over again.
That's a lotta award-show chit-chat to navigate with no-personal-questions edicts issued everywhere you turn.
Also, (2) the question of Annette's personal views on gay family members—and does she have any experience with that?—is not only legitimate for such a ground-breaking role, it's to be expected.
A., you're the best, you've always been a can-do member of the community, always highlighting your accessible Oklahoma roots, never hiding them.
Perhaps that charming and winning accessibility will prevail, after all.
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