Marian Seldes: Life is Ours

Marian Seldes, in costume as Bertha in Jean Giradoux's Ondine, photographed by Carl Van Vechten/1954

Interview with Marian Seldes

Conducted by James Grissom

New York City

2001

I think that each time we feel a pang of remorse or a recognition of someone else's pain or injustice, that feeling--and I can't describe it for others, but for me it's almost a weakening, a flutter of the heart--we are being led to do something to heal the fracture that has been made by this act, sad or cruel or heroic. We do not live unless we respond to life, and if we see or hear of something glorious, we must then re-create it for someone else; if there is pain or horror, we must heal that breach and do something to alter the balance. Life is ours--it is not something that is happening somewhere else, controlled by someone else. It is ours. Right now.

© 2014  James Grissom