How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from All About Eve.
Quote #4
ADDISON: Every now and then, some elder statesman of the Theater or cinema assures the public that actors and actresses are just plain folks. Ignoring the fact that their greatest attraction to the public is their complete lack of resemblance to normal human beings.
Addison has a good point here. We're obsessed with celebrities' personal lives but still want to see them as different from us. Therefore, People magazine. Every day, millions of people have babies, buy clothes, or make lasagna. When Fergie or Ben Affleck do it, though, it's newsworthy and more exciting.
Quote #5
EVE: Why, if there's nothing else, there's applause. It's like…like waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up. Imagine...to know, every night, that different hundreds of people love you... they smile, their eyes shine…you've pleased them, they want you, you belong. Just that alone is worth anything...
Over fifty years before Lady Gaga, Eve Harrington does what she does for the applause. Eve only feels important when she has the praise of an audience being piled upon her. This is a clue that she's a little unbalanced; she has zero sense of self except in the audience's image of her. The audience's applause is the only love she gets in her life.
Quote #6
EVE: The end of an old road, and the beginning of a new one...
ADDISON: All paved with diamonds and gold?
EVE: You know me better than that.
ADDISON: Paved with what, then?
EVE: Stars.
Eve's not in it for the money. Fame is what she craves, no matter what she has to do to get it. Do you think that's true for most actors today—that they'd rather have recognition for their art than the big bucks? Bruce Willis made $10 million for Look Who's Talking II but was willing to work for about $20,000/week to be in Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece Pulp Fiction.