Ellen Burstyn was just as flabbergasted as everyone else when she heard she’d been nominated for an Emmy this year for her blink-and-you-miss-it role in the TV movie “Mrs. Harris.”
In an interview with AP Radio, the 73-year-old Academy Award winner spoke publicly for the first time about her Emmy nod: “When they told me I was nominated for that I went, ‘What, are you kidding?”’
Burstyn’s cameo in “Mrs. Harris” lasted 14 seconds, with her speaking a total of 38 words.
“I thought it was fabulous,” she said. “My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don’t even appear.”
Her nomination drew the ire of those who felt she hadn’t logged enough screen time to deserve it. Last August, Burstyn wound up losing the Emmy to her “Mrs Harris” co-star, Cloris Leachman.
“The brouhaha around it, you know, they tried to reach me for a statement,” she recalled. “I said, ‘This doesn’t have anything to do with me. I don’t even want to know about this. You people work it out yourself.”’
Burstyn, who has starred in such as movies “The Exorcist” and “The Last Picture Show,” won a best actress Oscar for her role in 1974’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”