Warren Beatty more comfortable behind the camera," she says. "He's in the total-control aspect. He has to have control over everything. Beatty doesn't deny that need; in speaking about his earliest parts, he said "When I acted in films I used to come with suggestions about the script, the lighting, the wardrobe, and people used to say 'Waddya want, to produce the picture as well?' And I used to say that I supposed I did." Beatty was a star football player at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington. Encouraged to act by the success of his sister, who had recently established herself as
Warren Beatty Best Motion Picture and Best Actor. Beatty's next film was "Reds" (1981), a historical epic about American Communist journalist John Reed who observed the Russian October Revolution – a project Beatty had begun researching and filming for as far back as 1970. It was a critical and commercial success, despite being an American film about an American Communist made and released at the height of the Cold War. It received 12 Academy Award nominations – including four for Beatty (for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay), winning three; Beatty won for Best Director, Maureen Stapleton won for Best Supporting