Actors on building identity

Judi Dench claims not to be “good at my own company.” Rather, to understand her own identity she needs to be in the attentive gaze of others – as the psychologist D. W. Winnicott puts it, “When I look I am seen, so I exist.”

Dench is clear on this point. “I need somebody to reflect me back, or to give me their reflection,” she says.

From the book Honky Tonk Parade: New Yorker Profiles of Show People – by John Lahr.

~ ~ ~

[You don't like being the first Asian-American this or that?]

B.D. Wong: “I have a fear of labels. If someone labels me, I have to respond — do I acknowledge it, reject it, deny it, live up to it, and defy it? Labels can affect your ability to be yourself.

“If you’re not careful, like I wasn’t when I was young, that can take a toll on you. You find yourself conforming to everyone else’s ideas of who you are.”

~ ~ ~

Sheetal Sheth on discrimination: “Whenever I hear people talking about actors of South Asian descent like me ‘crossing over into the mainstream,’ I wonder, Crossing over from where? From Jersey? I’m an American girl! [Her hometown is in New Jersey.]

“And it hurts to hear that I’m ‘too ethnic’ when I audition for parts. I picked just about the only profession where it’s OK to be discriminated against because of your race – but this kind of rejection only makes me more determined to succeed.”

Quotes from the page: Identity
~~

Judy Dench, B. D. Wong, Sheetal Sheth, building identity