Artistic confidence – Being shy and an actor

Shy since childhood

Clea DuVall has referred to herself as “an only child and I’m just a real loner kind of person, and yeah, kinda dark. But I’m happy. Not sad. I’m just shy and nervous.” [imdb.com]

Like many other talented actors, she considers herself shy. Maybe acting – playing other people – is a way to use that trait, or deal with it.

Mischa Barton said she was always called “the shy one” and “got so much more confident as I realized acting was what I really wanted to do.”

Kim Basinger has said, “As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class.”

Nicole Kidman has said, “I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don’t like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don’t like going to a party by myself.”

Taye Diggs says he has been acting for as long as he has been shy, and has an interesting perspective on using acting: “I wouldn’t say my insecurities and shyness have lessened just because of expressing myself through acting, but what has a role in my becoming more confident is the kind of false sense of adoration you get from the business… because I was so insecure, it gives me a reason to be a little more confident.” [From my interview with him years ago.]

Giftedness and introversion

Shyness may be related to low confidence, or to introversion, a common personality trait of many gifted and talented people. While acting may be a way to gain confidence, some people find it helpful to get counseling, or explore if they have social phobia or some other kind of anxiety that may keep them from being authentic and freely expressive on stage or on camera.

> Related post on my Highly Sensitive site: Shyness and sensitivity – working it out on stage or off

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