Actors on 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.
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[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.”
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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
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