“I’m not blonde with tanned skin and tall and skinny. I looked very different – and they said I looked like I was from another time.” (imdb.com)

A recent newspaper article notes she has since gained acclaim for her work and has at least three films putting her in Oscar contention: “Take Shelter,” “The Help” and “The Tree of Life.”

The article continues:

But before she was everywhere, she says, she was nowhere. “I would be attached to these beautiful projects, with Al Pacino or Terrence Malick and Brad Pitt, or Helen Mirren and for some reason … the companies would just keep getting sold,” she recalls. “It was like, ‘Gosh, I am the most unlucky person.’”

In what appears to be a Chastain characteristic, however, the glass was always half-full. “I took advantage of the delays and kept working. The great thing is it created a blank slate,” she says. “A director could see me without having knowledge of a performance that might have typecast me, so I took advantage of that a lot. This year … is the flip side of that.” //

Chastain started her arc toward the other side by earning a scholarship at Juilliard, and banging around in such TV shows as “Law & Order: Trial by Jury” and “Veronica Mars” for a few years until all of that hard feature work just took off. And now she’s having to deal with some of the biggest challenges of her career, including figuring out how to swing into the mainstream of success, keeping her open heart and earnest eagerness intact.

Already she laments feeling treated differently once she’s revealed as a movie actress. At a recent dinner party, a lively conversation quieted once she told the strangers she was talking to what she did for a living. “Immediately, I could see their eyes change,” she says. “The conversation stopped being this free, equal thing. They separated from me. But I don’t want that to happen — how can I play normal people if I’m separate?”

Working next to Pitt showed her what being separate is like: “There were paparazzi trying to get pictures of him, and when the film came out, do you know how many people were asking me what he was like as a parent? That’s none of my business!” she says. “I remember thinking that for your whole life, there’s going to be someone who wants something.”

Her openness and sincerity, qualities that she telegraphs so clearly in her performances, are precious commodities and, at this stage, Chastain keeps them on her sleeve. It’s almost hard to imagine that one day she’ll have to draw them in a little deeper and keep the things that allow her to play an idealized mother, or the embodiment of grace, out of sight for her own protection. She already says she’ll stop doing interviews when the questions become about her, rather than the work.

“I love talking about the films, I love cinema. But me … that’s so uninteresting,” she says.

Many would disagree, even if the sentiment makes sense. For now, Chastain’s hat trick of performances threatens to undermine the career she’s worked so hard to build up.

No matter how award season wraps up, she’s going to have to fight hard to prevent her “it” status from flipping into celebrity of blockbuster proportions. Expect more indie films with strong characters, or perhaps a return to the theater. Whatever she does, however, she’ll do it with grace.

“Right after ‘Tree of Life’ came out, I started hearing about strategies for my career,” she says. “And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to do anything based on a strategy. If I don’t continue to challenge myself and risk failure, I have no business being an actor.

“I’m not an actor to be a personality. I want to see every part I take like a master class. And you know what? I’m going to fail sometimes. And that’s OK. Because when you fail, you learn more.”

From Jessica Chastain wants to be an actress, not a celebrity, By Randee Dawn, Special to the Los Angeles Times December 15, 2011.

The challenges of fame

Ayn Rand wrote a commentary in the Los Angeles Times, two weeks after Marilyn Monroe’s death on August 5, 1962.

Referring to the “sordid and horrifying childhood” of Monroe, Rand wrote:

“To survive it and to preserve the kind of spirit she projected on the screen – the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked – was an almost inconceivable psychological achievement that required a heroism of the highest order.

Continued in post: Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame.

Also see more related articles below.

Top photo: Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer in The Help. Bottom photo: in The Debt.

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Marilyn Monroe

Ayn Rand wrote a commentary in the Los Angeles Times, two weeks after Marilyn Monroe’s death on August 5, 1962.

Referring to the “sordid and horrifying childhood of Monroe, Rand wrote:

“To survive it and to preserve the kind of spirit she projected on the screen–the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked–was an almost inconceivable psychological achievement that required a heroism of the highest order.

“Whatever scars her past had left were insignificant by comparison.

“She preserved her vision of life through a nightmare struggle, fighting her way to the top. What broke her was the discovery, at the top, of as sordid an evil as the one she had left behind – worse, perhaps, because incomprehensible.

“She had expected to reach the sunlight; she found, instead, a limitless swamp of malice.

“It was a malice of a very special kind. If you want to see her groping struggle to understand it, read the magnificent article in the August 17, 1962, issue of Life magazine.

“It is not actually an article, it is a verbatim transcript of her own words–and the most tragically revealing document published in many years. It is a cry for help, which came too late to be answered.”

“When you’re famous, you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way,” Monroe said. “It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who is she – who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe?

“They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, you know, of any kind of nature – and it won’t hurt your feelings – like it’s happening to your clothing. . . . I don’t understand why people aren’t a little more generous with each other. I don’t like to say this, but I’m afraid there is a lot of envy in this business.”

[From Ayn Rand On Marilyn Monroe (August 1962), Posted by ehehr1955.]

Many creative people, including actors, actively pursue fame, or at least endure it, as a way to advance their careers. But fame may also be driven by hidden psychological needs, and can lead to harmful expectations, distorted thinking and deep emotional challenges.

With all the attention about her movie “Brokeback Mountain,” costar Michelle Williams said at the time she and her then fiance Heath Ledger considered moving to Amsterdam or Greece or somewhere “with no paparazzi or gossip magazines, where we don’t have to feel so self-conscious, because that is the death of a spontaneous, creative, real life. I can’t live my life that way and pretend I’m not bothered by it and that everything’s fine. It deeply disturbs me.” [Interview mag., March 2006]

See comments by Williams about portraying the iconic star in the post:
Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe.

Scarlett Johansson on being groped

The 2006 Golden Globe Awards provided another example of how fame can distort attitudes toward stars. Scarlett Johansson was interviewed by designer Isaac Mizrahi, who actually groped her, claiming he wanted to see how her dress was made.

She graciously said later, “Someone I have never met before fondles me for his own satisfaction. Like he doesn’t know how a dress works. He’s a guy that’s starting his TV career and he’s making a bit of an exciting moment for himself. I can’t be angry at him.”

But his outrageous behavior was an example of how celebrities are often treated.

When you are famous enough, it seems, you are no longer simply a human being to some journalists, for example, who seem to use fame as an excuse to set aside ordinary considerations of respect and propriety.

And people who “need” fame may tolerate a lot of disrespect to get more attention.

Virginia Madsen on sexism

Virginia Madsen (“Sideways”) noted that Lindsay Lohan has been asked questions the media would never ask of boys: “In every interview I read, somebody was asking her about her weight and, ‘Do you throw up in the bathroom?’ I mean, no one asks teenage boys, ‘Do you have pubic hair yet?’ Whereas they’ll ask a teenage girl, ‘Are you still a virgin?’”

> More in my article: The Dark Side of Fame.

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Claudia Puig writes in USA TODAY that “While My Week With Marilyn is more an awestruck reverie than a revelatory biopic, it’s worth seeing for Williams’ bravura performance.”

Roger Ebert thinks “The movie seems to be a fairly accurate re-creation of the making of a film at Pinewood Studios at that time. It hardly matters. What happens during the famous week hardly matters. What matters is the performance by Michelle Williams.

“She evokes so many Marilyns, public and private, real and make-believe. We didn’t know Monroe, but we believe she must have been something like his. We’re probably looking at one of this year’s Oscar nominees.”

A number of those reviewers refer to her exceptional performance as “channeling Marilyn Monroe.”

But I think that idea discounts Williams’ intense emotional and intellectual work in realizing such a complex and powerful performance; Williams is not a passive “channel” – she is a very actively engaged artist.

In the article “Michelle Williams channels Marilyn Monroe” (By Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times November 20, 2011), Williams refers to some of her emotional challenges and vulnerability in portraying Monroe.

“Maybe it was Marilyn, but I felt more fragile than I usually do on this movie. I felt more dependent on other people’s kindnesses. I would live off a compliment that the camera man gave me for two weeks. It would feed me. It would get me out of bed.”

Here is more from the article:

After [Heath Ledger's] death, Williams struggled to find her footing in Hollywood. She took a year off, she said, “unsure of how I would go back, or if I wanted to go back” to acting. After she began to emerge from the fog of grief, she recommitted herself to the craft and decided to take a more gut-driven approach to her career.

“I read this Flaubert quote once that I really love: ‘I want to live the quiet life of the bourgeois so that I can be violent and unrestrained in my work,” she said, reciting the words from memory. “And I like that. Live the simple life and save all your extra forces for your work.”

When she read the script for “My Week With Marilyn,” adapted for the screen by Adrian Hodges, Williams instantly felt compelled to do the movie. Growing up, her room had been filled with images of Monroe: a cardboard cutout and a poster of her running through a field, arms outstretched, joyous.

“I remember thinking that if even a woman that beautiful clearly has trouble and is damaged and has insecurities, then we’re all entitled,” said Williams, who was born 18 years after Monroe died. …

“With any sort of part that I take, there’s a hint of an idea of how I’m gonna do it. I don’t really know the full scope of it, but there’s something inside of me gravitating towards it.”

To figure out who Monroe — “this stranger” — was in the months leading to filming, Williams spent hours practicing Monroe’s vocal cadences in her house while Matilda was at school. She’d teeter around in high heels, tying a belt around her knees to experiment with how to achieve Monroe’s famous wiggle.

“The biggest discovery I made was that Marilyn Monroe was a character she played,” said Williams, explaining she reached that conclusion through reading Monroe’s own writing as well as accounts by photographer Eve Arnold.

[One book Williams may have read: My Story, by Marilyn Monroe.]

“So I lived with her, and I never stopped trying to find more information. Even on set, on the 10-minute breaks, I would be back poring through photos or with my earphones in watching a movie. I was obsessed. I was on the trail of something. There were clues, and I had to solve a mystery.”

Harvey Weinstein, whose company is releasing the film, said he was impressed at the level of Williams’ preparation, how she could quote passages from Maurice Zolotow’s biography on Monroe.

“Michelle researches a role like no one I’ve ever encountered,” Weinstein wrote in an email. “She watched and studied the movies and photos; she read every book, every biography.… She could describe how Marilyn wiggled and winked while quoting some of her best lines, [like] when she teased that she was nude by saying, ‘I have nothing on but the radio.’” …

Don Murray, who costarred with Monroe in “Bus Stop” — which she shot immediately before “The Prince and the Showgirl” — said he didn’t find one false note in Williams’ interpretation of the legendary actress.

“Those who have worked with Marilyn say ‘Bus Stop’ was her best-behaved film, but she was still two or three hours late and also had trouble remembering her lines. The littlest thing would disturb her and send her concentration flying,” recounted Murray, 82. “I was astonished at how Michelle captured that. She got that total confusion — almost falling apart emotionally. Marilyn suffered every little thing.”

Williams — in production on Sam Raimi’s “Wizard of Oz” prequel — said “My Week With Marilyn” helped her to finally grow up. It was both the biggest challenge she’s ever taken on and the most fulfilling, she added, because it helped her to accept herself.

“I think I became an adult making this movie. I’ve always been scared of myself somehow. Or apologetic or something,” she said quietly. “I just felt for a long time that I was grappling with something I couldn’t quite master or understand.

“But I’ve been a parent for six years now. I have an amazing daughter, and at some point in the last year, it dawned on me that has to have something to do with me. And I need to give myself a break.”

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One of the many elements of My Week With Marilyn that I appreciated was the depiction of the emotional challenges Monroe suffered from the onslaught of fame and media attention.

See comments by both Marilyn Monroe and Michelle Williams, and other stars, in my post :
Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame

Many very talented actors like Williams – as well as other artists – feel unusually ‘fragile’ or ‘emotional’ – at least sometimes. It may go along with being a highly sensitive person (HSP), which about 20% of us are.

See my post Using your high sensitivity personality.

Also see my related site Highly Sensitive.

Some other comments of Williams refer to self-esteem and insecurity. Many creative people report feeling incompetent, inadequate and having low self esteem or self-regard at times. But there are ways to shift those feelings.

One of my posts on the topic: Actors and self esteem.

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In a Los Angeles Times article, Bialik comments, “The first episode I did for them, the executive producer said, ‘Do you really have a PhD?’ I hadn’t told him, because, well, where do you list that on your theatrical resume exactly?. So he tweaked the character’s profession.

“But having an understanding of both mental illness and neurosis has been tremendously helpful to me in my acting career.”

{There are many posts on my various TalentDevelop sites about acting and psychology, mental health, the psychology of creativity etc – see the list of posts on The Inner Actor by clicking on ‘Archives’ in the menu at the top – and see Mental Health posts on the main site.}

The article also notes, “James Franco…has been perhaps the most active actor-scholar of late: He is enrolled in Yale University’s English PhD program and North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College for poetry. In May, he earned a master’s degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and Columbia University’s MFA writing program, after already graduating from Brooklyn College for fiction writing last year.

From article Picking their next role: Joe College or hot young star?, by Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2011 – which also mentions Emma Watson, Blake Lively, Brad Pitt, Jodie Foster, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Shia LaBeouf and others.

{Photos of Mayim Bialik from her official website.}

Speaking of his role in the television series ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ Franco said it echoed his own high school experience.

“I was a little freak, a little geek. High school was a big party the first couple of years, but that gets old, so I broke away and just was a loner.

“I did a lot of painting, and I was a member of a local art league.”

From post James Franco on being a loner.

Creative polymathy

In his post “That’s DR. Winnie to you: A New Child Star Stereotype”, creativity researcher James C. Kaufman, Ph.D. writes about a number of people well-known as child stars, now grown, who have explored talents outside of acting.

He writes: “One of the research topics in creativity that has always fascinated me has been creative polymathy – the ability to be creative in more than one domain.”

One example he cites: “Danica McKellar (‘Winnie’ on The Wonder Years) earned her Ph.D. from UCLA in mathematics, currently writes books promoting math.”

From my post Developing multiple talents – the pleasures of creative polymathy.

Is Amy Farrah Fowler a positive image of high ability?

In her article How Pop Culture Stereotypes Impact the Self-Concept of Highly Gifted People, Sarah Williams declares, “Pop culture perpetuates two stereotypes of highly gifted people: the wisecracking whiz kid or the tortured genius. There is no grey area.

“On the more light-hearted side, we have characters like Doogie Howser…a 16-year old resident surgeon and bona fide genius…On the other side you have the troubled John Nash of A Beautiful Mind or Will Hunting of Good Will Hunting.”

Personally, I don’t think it is that simple: that there are only two stereotypes.

Amy Farrah Fowler and other characters on “The Big Bang Theory” are certainly extreme for the sake of comedy – but they are a lot of fun (despite the often extremely annoying laugh track).

John Nash as portrayed in the movie, and the character Will Hunting are also extreme and uncommon.

But all of them can point to some of the ‘uncommon’ personality qualities and giftedness traits that help distinguish high ability people – but which can also make it hard for many of us ‘outsider’ people to be relatable or even understood by those who are not so exceptional.

For more, see

High Ability site
High Ability / Facebook

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Hudgens chose to act in “Sucker Punch” – and wear risqué costumes for the role – because she found the movie’s underlying message empowering.

She said the outfits represent a kind of female empowerment fantasy: “If you imagine yourself going into these action situations, she’s not gonna show up in sweatpants.

“You want to be the best that you can be and be the most ferocious. I mean, the costumes gave us a sense of confidence and power.

“The way that I carried myself was different.” [Los Angeles Times 3.23.11]

~ ~ ~

Hudgens sometimes visits Venice Beach: “I love going to the drum circle down there. Every now and then someone will let me join in and bang on their drums, and I just love people who are completely free. Even if they’re drug addicts, who sometimes freak me out.

“I’m figuring out how to be a better person while observing other people.”

She is striving to be more aware and “present-oriented” – and strong – and has been studying the book The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz.

“It has honestly changed me, almost. You really have to stay strong, because times get tough. Especially in this business. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. There’s so many amazing actresses who got taken advantage of.

“Someone like Natalie Wood, one of my idols — who knows what happened to her? She was on a boat that was mysteriously in the water, and now she’s dead.

“A lot of women get walked all over on by not standing up for themselves, and that’s just not what I’m about. I’m figuring myself out now as a young adult more than I ever have. It’s like my eyes are opening and I’m awakening to controlling my future.”

[From The Actor's Craft: Vanessa Hudgens has left 'High School' behind, by Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2011.]

According to an Amazon summary, The Four Agreements “reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering.”

The Lefkoe Method also provides an approach to dealing with limiting beliefs, and is acclaimed by many people, including personal growth and success author Jack Canfield.

You can try it for free at ReCreate Your Life.

Also see articles by Morty Lefkoe, including ones about dealing with stage fright.

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Video: Shy actors: Vanessa Hudgens, Sigourney Weaver, Taye Diggs

Hudgens says “When I was young, I would not talk to anybody if I didn’t know them. I’d hide behind my mom if she tried to introduce me to anyone.” In middle school, she got into fashion, “which tends to make you a little more popular,” she notes, and acting. She said, “When I was on the stage, I felt like I was hiding behind a person, and I adored it.”

Visit my TalentDevelop Channel on YouTube for other videos on personal development topics for actors and other creative people.

With her new movie The Adjustment Bureau so much about fate, it is interesting to read some of her perspectives on what she was like earlier in her life, and what led her into acting.

“My head was occupied all the time. I was confused about what I wanted to do or who I was; I didn’t really feel I had an identity growing up.” [imdb.com]

That is something I can really relate to – and many other talented actors have expressed similar ideas.

This topic of self concept for artists is very interesting – and I have posted many quotes related to it on my various sites, such as this: Jennifer Jason Leigh has claimed, “As a person, I don’t really register that much. Director Robert Altman says that as a person I disappear in a way.”

[From my article Identity and Creating.]

Emily Blunt also talks about expression on camera:

“I learned very early on to reel everything in. Sometimes you just shouldn’t do anything because the camera sees everything – like the smallest flick of your eye and it catches it and it reads as something.

“The performances I enjoy are the ones that are hard to read or ambiguous or left-of-centre because it makes you look closer and that’s what humans are like – quite mysterious creatures, hard to pinpoint.”

She also noted, “I have sly eyes. When I was in school they always said, ‘Emily can never be elected Head Girl because you never know what she’s thinking.”  [imdb.com]

Fate in our lives

In an interview about The Adjustment Bureau, Blunt (and co-star Matt Damon) were asked about any experiences of fate in their own lives.

Blunt commented: “Do you mean like has anything happened to us that seemed very fatalistic? I have one story, which is pretty cool that I remember. I didn’t get into this very amazing school that my sister went to. And I wanted to be just like my sister.

“It’s this school called Westminster in London, which is fiercely competitive. And she gets in because she’s a brainiac. And I don’t because I’m obviously not.

“And so I basically remember at sixteen just being devastated and my life was over. And this is so sad. And I felt so inferior that I hadn’t gotten in. so I went to my second choice school, which had a good drama department. Previously hadn’t considered acting.

“But I did a play through my school that went to the Edinburgh festival. I got an agent. He’s still my agent…And if I’d gone to Westminster I wouldn’t be doing this job. Guaranteed. So I think, like, that was weird. And at the time it seems devastating and so sad but really it was, obviously, meant to happen.”

[From Interview: Talking 'The Adjustment Bureau' With Matt Damon & Emily Blunt, By El Mayimbe, LatinoReview March 04, 2011.]

~~~

Acting lessons helped her overcome stammering.

“I couldn’t even talk,” Blunt said. “It was over the course of four years and it gradually just went away.

“My parents found it really hard because I was a smart kid and I had a lot to say, I just couldn’t say it.

“I still suffer with it sometimes, when I’m tired or stressed..”

[From my post Stammering as an opportunity - which mentions other actors who suffered from stuttering, including James Earl Jones; Bruce Willis; Jimmy Stewart; Harvey Keitel; Julia Roberts; Marilyn Monroe and Nicole Kidman.

In another interview article, Blunt admits, "It would just haunt me. I never thought I'd be able to sit and talk to someone like I'm talking to you right now."

The article says, "Then a teacher suggested acting lessons, and by age 18, Blunt was starring opposite Judi Dench in Peter Hall's London production of The Royal Family. (When she pretended to be someone else, Blunt says, "something lifted in me.")

"Today, at 24, she's one of those poised, silver-tongued Englishwomen who seems at ease in almost any situation, whether it's playing the catty assistant of Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada or lobbying for a chance to star as the young Queen Victoria in a new film produced by Martin Scorsese."

[Putting It Bluntly, by Miranda Priestly, W magazine.]

Photo at top from The Adjustment Bureau; bottom: The Wolfman.

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Also see multiple articles on Self concept / self esteem.

I have to be convinced to do things that are more mainstream.

As a kid, I was always a bit, I suppose, darker. I was drawn to things that were unusual.

And that’s partly to do with my parents. My mom’s always questioned things, wanted us not to conform.

So, with roles, I like to be in a place of discomfort. I do my best work in the most complicated roles. I don’t have the capacity to be lighter, and I so wish I did. I’m working on it. …

JA: Did you always want to act?

Nicole Kidman: I think I did… For me, it was never going to be work. It was almost like I needed to have a day job, because this was too much fun.

But I was a highly sensitive child, and the last thing my parents wanted was for their child to go in and get hurt.

JA: What do you think is the hardest thing about being an actor?

Nicole Kidman: Fame. It’s a great thing in the sense of the opportunities it gives you, but you don’t realize that you’re dancing with the 100-pound gorilla.

JA: Yeah, it turns from Glinda the Good Witch into the nasty green one, then back to Glinda again.

Nicole Kidman: Most actors are highly sensitive people, but you have this incredible scrutiny. You have to develop a thick skin, but you can’t have a thick skin in your work.

So it’s that constant push-pull of going, How do I stay human and vulnerable and real, and how do I, at the same time, not let all this affect me? I suppose it’s the same when you’re at school and you get a taste of girls who are being mean.

It’s the same thing, just at a bigger level.

But at the same time, we’re in an extraordinary place, and to complain about it you go, Ugh, move on.

~ ~

From “Nicole Kidman: The Interview” By Jennifer Aniston, Harper’s Bazaar January 5, 2011 – they costar in the new comedy Just Go With It.

[Photo of Nicole Kidman from Rabbit Hole.]

See other posts about fame and sensitivity, including:

Actor’s privacy – The Dark Side of Fame

Using your high sensitivity personality

Videos:

Using Your High Sensitivity Personality As an Actor

Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp and other sensitive men

Stephen Mooallem: When you were younger did you ever get into one of those situations where you were doing back-to-back-to-back films?

Winona Ryder: I did that when I was in my late teens and then I totally had a meltdown because I was so exhausted. I mean, I wasn’t in one movie that was an overnight sensation—you know, like Pretty Woman [1990] was for Julia Roberts. So I was lucky in the sense that my success was gradual.

But then there was a point when there was so much attention, and you get surrounded with people who sort of make you feel like you have to do everything or else it’s all going to go away.

It’s really sweet when younger actresses come up to me. It’s so touching because I know how they feel. I know what they’re going through. It’s really tough to suddenly be very famous.

I think you get this feeling like you have to kind of be what everyone thinks you are, and if you slow down, then it’s all going to go away.

If anyone ever asks me for advice, that’s sort of what I tell them: that they shouldn’t feel like they have to live up to all of this, and that it’s important to try to have a life outside of it—even just for your work.

[Related article: The Dark Side of Fame.]

It’s like, sometimes I’ll watch a movie, and it’s got some big star in it playing a working-class person, and the character is in a grocery store, and you can kind of tell, from just watching the scene, that this actor doesn’t do their own shopping. So you have to have some sense of reality. That’s why, at the height of everything, I used to go to the Laundromat to do my laundry—just because I had to sort of maintain.

I think when all that was happening, I did sort of get trapped into working too much. And then I sort of had . . . It wasn’t like a breakdown, but I was just exhausted, and I had to just stop and take care of myself.

And then I kind of segued into only wanting to do one movie a year, and I was so lucky that I was able to do that. Even though I never really had to pound the pavement as an actor, I always worked really hard. But, at the same time, I always felt like people thought that I didn’t have to struggle even though I was struggling.

I approached work very seriously. I never went out. I couldn’t fathom people who could go out to clubs . . . I mean, if I had a 6 a.m. call, I had to be prepared. I had to be in bed at a certain hour. But I definitely went through a time where I was just terrified and exhausted and I didn’t really understand.

The world just seemed, or Hollywood . . . It just got to be too much for me.

My problems seemed so glamorous to other people, and everyone just thought I was so lucky. But then, I was lucky because my family was really there for me—San Francisco was a real refuge. I think I just felt like I really wanted to hold on to who I was as a person, and try to—for lack of a more interesting way to say it—have as much of a normal life as I could.

But it was hard. Nowadays, it seems like these girls . . . I know how they’re feeling. They think it’s going to be like this forever so they’re not being more -careful. But I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century now. I remember when so many people were the number-one person at the box office.

And I’ve also seen so many people crash and burn, or be on top and then just make some bad choices. …

[A related post: Sober young actors – Staying healthy in a business with unhealthy pressures.]

MOOALLEM: Do you still write?

RYDER: Yeah. I write pretty much every day, but I don’t have any desire to publish anything. I mean, years ago, I wrote this short story, and it got -published in some really tiny zine. I did it under another name. But it was the greatest feeling because people talked about it and they didn’t know it was me.

I can’t even describe the feeling. It was like – people liked it, but none of my baggage got in the way . . . But I do still write. There’s something about it that I just keep coming back to.

From interview by Stephen Mooallem, INTERVIEW mag. 10/24/09

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Also see more quotes in the Highly Sensitive site post: Sensitivity and stress – Winona Ryder: “Maybe I’m too sensitive for this world.”

The Anxiety Relief Solutions site has Multiple drug-free self-help articles, products and programs to relieve stage fright and other forms of stress and anxiety.

Writing provides an additional, often complementary, form of creative expression for a number of actors. See my site The Inner Writer

Stephen Dorff talked in a recent interview about working in Sofia Coppola’s movie “Somewhere” with much less of all of those.

Moviefone Blog: There’s hardly any dialogue in this script. Isn’t it tough to sell a script like this to an actor? Don’t actors like a lot of dialogue?

Stephen Dorff: It’s not tough for me! I looked at it and I said, ‘I’d be crazy not to accept this.’

I felt I understood all this stuff. I thought Sofia really got the acting thing down, as far as the loneliness and the emptiness that can happen.

As an actor you get so much attention. People need you, need you, need you, and the junkets, and then it just ends.

And you’re kind of sitting in your house or in your hotel room wondering what the hell do I do now?

I had a lot of questions. I wanted to understand.

Sofia doesn’t really need to necessarily write everything out, because she knows the film she wants to make.

I just loved that it was a character piece. There was time to get to know someone. The trend today is everything but that. It’s always moving so fast you don’t get to know anybody.

Moviefone Blog: Or it’s all explained, or over-explained.

Stephen Dorff: Or exposition. I did ‘Public Enemies.’ I was really happy to be cast in that, working with Johnny Depp. We worked six months on that, and then in the final cut, I liked the movie, but you don’t get to know any of these people.

It’s such a blur. You don’t even get to know Johnny’s character. This was so refreshing. It was like a 1970s movie. …

Being directed by Sofia is incredible. As an actor there’s a lot of cheats you can do. It was the most raw I’ve ever been. It was just me.

Sofia Coppola: You couldn’t hide behind anything.

Stephen Dorff: I find mimicking and accents and makeup the easiest kind of acting to do. Some people would be like, ‘how did he do that?’ That’s easy. You can turn me into a woman, give me some heels, I can do that. I can find the voice, etc.

But just sit me on the sofa? If I’m acting at all in those scenes, it unravels the movie that she wants to make. So it was trying to find this unconscious quality.

I think the intimacy that she brought by picking this small, special crew, by letting me live at the Chateau, by making it so easy for me… all these cool rehearsal exercises without over-rehearsing.

We weren’t blocking scenes. We were rehearsing more an energy and a feeling of comfort between me and Elle [Fanning] or me and these different characters.

From Interview: Sofia Coppola and Stephen Dorff on Visiting ‘Somewhere’, By Jeffrey M. Anderson, The Moviefone Blog.

> Also see post: Sofia Coppola on being a “dilettante” and enhancing creativity

Many creative people report feeling incompetent, inadequate and having low self esteem or self-regard at times. But there are ways to shift those feelings.

A number of film actors report they don’t even watch their own movies.

When you can be seen in close-ups on twenty foot high theater screens, it may be especially hard not to criticize your appearance and performance.

That sort of criticism may be based on perfectionism, but also can be related to poor self-concept or fraud feelings.

Kate Winslet has admitted that before going off to a movie shoot, she sometimes thinks, “I’m a fraud, and they’re going to fire me… I’m fat; I’m ugly; I look like a whore! [laughs] [Interview mag., Nov, 2000]

[From my article Being Creative and Self-critical.]

Reese Witherspoon says, “I have absolute amnesia about every movie I have ever made. I won’t watch them because if I did I would spiral into a state of self-hate…” [wenn.com 21 Dec 2010]

Bill Nighy has commented, “You come to realise there is this huge disparity between what you think about yourself and your work and what other people think about you and your work, at first you either think they’re insane or that it’s a conspiracy to make you look stupid. Or maybe, just maybe, they’re right, and you’re sometimes quite good at what you do.”

Even someone as accomplished as Meryl Streep admits she has “varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing…. You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent. It could be about not feeling able to achieve a certain scene or about an emotion you feel you weren’t able to get to… Or that you’re boring and they’re going to find out that you don’t know what you’re doing… any one of those things.”

[From the page Self-esteem / Self concept - which has a number of other quotes by actors.]

So what can you do about low self-esteem or self-confidence as an actor?

Developing yourself as a person and an actor, taking classes, getting into commercials or community theater or any performance work can help feelings of low self-esteem.

There are specific products and programs that can help.

The Self-Esteem Supercharger, a CD program from Learning Strategies can help enhance confidence.

According to the site, “Many professional and recreational athletes have found listening to the Self-Esteem Supercharger before a game or match improves their performance.”

Professional soccer player Michael Cestone says, “I had tried subliminal tapes with limited results, so I had to try the Paraliminals because they were different. I was desperately looking for something to help me prepare for the season. I noticed results immediately.

“The first time I used the tape I felt more focused and was able to read the game better, as well as make faster decisions. That was only the beginning.”

Learn more about The Self-Esteem Supercharger and other items in the section:
Self concept / self esteem Products and Programs.

> Also read more (and see video by Jack Canfield) about the Natural Confidence program by Morty Lefkoe.

Also see post: Impostor phenomenon: Gerard Butler – “Have I ever thought I was a fraud? Maybe 18 hours a day.”

Also see post: Building self-confidence: changing limiting beliefs and helping others.

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dealing with self-criticism, building self confidence, self esteem confidence, building self esteem, impostor feelings