Winona Ryder has expressed a number of thoughtful comments and perspectives on being an actor, and the kinds of pressures affecting her life – and many other talented and sensitive artists. Here are some excerpts from an Interview magazine article. Stephen Mooallem: When you were younger did you ever get into one of those situations [...]
Now a Brown University sophomore, Emma Watson was interviewed by Jeanne Wolf of Parade magazine on some of what college means to her. Here are some excerpts : I may do some theater next summer, but this college experience is really important to me, and I won’t give it up for anything. I’m not going [...]
By guest author Carmen Lynne After spending the greater part of my life as an actress and performer, I became a therapist in early 2007. While I still do a little bit of acting when I have a chance, I now mainly spend my time helping other people to fulfill their creative ambitions or to [...]
It can be a major decision to be a mother and still pursue a demanding life as an artist. On her Twitter profile, Amanda Bynes says: i want to be a mom but not til i’m 30 and even if i get married b4 then i still want to wait to have kids til long [...]
“I think it’s my job to risk looking foolish. One of the things I’ve learned from the actors I’ve worked with is you don’t get something for nothing. If you don’t risk looking foolish, you’ll never do anything special.” Ethan Hawke Those quotes are from the article Ethan Hawke says ‘Daybreakers’ is no ‘Twilight’: ‘It’s [...]
This video clip with Eric Bana and Leslie Mann is from the trailer for their new movie Funny People. In a BackStage magazine interview, Mann says she is terrible at auditioning. “I get so scared, and I can’t seem to get out of my head,” she admits. She appreciates casting directors who are patient with [...]
A role that resonated Summer Bishil stars in “Towelhead,” about a Lebanese American girl’s coming of age in Texas during the first Iraq war. In an article about the film, Rachel Abramowitz notes Bishil was 18 when she played 13-year-old Jasira in the film directed by Alan Ball (“Six Feet Under,” “American Beauty”), based on [...]
In SherryBaby (2006), Maggie Gyllenhaal portrayed Sherry Swanson, who returns home after serving a prison sentence to reestablish a relationship with her young daughter. Gyllenhaal describes for Interview magazine her experience with the character, and the big change in her attitude toward appreciating roles that are “not so wayward.” Maggie Gyllenhaal: We shot Sherrybaby in [...]
Mare Winningham and Tennessee Williams Mare Winningham is playing Amanda in a stage production of Tennessee Williams’ classic ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at the Old Globe in San Diego. In an interview, she commented about how rare it has been to find such deep, complex roles. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but so often during the [...]
Brooke Shields: My hope is that my kids won’t want to go into show business, just because of the heartache… I thrive on the experience of working. I don’t know myself any other way. [But] I’m not enamored by [fame]. I don’t covet it, the way someone who’s anonymous wants it, and then their life [...]
“With most people when there’s a pain in their life there’s mental scar tissue that forms over the pain and helps you go on living. “An actor’s scar tissue really never covers over things the same way, not if you’re going to be sensitive. With good technique, an actor can do that and walk through [...]
Referring to his role of Brick in the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (directed by Debbie Allen),” Terrence Howard says, “I always tell directors, ‘The role I want is the role I can’t accomplish, the thing that’s going to make me fail.’ Every warrior is looking for that fight [...]
Liev Schreiber on emotional isolation “Acting kind of insulates you from the world. Ironically you go into this job that you think is going to allow you to be expressive to people and to connect to the world.” Liev Schreiber continued, “And the more successful you are in a strange way, the less emotionally connected [...]
Comfortable being alone In an interview about “Tristan and Isolde,” James Franco commented about how acting relates to being someone who is more comfortable being alone. Question: You talked about being a loner when you were at school. How hard is it going from being a loner to putting that aside an being an actor [...]
“I’ve always felt more comfortable [with comedy] because I was scared of drama. I didn’t really know how to access my emotional side without wounding my own person. “Once I learned how to do that it opened up all these doors to me and I realized, You know what? Real life contains moments of laughter [...]
High drug use in Hollywood “It’s so obvious that this is a population that has a huge appetite for drugs.” Drew Pinsky, MD The death of Heath Ledger – considered an accidental overdose of prescription medications – is another indication of how much drug use there is in the entertainment community. He also reportedly had [...]
Ellen Page and Diablo Cody on taking risks Ellen Page, to “Juno” screenwriter Diablo Cody: You have to take risks and go against conventional wisdom and structure. What was that like. Diablo Cody: I guess I didn’t see the point of adding another conventional story to the pile; there are so many. I guess I [...]
“It’s all been a big sham.” “Sometimes I wake up in the morning before going off to a shoot, and I think, I can’t do this; I’m a fraud. They’re going to fire me — all these things. I’m fat; I’m ugly…” Those admissions by Kate Winslet [Interview mag. Nov 2000] were made after her [...]
Kept in a box “Too many people want to get rich and famous and do it quick,” Jaime Pressly said in a recent interview article. “To get anywhere you have to be focused, ambitious, headstrong and really, really want it. It won’t come on a silver platter, and it won’t last long… “I started [acting] [...]
“Celebrity hits like a bomb. So you have to find what makes you stable in the storm.” Jimmy Smits adds, “Then, no matter what’s happening around you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.” [imdb.com] In my article The Dark Side [...]
“I always have a deep-seated fear that it can all go away, and it can. You can not get work very easily,” Rose Byrne says, recounting how she’d recently read an interview with Julianne Moore, who admitted to panicking about never working again at the end of each film. “I mean, it’s Julianne Moore,” Byrne [...]
Being told who you are “You can’t be yourself because you’re always being judged.” That is a line from “Ellie Parker” about an actress trying to get a start in Los Angeles, played by Naomi Watts, who also produced the film. That sort of uncertainty of identity and insecurity affects many artists on the way [...]
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