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

~ ~ ~

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

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 to school just for the academics–I wanted to share ideas, to be around people who are passionate about learning.

Being at Brown has totally taken me out of my comfort zone. I’m so proud that I went to a different country to study and really spread my wings.  …

My days as a student are structured so differently from being on a movie set, where I had people constantly telling me what to do. When you’re filming, someone needs to know where you are every second of the day; here no one tells me what time I can have lunch, when I can go to the bathroom.

It’s incredibly empowering and liberating. My friends think I’m crazy because I get so much joy out of really simple pleasures like staying up late talking or deciding to go for a walk. And bagels–they’re the best thing ever! …

Fun is something I’ve undervalued in the last 10 years [when she made 10 films, including eight Harry Potters]. I never made time for it, yet it’s so important to your health and general happiness. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I have to learn to be good at having fun. …

It’s taken me a year to figure out that I should trust people and let them in a bit more.

At the beginning I felt slightly like I was living two lives, as if I was schizophrenic.

Slowly but surely, I’m letting the people I trust and love see more of me as a complete person.

They’ve been surprisingly understanding and respectful. I’ve been lucky–really lucky.

Source: Parade.com

Top photo from Celebuzz.com: Emma Watson at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island

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 just learn how to be happier.

The interesting thing to me is how valuable my years as a performer have been in helping others with their issues.

There were things I learned as a young actress years ago that have been incredibly helpful to me throughout my life, many of which I can pass on to my clients.

For example, I had a wonderful voice teacher at drama school, who turned out to be so much more than just a voice teacher and who eventually became a lifelong friend – Mary.

One of the things she used to say was “use it, darling, use it” whenever I was experiencing a strong emotion, particularly something uncomfortable.

What she meant was, remember how it feels to be angry or grief-stricken, so that the next time you need to access that emotion for a role, you can bring it up and associate it to the event that precipitated the emotion.

The reason this is useful for my therapy clients is that I can demonstrate to them that it really is possible to control one’s own emotions – you don’t need to be an actor to do that, although actors get facile at doing it because emotions are their “stock in trade”.

Most ordinary people believe that emotions are something outside of their control, and yet if a person can learn to induce an emotion at will, they can also learn to let it go.

When you’re getting angry but you don’t want to have an outburst you count to ten – isn’t that an example of doing that?

Another exercise we learned at drama school that I’ve found useful later on relates to my own self-identity.

Mary recommended that we spend one day thinking of ourselves as beautiful and noticing how others responded to us. So I put my hair up and wore my best dress and rode around on the London Underground with this mantra in my mind, “I am beautiful, I am beautiful.”

To my amazement, my normally shy timid demeanor was replaced by an aura of confidence and poise and people literally stared at me and paid me a lot more positive attention than usual.

This demonstrates that your beliefs about yourself really do transmit themselves non-verbally and in very subtle ways, to others. Try it sometime!

By the way, I also tried this out in a different way, when I was part of an improvised Italian street theater. I was in my late twenties pretending to be an old “bag lady”, a deaf and dumb beggar who lived for scraps.

Again my perception of myself and my projection of what I believed myself to be got an appropriate response from the people around me – many of whom didn’t even realize that I was part of the street performance going on, and who thought I was the real thing.

Another trick that Mary taught me was, when something is uncomfortable, do it more. When you can accept totally a situation and become comfortable with it, the situation no longer holds any fears for you. That is the premise behind the expression: “What you resist persists but what you befriend will surely end”.

Although everybody is born with a certain predisposed temperament, you can also train yourself to develop a different and more effective personality.

For example, I was a very shy child and young adult. And yet I managed to train myself to be an extrovert.

It felt at first like a new coat that didn’t quite fit, but eventually one day this new persona felt like the real me. I remember how incredibly delighted I felt when my boyfriend’s mother remarked how she couldn’t imagine me being shy!

People tend to believe that their personality is something inevitable, that they cannot change. But in fact you’re personality is remarkably fluid and a lot of it is within your power to choose.

The personality, like the brain, is constantly changing throughout life, and that’s not a bad thing, in fact it’s a good thing for your personal growth.

I remember as a teenager feeling that I could be anybody I wanted to be, and to a large extent I was right.

The thing is, I can still be anybody I want to be.

If I start behaving radically differently of course the people closest to me will be surprised and possibly also discomfited and confused, but that is something I can choose to deal with, and they will eventually learn to accept the changes.

The fact is – and this is a fact – every one of the 50 trillion cells in the human body is discarded and replaced every seven years.

That means that we are literally a whole new human being every seven years. So if I want to recreate myself inside as well as outside, I can.

It may take some willpower and persistence to counter old habits, but it is possible.

The only thing that keeps us locked into our old personality, is the force of memory and habit. They say it takes 21 days to break a habit, so you have to stick with it. and believe it’s possible.

Have you ever looked at an old photograph of yourself and thought to yourself “that doesn’t feel like me, it’s as if I’m looking at another person”?

That’s because you literally are looking at another person, a person with a different set of 50 trillion cells. But your memory is the thread that binds you to the past.

Actors are very fortunate, because they are used to creating themselves anew – it’s what they do.

An actor knows how to use his emotions, channel his energy, take control of his body and mind.

~~~~~

Carmen Lynne is a long-time resident of Redondo Beach and an empathetic and inspiring group leader. She is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and Guided Imagery Facilitator, who graduated from HMI in 2007, and a Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Group Facilitator with the NACBT. She is currently studying for her MA in Psychology and plans to gain licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist.

Carmen currently works in two chronic pain clinics as part of the therapeutic team: Comprehensive Pain Relief Group under Dr. Gregory Smith, MD in Redondo Beach and Care Center for Rehabilitation under Dr. Brenda Klass, PhD in Encino. Before becoming a therapist Carmen worked as an actress, singer, dancer, writer and producer.

Mind Over Mood groups

What does “Mind Over Mood” really mean? It means that your thoughts and emotions – which may feel like rebellious undisciplined children – can in fact, be controlled, with a few simple techniques and tools. Your skill and training as an actor makes you uniquely qualified to employ these very techniques. You do it all the time – you just need to learn how to do it in everyday life.

Mind Over Mood is a course that will literally train your brain. In the same way as physical training develops your muscles and makes you stronger and healthier, this kind of brain training makes you emotionally stronger and healthier by training your brain and giving you the power to control your thoughts and emotions.

If you’re afflicted by thoughts and emotions that hold you back and keep you from fulfilling your potential in any area of your life – here is your opportunity to change that. It’s like being handed the keys to your own power, the control of your own thoughts and emotions.

For more information about the Mind Over Mood groups, visit
www.newhealingjourneys.com

Article provided by the author.

~~~~~~~~

Related Talent Development Resources sites:

Depression and Creativity

Personal Growth Information

Nurturing mental health: acting – quotes, books etc

Also see Change, growth, coaching articles.

personal growth development, personal development, self growth, emotions and personal growth, acting and personal growth

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 after i’m married @amandabynes

Anjelica Huston has commented about choosing her creative professional life over motherhood: “I have a very full life and I am very happy with where I am now. I don’t want to change anything.

“I once wanted to have children and it was not my choice not to have children but it hasn’t broken my heart that I haven’t.

“I think unless you’re truly whole-heartedly prepared to make a full-time commitment, you have to really think about it. I certainly wouldn’t adopt children just because everybody in show business seems to be doing it.” [imdb.com]

Many active actors are mothers and make it work, especially when they are successful enough to be able to afford help.

Kyra Sedgwick (TNT series “The Closer”) has commented about how she schedules her time and energy, and mentioned some of her doubts about being away from her children so much.

She works for about half the year in Los Angeles, away from her family in Manhattan: Kevin Bacon and their two teen children.

“I’m more creatively fulfilled than I’ve ever been. This was a choice I made for myself, in hopes that it would be okay for the family and that I would be a role model for my kids to follow their own dreams.

“I don’t wake up at three in the morning panicking. I’ve spent a lot of time with my kids, serious 24-hour time, and we have really good relationships. But I am always wondering, Is this the right thing to do? Honestly, I have no idea.” [Life mag., June 9 2006]

More quotes by other actors on the page Motherhood and creative expression

Related post: Mothers with a rage to achieve

women artists and motherhood, motherhood and acting, developing creativity, creative potential, psychology of creativity, creative mind

Those quotes are from the article Ethan Hawke says ‘Daybreakers’ is no ‘Twilight’: ‘It’s a post-adolescent vampire film’ by Yvonne Villarreal [Los Angeles Times January 7, 2010].

Villarreal continues :

It’s a role [in "Daybreakers"] about as far as you can get from his Broadway gig performing a nine-hour stage trilogy of Tom Stoppard’s plays, “The Coast of Utopia,” about mid-19th century Russian radicals. And that’s what attracted him.

“There’s some kind of actors that can radically change who they are from movie to movie,” Hawke said. “I’ve never really been that kind of actor. I enjoy changing the worlds that I’m in.”

“I’ve been fortunate to be working in the film business for almost 25 years by doing a lot of different things,” he said. “You can’t only do cop pictures and you can’t only do little art-house movies. . . . I kind of figured if I keep trying different things, eventually I would accumulate some kind of learning.”

The learning extends beyond the big screen.

He’s tackled television, guest starring in an episode of ABC’s “Alias,” and is part of the small-screen adaptation of “Moby Dick,” an upcoming two-part miniseries in which he plays Starbuck. And he’s toiled on countless stages, appearing — and directing — numerous theater productions including “Henry IV” and “Hurlyburly.” “The theater, for me, has always been a place where I’m free to be more creative,” he said. “A place to sharpen my tools.”

Music video director? Yes, that too. He directed songstress Lisa Loeb’s music video for “Stay (I Missed You)” in 1994; the hit song was featured on the “Reality Bites” soundtrack. Oh, and he’s written two novels — “The Hottest State” and “Ash Wednesday”; both garnered mixed reviews.

There’s a method to all the madness. “In grade school they say you have to pick a profession and stick to it . . . and people stop looking at their lives as a work in progress,” he said. “If you don’t stay in touch with yourself, you kind of lose focus.

“If you’re going to spend a life in the arts, you need to be infused with a sense of gratitude and a sense of wonder. It’s a privilege to do this profession. But there is a payment you have to make for that privilege, which is to do your best all the time. To challenge yourself. That’s the luxury tax.”

[Photo: Ethan Hawke plays vampire scientist Edward Dalton in Daybreakers.]

~~~

Hawke’s pursuit of multiple talents and passions is a characteristic of many highly talented people – a quality described by Barbara Sher as the Scanner Personality. See her article Are You A Scanner?

developing multiple talents, self-exploration, developing creativity, creative potential, creative personality type

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 her, and notes there were many who were rude. “The people who responded to me were the people I respected,” she says.

“I remember the people who were rude and dismissive; I would watch the TV show or movie they cast, and it was always a piece of shit. Always. And the people who responded to me or were kind to actors, they always made the good stuff. So when people are being assholes, you might as well not waste your time and walk away..”

Good advice. Many actors get anxious about auditions, about not getting work, dealing with difficult people, and other issues that are kind of built in to the profession.

Energy psychiatrist Judith Orloff, M.D. works with many actors to help them overcome anxiety.

She says one approach is using beta blockers or Inderal, a medication to reduce stage fright by decreasing the fight or flight response.

But she thinks a better way is a three minute mini-meditation she teaches her clients, and includes in her book Emotional Freedom.

It helps people “learn how to breathe, center themselves, let their thoughts flow by, and focus on something really nurturing and positive for three minutes, which is a better way to shift your anxiety and really own the moment.”

Dr. Orloff also writes about how to deal with energy vampires, like some casting directors, acting coaches and, really, people in any field.

BackStage interview article: Isle of Mann

Audio interview with Judith Orloff, M.D.

Book: Emotional Freedom, by Judith Orloff.

Non-drug help for stage fright etc: Anxiety Relief Solutions

Acting articles

Talent Development Resources

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 the novel by Alicia Erian.

Abramowitz describes the story as exploring “Jasira’s burgeoning sexuality and the fear it instills in her Lebanese single father who wishes she’d remain 9, and the desire it stirs in Jasira’s next-door neighbor, a 35-year-old Army reservist played by Aaron Eckhart.

“To some, the film — with its comic-horrific tone — will be shocking, but to Bishil it was a relief to find a part that not only suited her ethnically but actually resonated with her.

“It was like, finally, I’m reading something that holds a lot of truth in it, and means something. I was so relieved,” Bishil says.

Sexual curiosity and innocence combined

“I was really attached to [Jasira]. It wasn’t so much that I had gone through what she had gone through because I never did, but I understand her quest for understanding of herself and the people around her. And not having full control over her life. Over her body. Over her decisions. And not knowing what it means to own them.”

Bishil plays Jasira not as a budding Lolita, but as an inquisitive naif. “Just because she’s provocative doesn’t mean she’s not innocent,” Ball says. “Just because a child is sexually curious or is looking for pleasure or a sense of power in her existence doesn’t mean they’re not innocent. [Summer] really got that. I didn’t ever want [Jasira] to seem like she was being manipulative. It’s a much purer response. Summer is such a pure person, and I think it really translates to the camera.” ///

The role took a toll

In “Towelhead,” Bishil must imply — and occasionally perform — a range of sexual activity on camera, though Ball wound up cutting most of the graphic sex out of the film. “Summer was a pro,” Ball says. “I think it was much harder on Aaron than for her.”

Still, Bishil found one particularly violent scene was upsetting. “I knew this stuff would have to happen eventually but I didn’t think about it,” Bishil says. Afterward, however, she remembers going back to her dressing room and “having a little emotional tantrum and crying. And being very sad. I was really tired too. I wasn’t sleeping a lot. I was working 16 hours a day and operating on four hours of sleep. I’d come home and couldn’t sleep.

“Everyone was so nice about it. There wasn’t any reason to be crying,” Bishil recalls. But just living in Jasira’s mind was sometimes hard. “I didn’t realize the toll it took on me, until now.”

Acting as therapy

Many actors recognize what a powerful and releasing experience acting can be. Eva Green, for example, has commented, “It’s a way to exteriorize all my shit. To scream and cry and laugh on-screen, it’s almost like black magic. For me, acting is like a therapy.”

But it can also be emotionally challenging, and even dangerous.

Nicole Kidman has pointed out, “You live with a lot of complicated emotions as an actor, and they whirl around you and create havoc at times. And yet, as an actor you’re consciously and unconsciously allowing that to happen.” [From Nicole Kidman - a brief annotated profile.]

Speaking of her intense preparation and portrayal of Virginia Woolf in “The Hours,” she said, “Unfortunately the thing that makes me want to be an actor, in terms of wanting to be consumed, is also what can destroy you because it becomes almost too hard. At a stage of life, you have to say, I have to walk away from this.”

Other gifted actors like Kidman may also be very emotionally vulnerable and highly sensitive, which can make self-protection and stress relief especially important, to continue being creative at high levels.

> Also listen to podcast interview with Summer Bishil.

Related:
Taking your character home
Hollywood Balancing Act
Miley Cyrus and our fascination with teen sexuality
Sexuality : teen/young adult
Intense but Relaxed
Stress / de-stress
Stress resources articles books programs
~~

summer bishil, emotional toll of acting, entertainment psychology, personal development acting

Maggie Gyllenhaal: We shot Sherrybaby in 25 days. I was never in my own clothes. I would get into her clothes, be her all day, come home, fall asleep, wake up, go back to work. I do better in that kind of work. What I found with Sherry was that she was in such a rough place that she didn’t have the luxury to feel any kind of self-pity or to fall apart at all, or she would not have been able to survive.

So I shot all these fucked-up scenes that were really horrible, but I didn’t experience them that way. Obviously, I understood that all the things that happened in the movie were painful for her, but I didn’t let that into the work.

Then all the terrible things I’ve had to go through surfaced after we’d finished shooting. And I got over it. I don’t think I could play that part now. I don’t know that I could be okay with the things I had to be okay with in order to play her.

Interview mag.: Were you in therapy when you did that film?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Mm-hmm.

Interview mag.: So was it exorcism? Catharsis?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Well, that stuff is private, but every role I choose – whether consciously or unconsciously – there’s something in it that I have to think about and work through. . .

For a while, I got into taking someone really fucked-up and showing the audience how they were beautiful and lovable. That’s a way of practicing compassion. But now I want to play a queen! I want to play someone who’s thinking and elegant and not so wayward. I feel like a big change has happened.

Interview mag.: Here’s another observation from your press clippings: “Gyllenhaal clearly relishes taking a wrecking ball to anything perfect or beautiful in her own cinematic creations.” But I always suspected that you were happy to be beautiful in real life.

Maggie Gyllenhaal: That is not wrong about my work. It was also true in my life. What I thought was most beautiful was something a little fucked up, a little off. I think that’s a way of hiding.

As an actress and a person. I feel different now. I’m not as interested in finding what is unattractive as I am in finding what is attractive. It’s much riskier to say, “I’m going to try and express what’s beautiful in me.”

[From interview by Tim Blanks, Interview magazine, May 2008.]

A number of other actors have also expressed perspectives on the mental health aspects of acting on the page Nurturing mental health: acting.
~~

Maggie Gyllenhaal, entertainment psychology, personal development acting, creative risks

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 last 30 years, you’re trying to make something better than it is. You’re trying to find richness where there isn’t any. You’re trying to find complexity where there is none. You’re trying to make something more than it is.

“Here, you don’t have to do that. It actually makes it easier that Amanda is so multifaceted. It’s a welcome relief.”

The article also notes, “While Tennessee Williams was writing the play, his first success, he also struggled to free himself from less significant — though better-paid — Hollywood work.

“Living across from Muscle Beach in Venice, he confided to his journal that he was working ‘on something abominable — a script for Lana Turner.’ That same June day in 1943, he wrote to his agent, Audrey Wood: ‘I feel like an obstetrician required to successfully deliver a mastodon from a beaver,’ further deriding the MGM project as an attempt to make ‘a celluloid brassiere’ for the buxom star.”

[From Mare Winningham explores Tennessee, by Anne Marie Welsh, Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2008]

Meaning and depression

Finding meaningful work – or making your own – is deeply important for actors and other artists.

In his counseling and books, therapist and creativity coach Eric Maisel, Ph.D. emphasizes the need for creative people to nurture meaning to stay on top of depression.

In his book The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression, Dr. Maisel writes that “Most creators feel miserable if few or none of their creative efforts succeed.”

In our interview, I asked him: “Many screenwriters never see their hard work produced as a movie, and many actors never get to perform to the level they aspire and train to reach. How do you counsel artists like these to make meaning, when they seem to depend so much on public awareness and acceptance of their creative work?”

Dr. Maisel replied: “A lack of success and a lack of recognition are profound meaning crises that must be addressed just as any meaning crisis must be addressed, with all of our heart and all of our energy.”

From our interview: Investing meaning in our art.

Also see Eric Maisel articles.

More to life than acting

Gabriel Byrne comments about meaning: “So many actors feel that their work is themselves, and if they’re not working, they’re somehow kind of worthless… then life doesn’t have any meaning because they’re not doing the thing that they love. But the lesson I’ve learned is that life comes first and acting comes second.”

[From the article Filling your time with meaning.]

If the quality of acting roles is not providing enough meaning, perhaps other forms of creativity will. Winningham, for example, also expresses her creative talents through singing and songwriting.
~~

creative meaning, artists and depression, Eric Maisel, creative potential

This has always been my life. You don’t romanticize it when you’ve seen the underbelly of it, when you’ve seen rejection, the games, the way self-esteem is challenged and threatened. It’s an industry that’s predicated on knocking people down. Only the strong survive.

Life magazine: What’s kept you working for so long?

Brooke Shields: My concept of a work ethic is so ingrained in who I am. It may have started out as the way to be liked, but now it’s become my standard. Now whether someone likes me or not doesn’t factor into it. Now it’s much more selfish. I get involved in any movie or show I watch.

I live in the world of whatever I’m working on. Part of me is a gypsy that way. And because I have my real life—and it’s not going anywhere—it allows me to go off into my fantasy mind, because I know I have a home to come back to. [Source: Life magazine.]

Brooke Shields also once said about being a public person her whole life that she “assumed it wasn’t taking a toll on me because in return I got positive things, validation or affection or compliments or whatever. Little by little I gave away a lot. And at my age now, I’m done giving it all away. Because it isn’t directly proportionate to anything, except sometimes a sense of emptiness.”

And this is an item from The Week magazine, March 14, 2008:

Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet was caught off-guard by superstardom, says Nelly Kaprielian in Vogue Australia. After her film Titanic became a megahit in 1997, Winslet was transformed from well-regarded film actress into global celebrity. “I couldn’t grasp why that was happening to me. I was so young—I was only 21 years old—and I didn’t feel ready to become hugely famous.”

Her private life was dissected, especially in her native England, where some confused her with her character in Titanic. “The English press had decided that I was their ‘Rose,’ that I was grounded, that I had married a normal guy and was leading a normal life.”

So when she split from her husband, director Jim Threapleton, opinion turned against her; some articles claimed, incorrectly, that she had abandoned her baby daughter to Threapleton’s care. “They decided I was the culprit since I was the famous one. Sorry, but no one knows what really happened at that time in my life.”

Her solution was to take roles in some smaller films, such as Hideous Kinky, which took her out of the limelight and allowed her to better pace her career and life. “I loved acting and I didn’t want that desire to be ruined by the huge pressure that stardom was putting on me.” She got remarried, to director Sam Mendes, and had another baby, but the tabloids now mostly leave her alone. “To be honest, I think they finally started to get bored with me.”

Related pages:
Fame and celebrity
Identity
Self-esteem / self concept
article: The Dark Side of Fame.
~~

brooke shields, kate winslet, acting self esteem, celebrity and personal growth