“When you’re famous, you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way.” 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 [...]
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 [...]
What choices and compromises do you make to gain attention and opportunities as an actor? Romola Garai has expressed a number of thoughtful perspectives on these topics. Here are some quotes from her imdb.com profile. On Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights : “I wouldn’t have done something that I thought had no merit in it at [...]
In her post Defining Success on the Showfax blog The Actors Voice, author and casting director Bonnie Gillespie writes about new actors lusting after fame. Here are some excerpts : Those who do become household names? They’re talented. Yes. That’s a given. Being even moderately successful in this industry requires a baseline of talent. Done. [...]
“Actors and actresses, because that’s their career, can be sort of self-obsessed.” Kristen Bell says that for her new film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” she “just looked into the depths of the most hard-to-admit or vulnerable or bad characteristics of my own personality and what an actress can become if given that kind of self indulgence [...]
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 [...]
Jurnee Smollett plays Samantha Booke in the film “The Great Debaters” (set at Wiley College in Texas during the Great Depression), who becomes the first woman selected by debate coach Melvin B. Tolson (played by Denzel Washington) to compete on the debate team, which defeats the University of Southern California’s team (changed to Harvard in [...]
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 [...]
Actor Vera Farmiga currently stars in “Joshua.” In addition to her perspectives below (from a new Los Angeles Times interview), she has also been quoted: “I really don’t feel a need to be famous. But I do feel a need to make a difference, to shed light on human emotion through acting.” [LATimes: Anthony Minghella [...]
The photo is from Sarah Polley’s film Away From Her (2006), in which Julie Christie has been gaining much acclaim for her portrayal of a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. In an interview [some years ago], she talked about her work as an actor, and using dark or difficult human emotions and experiences. “I think there’s [...]
Salon.com: Did you consider other careers? Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I went to college. I wanted to have a wide-open future with endless possibilities. [Laughs] It wasn’t so much that there were other careers in particular that I was considering so much as I just wanted to stop acting. I really wanted to move away from home [...]
Rainn Wilson radiates confidence Rainn Wilson discovered acting in a high school drama class, then moved to New York to study in NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, notes a new Los Angeles Times article [Revenge of the nerd, By Fred Schruers, March 22, 2007], and “filled the next decade with theater work, including Shakespeare and off-Broadway, [...]
Sarah Polley on fame In a recent article, film critic Kenneth Turan writes: Sarah Polley looks back on her decision to leave “Almost Famous” as a turning point in her life, a decision to keep fame at bay and have as normal a life as possible. “My first experience with a sliver of fame was [...]
In a recent news story, the accomplished actor, director and producer “warned aspiring actors against getting entangled in the idea of popularity as it could be destructive. “The 60- year old, academy nominated actor has blamed Hollywood and attendant fame for the discomposure and bedlam in his personal life. “Success and fame are as addictive [...]
Renée Zellweger on the protection of a character Speaking of her role in the new film “Miss Potter” as Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), the English author and illustrator of the Peter Rabbit books, Renée Zellweger [right] commented, “I’m not a performer. I don’t want to hop up on a stage and go ‘Look at me! I’m [...]
Her character in “Casino Royale” is a woman of complexity, intellect and self-assurance. Eva Green has commented about some aspects of her life that help develop the kind of depth she has as a person to play such a role. “I am many things. I can be quite mad, and young, but I’m not the [...]
Evan Rachel Wood Evan Rachel Wood [“Running with Scissors”] recalls getting beat up in elementary school for being an actor. “I think it was because my SAG card fell out of my bag, and [the kids] asked what it was and I explained to them, and no more than ten minutes later I was getting [...]
Lisa Kudrow was recently up for an Emmy for her role as Valerie Cherish in “The Comeback.” Kudrow has commented, “She’s not based on any one person in particular, it’s more about people who have their goals and their sights on the wrong thing. This is about a woman who has a husband and a [...]
Claire Danes on wanting acceptance Claire Danes admits that when she was growing up, she “wanted desperately to please, to be a good girl. I wanted acceptance. I still do.” Like many artists, she sought acceptance in renown: “A part of me desired fame because I associated it with love. That was a total mistake. [...]
Debi Mazar plays publicist Shauna on the HBO series Entourage. “The business has changed as far as the perception of celebrity,” she notes. “Before, you know, you were a working actor and it was cool, and people knew who you were. Now there’s all this tabloid bulls**t and perks that didn’t happen before. People are [...]
Sarah Polley “I think you have to keep your distance from mainstream Hollywood in order to be a normal human being,” Sarah Polley [left] once commented. [imdb.com] She continued, “I mean, I work there, and I like being there, but I love having an anonymous life. I think there’s definitely such a thing as being [...]
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