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

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

“Jack, an actor, had excellent verbal skills but a poor physical presence on stage.

“With my help, he decided that he had to take responsibility for that aspect of his career and invest his daily exercise routine with new meaning, transforming it from a chore into something much more valuable.

“Now, when he worked out, he paid less attention to how many reps he was doing and more attention to feeling strong and confident in his own skin.

“Jack used ‘I take responsibility’ as his meaning-making mantra and used it to motivate himself to change his stage presence.”

[Image: Edge 500 Manual Treadmill.]
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personal development acting, acting performance, Acting Resources, creative meaning

It’s a compulsion

Toni Collette ["Little Miss Sunshine" and many other films] just wants to be “turned on” as an actor. “I’ve been doing it [acting] for half my life now and life’s too short to put your energy into something that you don’t believe in, that you don’t find entertaining yourself or doesn’t speak to you in some vivid way.

“When I choose a script it’s almost like it chooses me and it bypasses my brain. It’s not an analytical thing, it just speaks to my gut and it’s a compulsion,” she explains.

“Even if I do go searching it’s still going to be apparent that I have to wait for the right thing to come along. I can’t really force it or control it and I’ve been offered stuff where I would be paid a whole heap more but I can’t bring myself to do it because I just don’t like it, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Acting as play

Compared to when she she was starting out as an actor, she says, “I probably have the same amount of passion for it but it’s not the be-all and end-all, so I guess my priorities have shifted.

“When you’re a young woman you have no responsibilities, you’re just running around the globe, having fun, and enjoying it, as well as getting excited about it. Now I still do those things but I feel like I’m a much more responsible human being.”

Yet she still views acting as an extension of play, something she always felt from the outset. “That’s still what keeps me going and that’s the crux of it for me, which is why I do it.

[From interview by Paul Fischer, July 25th 2006.]

Gabriel Byrne on meaning

In his books and counseling, therapist, creativity coach and writer Eric Maisel, Ph.D. emphasizes the need for creative people to nurture meaning. See his articles.

Another actor, 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.]
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Toni Collette, acting passion, creative meaning, personal motivation

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, but he found that world even phonier than Hollywood.”

The article quotes Wilson: “It’s all under the auspices of, ‘We’re all artists trying to bring these great plays to life’ — that’s pure hypocrisy. Like with movies, it’s who you know, what makes sense for the box office and if you’ve got a name that will sell tickets or drum up some publicity.

“There were certain theaters that wouldn’t even let me audition after working that hard and that long there — roles that I was perfect for.”

The article adds that Kathryn Hahn, his costar in ‘The Last Mimzy,’ thinks “Rainn radiates confidence. I think the experience in New York fortified him in that way. You either say, ‘I’m not going to chase after this anymore,’ or you say, ‘Dammit. I’m better and smarter than the rest of them.’ And I think he chose ‘B,’ and I’m so glad he did — he’s an unbelievable addition to our pop culture vocabulary.”

[Photo: Hahn and Wilson in "The Last Mimzy."]

Larry Moss – it’s not enough to have talent

Larry Moss [acting coach to Helen Hunt, Hilary Swank, Michael Clarke Duncan, many others] says about some of the career-building aspects of getting seen and known – especially based on looks: “There’s a lot of fantasy about acting, that if you’re attractive and meet the right people, you can have a career. That’s true to an extent, but that can be a nightmare, because the person that gets it on looks alone, they end up a disaster…”

He also commented, “Stella Adler, a teacher I had in New York, said it’s not enough to have talent, you have to have a talent for your talent. I think that means going to classes, working on your voice and body, reading great plays, novels, history… you have to have an ability to understand people, and understand life.”

See more of his quotes on Acting page 4.

Also see his book The Intent to Live: Achieving Your True Potential as an Actor.

Getting ‘seen’

Not “working out” by actually performing on stage or on camera, or not even being allowed to audition [like Rainn Wilson mentions] must be a major hurdle for emerging actors.

But other artists also have the need to “be seen” and show their work. Not getting that can lead to deep self-criticism and self-doubt.

Creative & self-critical

As I note in my article Being Creative and Self-critical, criticism can be destructive and self-limiting, eroding our creative assurance and vitality. Many creative people, even when they have achieved recognition for their talents, may experience self-critical thoughts and insecurity.

Engaging in a creative venture often brings up questions and uncertainties related to personal identity: Am I qualified? Do I have enough experience, strength, talent, skill? Will the work be good enough? Will I be good enough? [More in my article Identity and Creating.]

All that may be especially true for actors.

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artistic confidence, acting careers, Rainn Wilson, Larry Moss

In a magazine interview, Brad Pitt once candidly admitted, “I’ve got a couple of friends that might as well be family, and I’ve caught myself just ordering one of them to do something because you get accustomed to people doing things for you… It’s the money and the power, it just crushes everything.”

Julie Delpy

Julie Delpy [photo] is also very candid in a recent blog of hers [see my Developing Talent blog] that ”Hollywood is an industry where integrity is really a challenge… In Hollywood, people of all ages and creeds succeed through prostitution. They succeed by selling out.”

Evan Rachel Wood

Evan Rachel Wood agrees it can be a challenge: “You get a script that’s not very good.. but you think, Okay, the script is so bad, I won’t even do it for a million dollars.. And then it gets to No. 1 at the box office and people ask, ‘Don’t you regret not doing that?’ Not really… I keep getting told that if you do the blockbuster, then you can get these other movies made. But somehow I just can’t bring myself to do it.” [Interview, May 2006]

Anthony Rapp

A Los Angeles Times article today [May 3, 2006] says that since starring in the stage and film versions of “Rent” Anthony Rapp has appeared in a number of small independent films: “I’m certainly drawn to things that are a little more unusual,” he says.

“I’ve been in the business long enough now — 25 years — that it’s as much about the experience of making a piece as it is about anything that goes along with it. I’ve met too many actors who aren’t necessarily happy doing what they’re doing, but they get a good paycheck. I’d much rather be part of something I’d be happy to be a part of than cash in.”

[Rapp is author of the book Without You : A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent]

Of course, you need to get paid to do your work, to fuel your passion, but the question is at what point is it selling out – doing something only for the money, and in the process maybe corroding your vision and your integrity as an artist, and a human.
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actors integrity, actor book, keeping your integrity, compromising yourself

A number of actors advise pursuing this very demanding career only if you can’t feel right doing anything else. And a number of highly talented actors change direction into writing, producing or some other vocation.

You need to be aware of what is really driving you.

Maria Bello on  being of service

Maria Bello [left] was often asked by her best friend at college, an Augustinian priest, how she was going to serve in life. She says in a magazine interview, “So it was a difficult decision for me to become an actor because I was on my way to law school. But I realized that you serve by doing the thing you love, doing it well, and being conscious about what you’re giving to the world.”

Jamie Rose – fame is not enough

Actor and teacher Jamie Rose notes on her site JRose Studio that “Too many actors.. concentrate all of their energies on getting an agent etc. and don’t spend enough time on becoming great actors. If you are only about outward success – fame money etc., I promise that there will never be enough of it to fill you up…” [more of her quotes on The Inner Actor site].

Part of doing what you’re meant to do is learning to disregard the seduction of fame, or the pressure of what other people think, if it isn’t right for you.

Suzanne Falter-Barns on being your own quirky self

Suzanne Falter-Barns, who writes and leads workshops on finding and living your life purpose, asks in her article Finding Your Niche in Life, “Are you willing to rise above everyone else’s agenda for you, and carve out the niche that is rightfully yours.. and honor your greater self instead? Are you willing to be known as the tremendous, quirky soul that you are?“

She gives as an example Roger the Jester, “a wonderful, original performer” who, after unsuccessful stabs at psychology and photojournalism, “landed on jesting by asking himself what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing.”

“What I really liked was making people laugh, and goofing off,” Roger said. “Once I got booked for a show and they told me, ‘We’d just like you to carry on.’ Well, that’s what my mother used to yell at me — ‘Will you stop carrying on?’ And now, here I was, carrying on and getting paid for it.”

related pages: vocation / calling … achievement
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find your purpose, finding your vocation, acting passion, dealing with fame

“I love to act because it’s the only aspect of my life beside God and family that I am truly passionate about on a daily basis.”

Michael Ealy [currently in the Showtime series “Sleeper Cell”] continues, “I thank God for not only the gift of creative expression but also surrounding me with others who both possess the gift and support it to the fullest.” [imdb.com]

A number of writers have emphasized these spiritual and emotional dimensions of creativity and personal success. Wayne Dyer says people he calls connectors have developed a “harmonious connection with the field of intention.. have made themselves available for success… they’re always in a state of gratitude.” [one of his books: The Power of Intention]

Exuberance and hypomania

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison notes hypomania, a kind of cousin to passion, can be creative fuel, and thinks “A passion for life, an exuberant temperament, allows people to do things they wouldn’t be able to do if they didn’t have it.” [book: Exuberance : The Passion for Life]

Passion breeds success

Entrepreneurs – including actors – who love what they do “are more apt to be successful,” notes writer and workshop leader Valerie Young. She adds in her article 10 Steps to Escape the Job World and Create the Life You Really Want that you can discover your passion “by paying attention to situations or things that grab and keep your attention. … What types of things did you love to do as a child? What kinds of characteristics or talents do others compliment you on?”

In her article 5 Steps to Goal Setting Success, Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler says “Many, many scientific studies have shown that intense emotion (passion) is a key success tool. PLUS (and this is really a *big* plus), intense passion will also help you rapidly override any inappropriate old “failure messages” stored in your subconscious mind.”

> related pages: passion … spirituality
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acting passion, products for entrepreneurs, creative passion, create the life you want