“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 or that amount of vanity.

“That I think anybody could really become. But actors and actresses especially, because that’s their career, to be sort of self-obsessed. And there’s a lot of comedy in that.” [From darkhorizons.com interview by Paul Fischer March 27th 2008.]

“Narcissism is the part of my personality…”

When asked about narcissism and being an actor, Ben Affleck admitted, “I’d say it’s the one quality that unites everybody in the film industry, whether you’re an actor, a producer, a director, or a studio executive. You want people to look at you and love you and go, ‘Oh, you’re wonderful.’

But, he continued, “It’s a nightmare. Narcissism is the part of my personality that I am the least proud of, and I certainly don’t like to see it highlighted in everybody else I meet.” [Interview mag., Dec. 1997]

Sarah Silverman commented in an interview about discovering the writing of psychologist Alice Miller: “There’s a book called ‘Drama of the Gifted Child’ given to me by my sister, and I was thinking, This is unbelievable. It’s all about me. I related to it so much.

“And I asked a friend of mine if she’d read it, and she said that Alice Miller originally titled the book ‘Drama of the Narcissistic Child’ – but she knew that no one who needed to read it would buy it. That was really funny, and a little bit embarrassing.”

[From Making 'Magic' (And Trouble) with Sarah Silverman, NPR, Fresh Air audio interview, Oct 3, 2007; photo from "Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic."]

The psychology of narcissism

But what is narcissism? The basic idea is being obsessively self-absorbed, always putting your own needs first, having poor empathy or appreciation for other people’s needs etc. But what is behind someone operating that way?

Alice Miller writes in The Drama of the Gifted Child about childhood harm leading to compromised emotional life as an adult, including those kinds of behavior.

Miller has been quoted about the word ‘gifted’ in the title: “I had in mind neither children who receive high grades in school nor children talented in a special way. I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb… Without this ‘gift’ offered us by nature, we would not have survived.”

She writes in the book, “A little reflection soon shows how inconceivable it is really to love others (not merely to need them), if one cannot love oneself as one really is.

“And how could a person do that if, from the very beginning, he has had no chance to experience his true feelings and to learn to know himself? For the majority of sensitive people, the true self remains deeply and thoroughly hidden. But how can you love something you do not know, something that has never been loved?

“So it is that many a gifted person lives without any notion of his or her true self. Such people are enamored of an idealized, conforming, false self. They will shun their hidden and lost true self, unless depression makes them aware of its loss or psychosis confronts them harshly with that true self, whom they now have to face and to whom they are delivered up, helplessly, as to a threatening stranger.”

Miller says in looking at the origins of this loss of the self in the book, she chooses not to use the term “narcissism.” “However, in my clinical descriptions,” she adds, “I shall speak occasionally of a healthy narcissism and depict the ideal case of a person who is genuinely alive, with free access to the true self and his authentic feelings.

“I shall contrast this with narcissistic disorders, with the true self’s ‘solitary confinement’ within the prison of the false self. This I see less as an illness than as tragedy, and it is my aim in this book to break away from judgmental, isolating, and therefore discriminating terminology.”

[From Direct Quotes from The Drama of the Gifted Child.]

Celebrities and narcissism

In his article The narcissist, unmasked, Benedict Carey describes qualities that fit many celebrity level performers, as well as other professionals: “They’ve got the most fabulous personal trainer in town, the best lawyer, the top BMW mechanic, and make sure the world knows it.

“They’re charming enough to attract friends, associates and lovers — only to drop them as soon as better prospects show up. They need the best table in the house, the lion’s share of the conversation and, above all, top billing, whether on the marquee or in the mailroom.

“While familiar at almost any level of society, these peacocks find Southern California an especially comfortable habitat. In the warm bath of sunlight and celebrity, their behavior can be entertaining, even encouraged, and it’s usually relatively harmless.

“Yet some of these seemingly overconfident people are actually in considerable psychological trouble, suffering what psychiatrists call narcissistic personality disorder, one of the most self-destructive and difficult-to-treat conditions in the lexicon of mental illness.

“For contrary to Narcissus of Greek legend, who was enthralled by his own reflection in a pool of water, researchers say that roughly 1 million Americans with this personality disorder act not from self-love but from a kind of self-loathing, a dread of failure and an inability to endure its emotional fallout — shame.

“Millions more are thought to suffer from narcissistic tendencies, due to similar but less extreme fears. Recent research suggests that this anguish develops in early childhood, and that therapists can help put it to rest.” [Los Angeles Times, Oct 14 2002]

Does fame and power fuel narcissism?

Another perspective is offered by writer Stephen Sherrill in his New York Times article Acquired Situational Narcissism.

“We all know that movie stars, professional athletes, rich people and politicians often act like complete jackasses,” he writes, “but Robert B. Millman, professor of psychiatry at Cornell Medical School and the medical adviser to Major League Baseball, thinks he knows why. The cause, he says, is acquired situational narcissism, a psychological dysfunction that Millman was the first to identify and that he treats in his celebrity patients.”

Sherrill explains, “People who aspire to stardom tend to be more narcissistic than others, but they don’t develop a true narcissistic personality disorder until they begin to achieve success: the first platinum album, the first appearance in Vanity Fair’s ‘Young Hollywood’ issue, the first public fling with Winona Ryder.”

Not necessarily craziness

Having these sort of narcissistic tendencies doesn’t mean you are “crazy” or necessarily need therapy.

But it can be helpful to our emotional growth and power as creative people to be more aware of how we operate, and change what doesn’t serve us well.

Richard Gere once commented, “The more I grow, the less I become this egocentric thing that is prone to anger and hatred and all this other stuff. The trick is to get out of the way of the ego, so that whatever is of value illuminating inside you or me or the waiter or anybody else can be seen. The job of the creative person is to get out of the way.” [LA Times, 1/5/03]

Ego self-esteem

Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle [Meg Ryan made Oprah aware of his book The Power of Now] distinguishes two kinds of self esteem. “First there is the ego self-esteem,” he says.

“Even if you have high ego self-esteem, there’s always hidden fear underneath it. It’s always there to compensate for the fear you feel of not being good enough or perhaps failing. So you need to play a role of being big to compensate for fear of failure that’s deep down.

“But the world would say he or she has high self-esteem. People who have big egos. But the world doesn’t realize that that’s not true self-esteem.”

True self-esteem, he explains, “goes much deeper. It’s finding the source of power and aliveness deep inside.”

From article Eckhart Tolle on Shyness, Self-esteem and Ego.

Actor Vera Farmiga cautions, “This business [entertainment] is tough, it is so tough. But my first and foremost thing is like, ego always gets in the way. You gotta keep that in check – you got to.”

~ ~ ~

Alice Miller’s site

Books by Alice Miller:
The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
The Untouched Key: Tracing Childhood Trauma in Creativity and Destructiveness

Another book: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.  Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Re-Visited

Related article: Ego and Creativity

Related pages:
Ego / narcissism
Ego / narcissism 2 : quotes articles books

actors and narcissism, entertainment psychology, search for your true self, overcoming narcissism, narcissism books

“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 of Fame, I note that many talented actors have an ambivalent attitude about gaining or pursuing celebrity status, or just high visibility with the public, and with the decision makers such as film studios which can help their careers grow.

Winona Ryder commented about being relatively out of the spotlight the past couple of years, “Hollywood people associate movies solely with fame and I didn’t enjoy working in that way anymore. I am so much happier now.”

And there are a number of ways fame can make people emotionally unstable.

For example, psychiatrist Robert B. Millman developed the concept of acquired situational narcissism to explain some of the grandiose fantasies and other distortions people can be prey to after gaining high levels of fame.

One of the problems is being surrounded by people assuring the famed one that they are worthy of it. But as Millman noted in a NY Times article, the famous really are different: ”They’re not normal. And why would they feel normal when every person in the world who deals with them treats them as if they’re not?”

Fame can also assault sensitive people. Johnny Depp said he felt so intimidated by his celebrity status during his early career that he “had to be drunk to be able to speak and get through it. I guess I was trying not to feel anything.”

But it can also be strengthening, as Kim Basinger noted: “Because I’m such a shy person, having to live it out loud in front of everyone has made me a stronger woman, so much stronger, that it’s been a gift to me in a way.”
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celebrity and personal growth, film industry unreality, living with fame, personal development acting

[LATimes: Anthony Minghella said: "Increasingly, audiences are uncomfortable with any subject that is not aspirational." It seems that you think about projects versus products...]

Vera Farmiga: “It’s such a barbaric world we’re creating and living in. I think that every choice I make is with that in mind. How will that choice contribute to the chaos, and how will it maybe not? How can it?

“I live a pretty humble existence, which makes it possible. And I just want to live in a gentler, more refined world. And I have a simple existence in the country.” [She keeps goats on her place in upstate New York.]

[LA Times: Last August, you appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine; the article was about you mostly and about how there are no great roles for emerging serious actresses. What were the repercussions of that?]

Vera Farmiga: “Really what I heard was that it gave a lot of young actresses some guts. And hope. I heard some stories here and there about how it touched this person and it helped her with perseverance and it’s on her nightstand. Any time.”

[LA Times: Well, you seem like that person from that article.

Vera Farmiga: "God, it's tricky reading an article about yourself. There's just this cringe factor."

[LA Times: People forget that it's hard for actors to look at themselves, because we project such narcissism on them.]

Vera Farmiga: “That is something I really work hard to negate, to combat, in a profession where it’s so much to do with ego and narcissism and image.

“I fought against [being interviewed for] that article for some time. I was resistant…. [I had never] gotten a job from any magazine article. Or red carpetry. Or partydom.”

[LA Times: Are there ways in which other actresses cannot be in competition for a smaller pie but work in cooperation?]

Vera Farmiga: “It has to be more of a sisterhood if we [want to] see more roles for women. Women producers have to cultivate more projects for women…

“The business is a lot of fun and games and free stuff and fame and fortune and working with people and spotlight and glamour — but the only thing that keeps me in the business is being a messenger for something serious and important… ["Joshua"] centers around a deviant child — but is also an opportunity to learn about postpartum psychosis and depression, which is a huge female issue.

“There’s that squabble between Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise. And as I was listening to their fencing about it, I realized this was a major women’s health issue that affects 17% of women who give birth a year.”

From Vera Farmiga on acting, motherhood and goat-milking, By Choire Sicha, Los Angeles Times, July 8 2007.]

Related pages:
Ego / narcissism
Fame / celebrity
Socially conscious filmmaking
Related article: Ego and Creativity
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Vera Farmiga, film industry unreality, celebrity and personal growth, films for political change

Part of the gunk that can clog creative expression is “ego” thinking and attitude that can come with fame, or with too much need for approval and power.

“Once you get used to being larger than life, it’s actually very liberating… I might as well do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want.” That is ‘Deanna, Diva’ in a print ad for “Diva” starring Annie Potts at The Pasadena Playhouse

Responding to a magazine question: “What kills creativity?” – actor Gillian Anderson replied succinctly, “Ego.” [quote from my article Ego and Creativity]

“Bewitched” director and co-writer Nora Ephron said about the character Darren [played by Will Ferrell] that “he is the kind of actor who I’m afraid is all too common. It’s not just that the guy wants three trailers (which he does in the film) but these guys pretend they want the woman to speak a few lines in the movie but they don’t really. That’s not unlike real life, by the way.” [LA Times, June 18, 2005]

Bryce Dallas Howard said about her own very opposite kind of attitude: “I feel if I get the job, that boosts my ego enough. If a director believes in me enough to give me the job, he can say whatever he wants after that, and it’s not going to break me down.”

Jennifer Lehman, a film acting teacher, commented in our interview that “You need to move away from your ego to stay in a creative state. Anytime you’re shifting the focus back to yourself, you’re shutting down creative potential. It’s difficult to achieve a consistent openness, letting things flow through you, without your own judgments, your own personal history, or how you think it should be, interfering with that.”

Dancer and choreographer Martha Graham commented [in the book: Martha..] about creative expression: “It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

> related page: ego / narcissism
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acting and ego, dealing with fame, celebrity and personal growth