Actor Mayim Bialik earned her Ph.D. from UCLA in Neuroscience, and on “The Big Bang Theory” she plays Amy Farrah Fowler, a neurobiologist and “not-girlfriend” of physicist Sheldon Cooper. In a Los Angeles Times article, Bialik comments, “The first episode I did for them, the executive producer said, ‘Do you really have a PhD?’ I [...]
Like many actors who want to develop their talents, Vanessa Hudgens observes people – and also uses the experience for personal growth. She also develops her awareness through reading, such as the book The Four Agreements. Hudgens chose to act in “Sucker Punch” – and wear risqué costumes for the role – because she found [...]
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 [...]
An inherited gift From article: Child actors: Sofia Vassilieva, ‘Medium’, By Lisa Rosen, Los Angeles Times NBC’S “Medium” centers on Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette) and her psychic abilities — in her dreams, she sees how people were killed. A great part of the show’s charm comes from the fact that Allison is also a wife [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Melissa George plays Laura in the HBO series In Treatment: “An attractive young anesthesiologist in the midst of a relationship crisis” seeking the help of a psychoanalyst, played by Gabriel Byrne. HBO: Did you have any personal experience with therapy or was this a completely new world to you? Melissa George: A completely new world, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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] [...]
In his article The Art of Making Meaning [a summary of his podcast], creativity coach and author Eric Maisel speaks about a client of his: “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 [...]
“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 [...]
Emotions bring the abstract to life on stage Hoon Lee plays David Henry Hwang’s alter ego in the play “Yellow Face” (at The Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles). “There are large emotional outbursts in both acts,” Lee says, “and the biggest challenge is remaining open enough because I’m painting a character who’s not that likable. [...]
“There is no prize, out there. The only prize is, this one, and what you feel and what you want to accomplish. … “I feel that I very often watch a lot of young people sort of meander around without any idea about why they’re doing what they’re doing. “I mean to want and to [...]
Elisabeth Shue is working on her ambition to play tennis professionally. “I like the road toward excellence. I like that it requires work. Everyday work. And it’s fulfilling to reach a goal of being as good as you can possibly be. And to push yourself.” Shue’s husband, Oscar-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim (”An Inconvenient Truth”), directed [...]
Especially in such an ageist arena as entertainment, it is refreshing to hear some positive views on accepting, even embracing, our inevitable aging. Felicity Huffman thoughtfully expresses her perspectives on aging as an actor. [She stars in "Desperate Housewives" and the new film "Georgia Rule" (source of the photo) with Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan.] [...]
Rebecca Brooksher plays Kelly in Dying City, at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. In a Backstage.com interview [by Simi Horwitz, April 04, 2007] she talks about her decision to apply to Juilliard: “I’m not one of those people who finds the idea of [being] a starving artist acceptable. I felt that if I did [...]
Looking back at her earlier career and the fame of her 1994 show My So-Called Life, Claire Danes admitted in an interview that she always took herself very seriously. “I think because I am as earnest as I am, people were accepting of my evolving into a certified, legitimate…grown up. “When I was 18, I [...]
Jenna Fischer [Blades of Glory; The Office] went to college as a pre-law history student, but in her junior year switched to a theater major. Since “there wasn’t a film/TV department at Truman State, Fischer and a few other students got a camcorder and started writing and editing shows that they would then present on [...]
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