The Inner Actor » The Inner Actor – the psychology of acting and performance

Dealing with fame – or not

2013-05-06T20:17:04Z

In April 2013 People Magazine named Gwyneth Paltrow the “World’s Most Beautiful Women in the World.”

She said that when her publicist sent her an email about it, “I was like, ‘this is a typo.’ Like I reread it three times, and then I got this really weird old feeling that my school bully had somehow was playing a trick on me.

“I swear, I had to talk about [it] with my shrink. I went through this whole weird thing…And I was beyond surprised, flattered, and I still kinda can’t believe it. It’s, it’s really cool.”

[She was also named ‘Most Hated’ Celeb in a Star Magazine Poll.]

[From Gwyneth Paltrow on Iron Man 3, Robert Downey Jr. and Being the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, Babble.com]

But other actors have different perspectives on fame

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 too famous.”

Many talented actors have an ambivalent attitude about gaining or pursuing celebrity status, or just high visibility.

Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder commented about it: “Hollywood people associate movies solely with fame and I didn’t enjoy working in that way anymore. I am so much happier now.” [Another Magazine March 2006]

Another aspect of fame is the hype, and what that can do to your sense of reality.

Lynda Carter

Lynda Carter was also once voted “The Most Beautiful Woman In The World” and admits “there was a short time where I believed the hype. Not the “beautiful” things but that I believed I was really important, and that didn’t last very long because it didn’t feel good.”

[Also quoted in my article The Dark Side of Fame.]

[Photo also used in post: Superhuman or Extra Intelligent?]

But fame can be a valuable aspect of career growth – perhaps especially for actors and other artists whose work is “onstage” and in public view.

Mary Rocamora on recognition vs expectations

A counselor who works with a number of prominent actors, Mary Rocamora thinks “Many gifted performers crave public recognition because it fuels their creative process.

“A major preoccupation of gifted performers is the struggle to find their way into the company of their peers so that their talents can flourish. Becoming famous and respected almost certainly brings opportunities to work with other gifted individuals.”

But the dark side of fame can undermine personal and creative growth, as Rocamora notes: “When gifted performers ascend to fame and on-the-street recognizability, they face increased levels of public exposure. They are often overwhelmed by public expectations, loss of privacy, and the fear of public humiliation if their imperfections are disclosed to the press.”

[From article Counseling Issues.. by Mary Rocamora]

Kim Basinger

Fame can assault sensitive spirits, but also strengthen your personality, as Kim Basinger commented: “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.”

> Related page: fame and celebrity

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Jessica Chastain: “I’m not an actor to be a personality.”

2013-01-03T00:59:43Z

Why choose to be an actor? Or pursue any form of creative expression? The answers help define our identity as a creative person, and fuel our motivation.

Actor Ciarán Hinds recalled an armourer who spoke to him on the set of one of his sword-and-sandal epics: “He said, ‘Do you know what we call you guys? Talking props.’ That made me laugh so much.

“Bring on the talking props. That’s what we are. There’s a bit more to it. But sometimes not that much more.”

From post: Ciarán Hinds on egos and acting.

Jessica Chastain has talked about what inspires her to be an actor, and to make acting meaningful for herself and her audiences.

“I have always known I wanted to be an actress, but my New York experience made me realize that my desire had nothing to do with becoming famous or making money, I was interested in exploring the human soul, its complexity, I wanted to work to understand something about life and myself.

“Being an actress means being in another person’s shoes and therefore understanding what the person whose role you play feels; but also connecting with other human beings, as a mark of profound professional intimacy, that often touches the soul.” [imdb.com]

Chastain once commented about her unusual appearance and seeking roles: “When I first moved to LA, it was very difficult. All the casting directors didn’t know what to do with me, with the way I looked.

“I’m not blonde with tanned skin and tall and skinny. I looked very different – and they said I looked like I was from another time.” (imdb.com)

A newspaper article noted she has gained acclaim for her work and has at least three films putting her in Oscar contention: “Take Shelter,” “The Help” and “The Tree of Life.”

[Her outstanding performance in "Zero Dark Thirty" came later.]

The article continues:

‘But before she was everywhere, she says, she was nowhere. “I would be attached to these beautiful projects, with Al Pacino or Terrence Malick and Brad Pitt, or Helen Mirren and for some reason … the companies would just keep getting sold,” she recalls. “It was like, ‘Gosh, I am the most unlucky person.’”

‘In what appears to be a Chastain characteristic, however, the glass was always half-full. “I took advantage of the delays and kept working. The great thing is it created a blank slate,” she says.

“A director could see me without having knowledge of a performance that might have typecast me, so I took advantage of that a lot. This year … is the flip side of that.” //

‘Chastain started her arc toward the other side by earning a scholarship at Juilliard, and banging around in such TV shows as “Law & Order: Trial by Jury” and “Veronica Mars” for a few years until all of that hard feature work just took off. And now she’s having to deal with some of the biggest challenges of her career, including figuring out how to swing into the mainstream of success, keeping her open heart and earnest eagerness intact.

‘Already she laments feeling treated differently once she’s revealed as a movie actress. At a recent dinner party, a lively conversation quieted once she told the strangers she was talking to what she did for a living. “Immediately, I could see their eyes change,” she says.

“The conversation stopped being this free, equal thing. They separated from me. But I don’t want that to happen — how can I play normal people if I’m separate?”

‘Working next to Pitt showed her what being separate is like: “There were paparazzi trying to get pictures of him, and when the film came out, do you know how many people were asking me what he was like as a parent? That’s none of my business!” she says. “I remember thinking that for your whole life, there’s going to be someone who wants something.”

‘Her openness and sincerity, qualities that she telegraphs so clearly in her performances, are precious commodities and, at this stage, Chastain keeps them on her sleeve. It’s almost hard to imagine that one day she’ll have to draw them in a little deeper and keep the things that allow her to play an idealized mother, or the embodiment of grace, out of sight for her own protection. She already says she’ll stop doing interviews when the questions become about her, rather than the work.

“I love talking about the films, I love cinema. But me … that’s so uninteresting,” she says.

‘Many would disagree, even if the sentiment makes sense. For now, Chastain’s hat trick of performances threatens to undermine the career she’s worked so hard to build up.

‘No matter how award season wraps up, she’s going to have to fight hard to prevent her “it” status from flipping into celebrity of blockbuster proportions. Expect more indie films with strong characters, or perhaps a return to the theater. Whatever she does, however, she’ll do it with grace.’

“Right after ‘Tree of Life’ came out, I started hearing about strategies for my career,” she says. “And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to do anything based on a strategy. If I don’t continue to challenge myself and risk failure, I have no business being an actor.

“I’m not an actor to be a personality. I want to see every part I take like a master class. And you know what? I’m going to fail sometimes. And that’s OK. Because when you fail, you learn more.”

From Jessica Chastain wants to be an actress, not a celebrity, By Randee Dawn, Special to the Los Angeles Times December 15, 2011.

The challenges of fame

Chastain is rightfully wary of fame. See post: Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame.

Also see more related articles below.

Top photo: from post: Jessica Chastain on being sensitive and a loner.

Middle photo: Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer in “The Help.” Bottom photo: in “The Debt.”

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The impostor phenomenon – Feeling like a fraud

2012-12-29T04:42:55Z

“It’s all been a big sham.”

“Sometimes I wake up in the morning before going off to a shoot, and I think, I can’t do this; I’m a fraud. They’re going to fire me — all these things. I’m fat; I’m ugly…”

Those admissions by Kate Winslet [Interview mag. Nov 2000] were made after her Academy Award nominations for Titanic (1997) and Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Those kinds of impostor feelings are shared by a wide range of highly talented people, including many actors.

Michelle Pfeiffer said (in 2002) “I still think people will find out that I’m really not very talented. I’m really not very good. It’s all been a big sham.”

Nicole Kidman has said she often thinks, “They’re going to look at me to fire me.” And Don Cheadle said, “All I can see [in his performances in movies] is everything I’m doing wrong that is a sham and a fraud.”

Actor Stacey Jackson, in her Backstage/Unscripted article “Doubts,” notes that “A healthy dose of self-doubt isn’t always a bad thing. Ask your parents and friends if they have doubts about their professional abilities, and I’m sure the honest ones will say, ‘yes.’

“It seems silly now, but until recently, I thought that I was the only one who questioned my abilities. But teachers, consultants, lawyers, writers, doctors, you name it, they all have doubts at various points in their careers. Even brilliant actors doubt their talent.”

Doubt can keep us diligent

But, Jackson notes, “Doubts keep us diligent. Without doubt, I probably wouldn’t keep studying my craft and striving for better work. Fear of failure is a great motivator and it keeps our actor egos in check… doubt and passion is a powerful combination. It’s the mark of a determined actor.”

There are probably a number of personality traits that impact our self-doubt and feelings of being a fraud, such as perfectionism, holding very high standards for yourself and your work.

A number of years ago, speaking of Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow said, “I think Matt places so much importance on being an artist or a good actor, and he’ll really beat himself up to get there. You always feel like he’s feeling: ‘I don’t deserve this.’”

And Damon admitted, “I just never know if I’m going to pull it off. I have terrible, grave concerns about my own ability.”

Some feel they owe their success to others

In her article The Impostor Syndrome, Valerie Young explains the concept of the Impostor Syndrome was developed by psychology professor Pauline Clance and psychologist Suzanne Imes in a study called The Impostor Phenomenon Among High Achieving Women (1978).

“In a nutshell,” Young writes, “Clance and Imes found that many of their female clients seemed unable to internalize their accomplishments. External proof of intelligence and ability in the form of academic excellence, degrees, recognition, promotions and the like was routinely dismissed.

“Instead, success was attributed to contacts, luck, timing, perseverance, personality or otherwise having ‘fooled’ others into thinking they were smarter and more capable than these women ‘knew’ themselves to be.

“Rather than offering assurance, each new achievement and subsequent challenge only served to intensify the ever-present fear of being… Found Out.”

“You’re intelligent and successful… at least that’s what everyone says. So how come you don’t always feel that way?”

From site of the program by Dr. Valerie Young: Overcome the Impostor Syndrome.

Cognitive challenges can limit fraud feelings

One way to deal with fraud feelings, if it becomes too self-limiting, is to use a cognitive therapy strategy of “questioning the evidence”: Would a producer of director really make such an important business decision as casting based merely on your looks, with no consideration of your acting ability? Do your peers really make comments about your work that imply you are a fake?

There may also be deeper issues of self-esteem or fear of success that can help make us feel like a fraud. But all that kind of stuff can be improved with counseling, or just life experience and greater self-awareness.

Related Talent Development Resources pages:

Impostor syndrome

Self concept / self esteem articles
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Scarlett Johansson: “I’m comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

2012-12-24T21:20:30Z

As many actors and other creative people have noted, facing our fears is often a key to developing creativity and doing exceptional creative work.

Talking about taking on one of the most iconic theatrical roles, Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Scarlett Johansson refers to making more demanding choices on herself for roles.

“I felt extreme vulnerability over the last few years, more than I ever had, and no longer wanted to keep rushing into movie jobs or a play just to escape how I was feeling. Once I wanted to work again, I wanted to start playing adults — tough women who knew what it took to survive.”

She said that after her debut on Broadway, in “A View From the Bridge” – for which she earned a Tony Award for featured actress – she wanted to push herself more.

“I decided I wanted to keep doing projects that I didn’t know how to do,” she said. “I’m finally at a place in my life where I feel comfortable not anticipating the result. I’m comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

An article reports one example:

‘Memorizing Maggie’s long monologues in Act I, for instance, so unnerved Ms. Johansson that she asked friends for advice and snapped occasionally when they tried to be positive. “People would say it’s all going to be great, and I would be like,” using profanity for punctuation, “because it felt like a heavy ball and chain around me.”’

Commenting about earlier failing to get the role of ‘Laura’ in a stage production of “The Glass Menagerie,” she said, “I’ve spent most of my life being rejected, but that has only made me more ambitious and competitive. But with some roles I have to learn for myself that it’s not right.”

But she enthuses about her work in “Cat…”: “To bare yourself — to be naked in front of someone and show your belly, and be willing to face the hard truth of pain and rejection — is who I am and is who Maggie is.”

The article comments: ‘Exploring every layer of Maggie is not only about doing justice to the character, Ms. Johansson said, but also a way of expressing gratitude for having a great adult role at this point in her career.’

“I feel like I’ve been transitioning from young woman into womanhood for a very long time,” she said. “Now, as I approach 30, with the last few years behind me, I feel like growing pains are behind me.”

‘Then she laughed and muttered a profanity. “It’s just nice to feel happy.”

From The Kitten Makes Way for the Cat By Patrick Healy, The New York Times December 19, 2012.

[Photo from video at show site catonahottinroofbroadway.com.]

Emily Blunt on showing her real side and being balanced

2012-04-28T17:12:21Z

“I think I’m starting to show the real side of myself in my roles.”

Emily Blunt adds, “People have told me my recent movies are the most like me.”

Her current movie “The Five-Year Engagement” is her first broad romantic comedy, a genre she had resisted a long time out of fear over playing “the pill girlfriend.”

“I was so sick to death of reading scripts where the girl’s like, the pill girlfriend who just sits at home wearing hot pants being like, ‘Oh, honey, you’re so weird!’ and the guy is having these amazing comedic moments,” Blunt said.

She feels fortunate to have a work-life balance that many accomplished and talented people in entertainment don’t.

“Most of my day, I try not to allow that paranoia that is so much a part of this industry consume me,” she said.

“I haven’t invested everything emotionally I have in this business. I don’t define myself by being an actress.”

From article: Blunt approach to film? Be real by Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times April 28, 2012.

Photo from Emily Blunt Official Facebook Page [apparently a fan page]

Creative risks – Amy Adams on being authentic but safe

Artistic confidence – Being shy and an actor

2012-04-21T01:36:09Z

Shy since childhood

Clea DuVall has referred to herself as “an only child and I’m just a real loner kind of person, and yeah, kinda dark. But I’m happy. Not sad. I’m just shy and nervous.” [imdb.com]

Like many other talented actors, she considers herself shy. Maybe acting – playing other people – is a way to use that trait, or deal with it.

Mischa Barton said she was always called “the shy one” and “got so much more confident as I realized acting was what I really wanted to do.”

Kim Basinger has said, “As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class.”

Nicole Kidman has said, “I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don’t like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don’t like going to a party by myself.”

Taye Diggs says he has been acting for as long as he has been shy, and has an interesting perspective on using acting: “I wouldn’t say my insecurities and shyness have lessened just because of expressing myself through acting, but what has a role in my becoming more confident is the kind of false sense of adoration you get from the business… because I was so insecure, it gives me a reason to be a little more confident.” [From my interview with him years ago.]

Giftedness and introversion

Shyness may be related to low confidence, or to introversion, a common personality trait of many gifted and talented people. While acting may be a way to gain confidence, some people find it helpful to get counseling, or explore if they have social phobia or some other kind of anxiety that may keep them from being authentic and freely expressive on stage or on camera.

> Related post on my Highly Sensitive site: Shyness and sensitivity – working it out on stage or off

Kristen Johnston on overcoming her love affair with chemicals

2012-11-19T02:57:26Z

Kristen Johnston is one of my favorite actors. She reminds me of exuberant movie star ‘dames’ such as Rosalind Russell.

But, like many talented people, she has used and abused drugs. A newspaper article says she was “propelled” into drug and substance abuse at an early age due to low self-esteem – not an uncommon story.

Here are more quotes from the article:

Kristen Johnston has confessed to being a longtime drug user and alcoholic – addictions that pushed her perilously close to an agonizing death in a London hospital.

‘I’m a pill-popping lush,’ Johnston reveals in her new memoir Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster.’

‘I’ve been in recovery for five years, and I’ve worked my ass off to prevent a relapse.’

‘Johnston, who stars as sexy divorce lawyer Holly Brooks on The Exes and played sultry extraterrestrial Sally Solomon on 3rd Rock from the Sun, was propelled into substance abuse at a young age thanks to low self-esteem.

‘My love affair with chemicals started in high school,’ writes Johnston, who grew up in Milwaukee. ‘I loved drinking, being drunk, and all drunk people.’

She started ‘stealing Vicodin all the time from my best friend who needed them for her migraines … stealing them from my mother, who had just had knee replacement surgery … [and] taking painkillers prescribed for my own sweet dog. Thank God they weren’t beef flavoured, because that would’ve been really embarrassing.’

From article: Kristen Johnston confesses drug and alcohol addictions in tell-all memoir, Daily Mail, 7 March 2012.

> Her new memoir: Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster.

From the book: “It felt like I was speeding on the Autobahn toward hell, trapped inside a DeLorean with no brakes. And even if I could somehow stop, I’d still be screwed, because there’s no way I’d ever be able to figure out how to open those insane, cocaine-designed doors.”

One of many reviews: “GUTS is utterly brilliant, every page brimming with Kristen’s sexy wit. Disarming in its honesty, hysterically funny, pure, real, and so heartbreakingly brutal.” — Kate Winslet

Also see my related articles:

Actors and Addiction

Gifted, Talented, Addicted

Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame

2011-11-26T06:38:51Z

“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 the kind of spirit she projected on the screen–the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked–was an almost inconceivable psychological achievement that required a heroism of the highest order.

“Whatever scars her past had left were insignificant by comparison.

“She preserved her vision of life through a nightmare struggle, fighting her way to the top. What broke her was the discovery, at the top, of as sordid an evil as the one she had left behind – worse, perhaps, because incomprehensible.

“She had expected to reach the sunlight; she found, instead, a limitless swamp of malice.

“It was a malice of a very special kind. If you want to see her groping struggle to understand it, read the magnificent article in the August 17, 1962, issue of Life magazine.

“It is not actually an article, it is a verbatim transcript of her own words–and the most tragically revealing document published in many years. It is a cry for help, which came too late to be answered.”

“When you’re famous, you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way,” Monroe said. “It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who is she – who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe?

“They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, you know, of any kind of nature – and it won’t hurt your feelings – like it’s happening to your clothing. . . . I don’t understand why people aren’t a little more generous with each other. I don’t like to say this, but I’m afraid there is a lot of envy in this business.”

[From Ayn Rand On Marilyn Monroe (August 1962), Posted by ehehr1955.]

Many creative people, including actors, actively pursue fame, or at least endure it, as a way to advance their careers. But fame may also be driven by hidden psychological needs, and can lead to harmful expectations, distorted thinking and deep emotional challenges.

With all the attention about her movie “Brokeback Mountain,” costar Michelle Williams said at the time she and her then fiance Heath Ledger considered moving to Amsterdam or Greece or somewhere “with no paparazzi or gossip magazines, where we don’t have to feel so self-conscious, because that is the death of a spontaneous, creative, real life. I can’t live my life that way and pretend I’m not bothered by it and that everything’s fine. It deeply disturbs me.” [Interview mag., March 2006]

See comments by Williams about portraying the iconic star in the post:
Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe.

Scarlett Johansson on being groped

The 2006 Golden Globe Awards provided another example of how fame can distort attitudes toward stars. Scarlett Johansson was interviewed by designer Isaac Mizrahi, who actually groped her, claiming he wanted to see how her dress was made.

She graciously said later, “Someone I have never met before fondles me for his own satisfaction. Like he doesn’t know how a dress works. He’s a guy that’s starting his TV career and he’s making a bit of an exciting moment for himself. I can’t be angry at him.”

But his outrageous behavior was an example of how celebrities are often treated.

When you are famous enough, it seems, you are no longer simply a human being to some journalists, for example, who seem to use fame as an excuse to set aside ordinary considerations of respect and propriety.

And people who “need” fame may tolerate a lot of disrespect to get more attention.

Virginia Madsen on sexism

Virginia Madsen (“Sideways”) noted that Lindsay Lohan has been asked questions the media would never ask of boys: “In every interview I read, somebody was asking her about her weight and, ‘Do you throw up in the bathroom?’ I mean, no one asks teenage boys, ‘Do you have pubic hair yet?’ Whereas they’ll ask a teenage girl, ‘Are you still a virgin?’”

> More in my article: The Dark Side of Fame.

Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe

2012-02-26T06:34:43Z

Her portrayal of the icon is earning praise from many reviewers.

Claudia Puig writes in USA TODAY that “While My Week With Marilyn is more an awestruck reverie than a revelatory biopic, it’s worth seeing for Williams’ bravura performance.”

Roger Ebert thinks “The movie seems to be a fairly accurate re-creation of the making of a film at Pinewood Studios at that time. It hardly matters. What happens during the famous week hardly matters. What matters is the performance by Michelle Williams.

“She evokes so many Marilyns, public and private, real and make-believe. We didn’t know Monroe, but we believe she must have been something like his. We’re probably looking at one of this year’s Oscar nominees.”

A number of those reviewers refer to her exceptional performance as “channeling Marilyn Monroe.”

But I think that idea discounts Williams’ intense emotional and intellectual work in realizing such a complex and powerful performance; Williams is not a passive “channel” – she is a very actively engaged artist.

In the article “Michelle Williams channels Marilyn Monroe” (By Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times November 20, 2011), Williams refers to some of her emotional challenges and vulnerability in portraying Monroe.

“Maybe it was Marilyn, but I felt more fragile than I usually do on this movie. I felt more dependent on other people’s kindnesses. I would live off a compliment that the camera man gave me for two weeks. It would feed me. It would get me out of bed.”

> Here is more from the article:

After [Heath Ledger's] death, Williams struggled to find her footing in Hollywood. She took a year off, she said, “unsure of how I would go back, or if I wanted to go back” to acting. After she began to emerge from the fog of grief, she recommitted herself to the craft and decided to take a more gut-driven approach to her career.

“I read this Flaubert quote once that I really love: ‘I want to live the quiet life of the bourgeois so that I can be violent and unrestrained in my work,” she said, reciting the words from memory. “And I like that. Live the simple life and save all your extra forces for your work.”

When she read the script for “My Week With Marilyn,” adapted for the screen by Adrian Hodges, Williams instantly felt compelled to do the movie. Growing up, her room had been filled with images of Monroe: a cardboard cutout and a poster of her running through a field, arms outstretched, joyous.

“I remember thinking that if even a woman that beautiful clearly has trouble and is damaged and has insecurities, then we’re all entitled,” said Williams, who was born 18 years after Monroe died. …

“With any sort of part that I take, there’s a hint of an idea of how I’m gonna do it. I don’t really know the full scope of it, but there’s something inside of me gravitating towards it.”

To figure out who Monroe — “this stranger” — was in the months leading to filming, Williams spent hours practicing Monroe’s vocal cadences in her house while Matilda was at school. She’d teeter around in high heels, tying a belt around her knees to experiment with how to achieve Monroe’s famous wiggle.

“The biggest discovery I made was that Marilyn Monroe was a character she played,” said Williams, explaining she reached that conclusion through reading Monroe’s own writing as well as accounts by photographer Eve Arnold.

[One book Williams may have read: My Story, by Marilyn Monroe.]

“So I lived with her, and I never stopped trying to find more information. Even on set, on the 10-minute breaks, I would be back poring through photos or with my earphones in watching a movie. I was obsessed. I was on the trail of something. There were clues, and I had to solve a mystery.”

Harvey Weinstein, whose company is releasing the film, said he was impressed at the level of Williams’ preparation, how she could quote passages from Maurice Zolotow’s biography on Monroe.

“Michelle researches a role like no one I’ve ever encountered,” Weinstein wrote in an email. “She watched and studied the movies and photos; she read every book, every biography.… She could describe how Marilyn wiggled and winked while quoting some of her best lines, [like] when she teased that she was nude by saying, ‘I have nothing on but the radio.’” …

Don Murray, who costarred with Monroe in “Bus Stop” — which she shot immediately before “The Prince and the Showgirl” — said he didn’t find one false note in Williams’ interpretation of the legendary actress.

“Those who have worked with Marilyn say ‘Bus Stop’ was her best-behaved film, but she was still two or three hours late and also had trouble remembering her lines. The littlest thing would disturb her and send her concentration flying,” recounted Murray, 82. “I was astonished at how Michelle captured that. She got that total confusion — almost falling apart emotionally. Marilyn suffered every little thing.”

Williams — in production on Sam Raimi’s “Wizard of Oz” prequel — said “My Week With Marilyn” helped her to finally grow up. It was both the biggest challenge she’s ever taken on and the most fulfilling, she added, because it helped her to accept herself.

“I think I became an adult making this movie. I’ve always been scared of myself somehow. Or apologetic or something,” she said quietly. “I just felt for a long time that I was grappling with something I couldn’t quite master or understand.

“But I’ve been a parent for six years now. I have an amazing daughter, and at some point in the last year, it dawned on me that has to have something to do with me. And I need to give myself a break.”

~ ~

One of the many elements of My Week With Marilyn that I appreciated was the depiction of the emotional challenges Monroe suffered from the onslaught of fame and media attention.

See more quotes in my Creative Mind post Michelle Williams on Acting and Imagination.

See comments by both Marilyn Monroe and Michelle Williams, and other stars, in my post :
Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame

Many very talented actors like Williams – as well as other artists – feel unusually ‘fragile’ or ‘emotional’ – at least sometimes. It may go along with being a highly sensitive person (HSP), which about 20% of us are.

See my post Using your high sensitivity personality.

Also see my related site Highly Sensitive.

Some other comments of Williams refer to self-esteem and insecurity. Many creative people report feeling incompetent, inadequate and having low self esteem or self-regard at times. But there are ways to shift those feelings.

One of my posts on the topic: Actors and self esteem.

My Week with Marilyn [DVD]

Book: The Michelle Williams Handbook – Everything you need to know about Michelle Williams, by Emily Smith.

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Actors and creative polymathy: Mayim Bialik, James Franco and others

2011-06-12T20:13:44Z

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 hadn’t told him, because, well, where do you list that on your theatrical resume exactly?. So he tweaked the character’s profession.

“But having an understanding of both mental illness and neurosis has been tremendously helpful to me in my acting career.”

{There are many posts on my various TalentDevelop sites about acting and psychology, mental health, the psychology of creativity etc – see the list of posts on The Inner Actor by clicking on ‘Archives’ in the menu at the top – and see Mental Health posts on the main site.}

The article also notes, “James Franco…has been perhaps the most active actor-scholar of late: He is enrolled in Yale University’s English PhD program and North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College for poetry. In May, he earned a master’s degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and Columbia University’s MFA writing program, after already graduating from Brooklyn College for fiction writing last year.

From article Picking their next role: Joe College or hot young star?, by Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2011 – which also mentions Emma Watson, Blake Lively, Brad Pitt, Jodie Foster, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Shia LaBeouf and others.

{Photos of Mayim Bialik from her official website.}

Speaking of his role in the television series ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ Franco said it echoed his own high school experience.

“I was a little freak, a little geek. High school was a big party the first couple of years, but that gets old, so I broke away and just was a loner.

“I did a lot of painting, and I was a member of a local art league.”

From post James Franco on being a loner.

Creative polymathy

In his post “That’s DR. Winnie to you: A New Child Star Stereotype”, creativity researcher James C. Kaufman, Ph.D. writes about a number of people well-known as child stars, now grown, who have explored talents outside of acting.

He writes: “One of the research topics in creativity that has always fascinated me has been creative polymathy – the ability to be creative in more than one domain.”

One example he cites: “Danica McKellar (‘Winnie’ on The Wonder Years) earned her Ph.D. from UCLA in mathematics, currently writes books promoting math.”

From my post Developing multiple talents – the pleasures of creative polymathy.

Is Amy Farrah Fowler a positive image of high ability?

In her article How Pop Culture Stereotypes Impact the Self-Concept of Highly Gifted People, Sarah Williams declares, “Pop culture perpetuates two stereotypes of highly gifted people: the wisecracking whiz kid or the tortured genius. There is no grey area.

“On the more light-hearted side, we have characters like Doogie Howser…a 16-year old resident surgeon and bona fide genius…On the other side you have the troubled John Nash of A Beautiful Mind or Will Hunting of Good Will Hunting.”

Personally, I don’t think it is that simple: that there are only two stereotypes.

Amy Farrah Fowler and other characters on “The Big Bang Theory” are certainly extreme for the sake of comedy – but they are a lot of fun (despite the often extremely annoying laugh track).

John Nash as portrayed in the movie, and the character Will Hunting are also extreme and uncommon.

But all of them can point to some of the ‘uncommon’ personality qualities and giftedness traits that help distinguish high ability people – but which can also make it hard for many of us ‘outsider’ people to be relatable or even understood by those who are not so exceptional.

For more, see

High Ability site
High Ability / Facebook

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Actors and creative polymathy: Mayim Bialik, James Franco and others