The Inner Actor » The Inner Actor – the psychology of acting and performanceThe personal dimensions of acting and performing2012-04-28T17:45:12Zhttp://theinneractor.com/feed/atom/WordPressThis is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Emily Blunt on showing her real side and being balanced]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=8632012-04-28T17:12:21Z2012-04-28T16:47:11Z“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.”
]]>0Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Artistic confidence – Being shy and an actor]]>http://talentdevelop.com/inneractor/?p=422012-04-21T01:36:09Z2012-04-20T03:23:00ZShy 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.
]]>3Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Kristen Johnston on overcoming her love affair with chemicals]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=8362012-03-29T05:11:48Z2012-03-29T04:19:52ZKristen 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 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
]]>2Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Jessica Chastain: “I’m not an actor to be a personality.”]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=8252011-12-21T05:53:19Z2011-12-21T05:53:19ZJessica 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 recent newspaper article notes she has since 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.”
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.”
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.
Top photo: Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer in The Help. Bottom photo: in The Debt.
~ ~
]]>4Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame]]>http://talentdevelop.com/inneractor/?p=332011-11-26T06:38:51Z2011-11-26T00:20:00Z“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.”
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]
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?’”
]]>0Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=8092012-02-26T06:34:43Z2011-11-24T01:31:10ZHer 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.
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.
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.
]]>4Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Actors and creative polymathy: Mayim Bialik, James Franco and others]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=7952011-06-12T20:13:44Z2011-06-12T19:59:50ZActor 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.
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.”
“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.
]]>4Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Vanessa Hudgens on striving to be strong and aware]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=7852011-04-12T17:04:07Z2011-04-11T05:28:04ZLike 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 the movie’s underlying message empowering.
She said the outfits represent a kind of female empowerment fantasy: “If you imagine yourself going into these action situations, she’s not gonna show up in sweatpants.
“You want to be the best that you can be and be the most ferocious. I mean, the costumes gave us a sense of confidence and power.
“The way that I carried myself was different.” [Los Angeles Times 3.23.11]
~ ~ ~
Hudgens sometimes visits Venice Beach: “I love going to the drum circle down there. Every now and then someone will let me join in and bang on their drums, and I just love people who are completely free. Even if they’re drug addicts, who sometimes freak me out.
“I’m figuring out how to be a better person while observing other people.”
She is striving to be more aware and “present-oriented” – and strong – and has been studying the book The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz.
“It has honestly changed me, almost. You really have to stay strong, because times get tough. Especially in this business. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. There’s so many amazing actresses who got taken advantage of.
“Someone like Natalie Wood, one of my idols — who knows what happened to her? She was on a boat that was mysteriously in the water, and now she’s dead.
“A lot of women get walked all over on by not standing up for themselves, and that’s just not what I’m about. I’m figuring myself out now as a young adult more than I ever have. It’s like my eyes are opening and I’m awakening to controlling my future.”
[From The Actor's Craft: Vanessa Hudgens has left 'High School' behind, by Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2011.]
According to an Amazon summary, The Four Agreements “reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering.”
The Lefkoe Method also provides an approach to dealing with limiting beliefs, and is acclaimed by many people, including personal growth and success author Jack Canfield.
Hudgens says “When I was young, I would not talk to anybody if I didn’t know them. I’d hide behind my mom if she tried to introduce me to anyone.” In middle school, she got into fashion, “which tends to make you a little more popular,” she notes, and acting. She said, “When I was on the stage, I felt like I was hiding behind a person, and I adored it.”
Visit my TalentDevelop Channel on YouTube for other videos on personal development topics for actors and other creative people.
]]>8Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Emily Blunt on fate and stammering and acting]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=7772011-03-07T01:14:58Z2011-03-05T06:22:50ZIn her varied roles, Emily Blunt is often a strong presence, intriguing for her complex emotions and intelligence – sometimes not quite expressed, but showing in her eyes.
With her new movie The Adjustment Bureau so much about fate, it is interesting to read some of her perspectives on what she was like earlier in her life, and what led her into acting.
“My head was occupied all the time. I was confused about what I wanted to do or who I was; I didn’t really feel I had an identity growing up.” [imdb.com]
That is something I can really relate to – and many other talented actors have expressed similar ideas.
This topic of self concept for artists is very interesting – and I have posted many quotes related to it on my various sites, such as this: Jennifer Jason Leigh has claimed, “As a person, I don’t really register that much. Director Robert Altman says that as a person I disappear in a way.”
Emily Blunt also talks about expression on camera:
“I learned very early on to reel everything in. Sometimes you just shouldn’t do anything because the camera sees everything – like the smallest flick of your eye and it catches it and it reads as something.
“The performances I enjoy are the ones that are hard to read or ambiguous or left-of-centre because it makes you look closer and that’s what humans are like – quite mysterious creatures, hard to pinpoint.”
She also noted, “I have sly eyes. When I was in school they always said, ‘Emily can never be elected Head Girl because you never know what she’s thinking.” [imdb.com]
Fate in our lives
In an interview about The Adjustment Bureau, Blunt (and co-star Matt Damon) were asked about any experiences of fate in their own lives.
Blunt commented: “Do you mean like has anything happened to us that seemed very fatalistic? I have one story, which is pretty cool that I remember. I didn’t get into this very amazing school that my sister went to. And I wanted to be just like my sister.
“It’s this school called Westminster in London, which is fiercely competitive. And she gets in because she’s a brainiac. And I don’t because I’m obviously not.
“And so I basically remember at sixteen just being devastated and my life was over. And this is so sad. And I felt so inferior that I hadn’t gotten in. so I went to my second choice school, which had a good drama department. Previously hadn’t considered acting.
“But I did a play through my school that went to the Edinburgh festival. I got an agent. He’s still my agent…And if I’d gone to Westminster I wouldn’t be doing this job. Guaranteed. So I think, like, that was weird. And at the time it seems devastating and so sad but really it was, obviously, meant to happen.”
[From Interview: Talking 'The Adjustment Bureau' With Matt Damon & Emily Blunt, By El Mayimbe, LatinoReview March 04, 2011.]
~~~
Acting lessons helped her overcome stammering.
“I couldn’t even talk,” Blunt said. “It was over the course of four years and it gradually just went away.
“My parents found it really hard because I was a smart kid and I had a lot to say, I just couldn’t say it.
“I still suffer with it sometimes, when I’m tired or stressed..”
[From my post Stammering as an opportunity - which mentions other actors who suffered from stuttering, including James Earl Jones; Bruce Willis; Jimmy Stewart; Harvey Keitel; Julia Roberts; Marilyn Monroe and Nicole Kidman.
In another interview article, Blunt admits, "It would just haunt me. I never thought I'd be able to sit and talk to someone like I'm talking to you right now."
The article says, "Then a teacher suggested acting lessons, and by age 18, Blunt was starring opposite Judi Dench in Peter Hall's London production of The Royal Family. (When she pretended to be someone else, Blunt says, "something lifted in me.")
"Today, at 24, she's one of those poised, silver-tongued Englishwomen who seems at ease in almost any situation, whether it's playing the catty assistant of Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada or lobbying for a chance to star as the young Queen Victoria in a new film produced by Martin Scorsese."
[Putting It Bluntly, by Miranda Priestly, W magazine.]
Photo at top from The Adjustment Bureau; bottom: The Wolfman.
]]>5Douglas Ebyhttp://talentdevelop.com/resume.html<![CDATA[Nicole Kidman on fame, and actors as highly sensitive people]]>http://theinneractor.com/?p=7722011-01-25T04:30:52Z2011-01-24T03:53:45ZJennifer Aniston: What attracts you to a project? What’s the key element that has to be there?
Nicole Kidman: Usually something strange. It’s a little weird or offbeat or very uncomfortable.
I have to be convinced to do things that are more mainstream.
As a kid, I was always a bit, I suppose, darker. I was drawn to things that were unusual.
And that’s partly to do with my parents. My mom’s always questioned things, wanted us not to conform.
So, with roles, I like to be in a place of discomfort. I do my best work in the most complicated roles. I don’t have the capacity to be lighter, and I so wish I did. I’m working on it. …
JA: Did you always want to act?
Nicole Kidman: I think I did… For me, it was never going to be work. It was almost like I needed to have a day job, because this was too much fun.
But I was a highly sensitive child, and the last thing my parents wanted was for their child to go in and get hurt.
JA: What do you think is the hardest thing about being an actor?
Nicole Kidman: Fame. It’s a great thing in the sense of the opportunities it gives you, but you don’t realize that you’re dancing with the 100-pound gorilla.
JA: Yeah, it turns from Glinda the Good Witch into the nasty green one, then back to Glinda again.
Nicole Kidman: Most actors are highly sensitive people, but you have this incredible scrutiny. You have to develop a thick skin, but you can’t have a thick skin in your work.
So it’s that constant push-pull of going, How do I stay human and vulnerable and real, and how do I, at the same time, not let all this affect me? I suppose it’s the same when you’re at school and you get a taste of girls who are being mean.
It’s the same thing, just at a bigger level.
But at the same time, we’re in an extraordinary place, and to complain about it you go, Ugh, move on.
~ ~
From “Nicole Kidman: The Interview” By Jennifer Aniston, Harper’s Bazaar January 5, 2011 – they costar in the new comedy Just Go With It.
[Photo of Nicole Kidman from Rabbit Hole.]
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