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Amber
Tamblyn: I think that a lot
of actors get involved with
politics
because they have this self-esteem problem where they feel the need to
prove that they are more intelligent and more intellectual than what
their job requirement shows them to be. Some actors have this guilt
that what they do is not deep enough, so they look elsewhere for some
kind of approval.... It is really sad though because being a true actor
is to already have that depth.
> more on : acting: teen/young adult > related page : self-esteem / self concept |
 Since
Phenomenon, I can't get hired in a studio movie. And I don't know why.
Everything is so uphill for me.I often ask myself 'Why are you doing this?' But I always come back to it. ... I have to work very hard for every single thing I get. And that's OK. But sometimes it gets exhausting. My mother is a family therapist and almost every day somebody calls her or writes her a note saying Gosh, you changed my life -- thank you! |
And she says it's such a nice feeling that why don't I get
out of that stupid business.
But I do it because I want to exercise people's compassion and I do it because I really believe that, for some reason, what I do is important and meaningful. There are other venues for that, which aren't as hard. But I've gotten amazing recognition over the years so it's not entirely thankless. And I've had the chance to work with amazing people. I mean, for the battered wife who goes to see Personal Velocity for whatever reason and then realizes her own plight... it's worthwhile. Kyra Sedgwick atnzone.com interview about Personal Velocity (2002) |
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Acting kind of insulates you from the world. Ironically you go into this job that you think is going to allow you to be expressive to people and to connect to the world. And the more successful you are in a strange way, the less emotionally connected you are and the less often people emotionally connect to you.
Liev Schreiber / Los Angeles Times, Jan 16 2005 - about directing his
adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel "Everything Is Illuminated"> also see quotes by Foer on writing : page 2
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Nobody became an actor because he had a good childhood. /// When you do something well, they'll ask you to do it again. Early on, I must have done this [playing losers] well and the reputation was out there. It's strange because in my life, I don't feel like a loser. Far from it. I feel lucky.
William H. Macy ........[imdb.com bio]
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|
Michael O'Neill on the challenges
of being a journeyman actor Making it in Hollywood has always been a bit like Peter Pan's recipe for flight: All it takes is faith and trust; oh yes, and a little pixie dust. But lately, cost cutting, offshore production, the explosion of reality television shows and a shift in pay scales have made life harder for the journeyman actor to make a decent living. "It saddens me," Michael O'Neill says. "Because I'm not ready yet. I am an actor, that's who I am, who I've been most of my life. But the industry I'm in now is completely different than the one I got into. "It's not that there's no work. There's never been any work. But the work you get now does not recognize the value of your experience; it certainly does not compensate you for your experience. All the rules have changed." /// "When I nail a performance, when I do something that in all likelihood is too far out there to stick and then it works," he says, "there is no feeling like it in the world. If it's in an audition it doesn't matter if I get that job or another job. For a while anyway," he adds, laughing. /// If O'Neill decides in the next few years to stop being an actor it won't be because he couldn't live without the stardom. |
 It
will be because of the money. He has watched his salary decrease as his
experience increases, watched the gap in salary between the stars and
the rest of the cast widen to almost indescribable proportions.
"I just keep thinking if some of these big stars would just say something," he says. "Like, 'How about I only get $24 million and you take the other $1 million and make sure the rest of the cast is getting their quotes.' " He knows that talking about such things may well cost him opportunities, but O'Neill believes that the problem is not so much greed as ignorance. "Most people just aren't aware of the plight of the middle-class actor," he says. "As in any business, the fact that we tell ourselves we can't talk about money or how things are really going benefits no one but the heads of the studios and the stockholders. It sure doesn't benefit the actors." >
from article 'The Conversation' - "Struggling actor" isn't the part
Michael O'Neill, like many veteran TV and film professionals, thought
he'd be playing in middle age. Feeling undervalued and underpaid, it's
tough to avoid that talk. - By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Nov 28
2004 |
~ ~ ~ ~
 You
can see the problems that women face in comedy when you go to the
elementary levels of improv. The guys have all the confidence, and the
girls are all pretty, nice, and soft spoken. So it takes an extra ten years for them to find their place than it does the men. We're not trained to be bold, unattractive, and aggressive. But a weird thing is happening now. All of these girls are coming up the comedy pike, and they're all really good. Cameron Diaz was hilarious in My Best Friend's Wedding. I loved the director (Robert Luketic) and the script for Legally Blonde, but it would have been a whole other movie if Reese Witherspoon wasn't in it. /// |
I really do believe that the reason I have a career is that
the other girls didn't want to play ten years older.
I've been willing to say, "Let people think that I'm sixty years old if they want to." When I was thinking about taking the part of Stifler's Mom for American Pie, a friend of mine said, "Jennifer, Audrey Meadows was playing ten or fifteen years older than who she was for 'The Honeymooners.' " She was a young woman. So you take what you can get and don't worry about the age thing. Jennifer Coolidge ... Venice venicemag.com Sep 2001 |
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 .. .. It was a strange time for me because I was so grateful to land any acting job, but I'd often get frustrated with the scripts. I'd think, "People just don't talk this way." In his autobiography, the actor James Cagney explains how he adjusted dialogue because every little moment on screen meant something to him. Every little moment means a lot to me, too. |
Reading
about Cagney helped me muster the courage to protect the characters I
portray.
If I'm playing a mom, I want to make her so real and so accessible that women relate to her and aren't threatened by her image. There's so much garbage out there that I don't know how women with kids watch it. They see these perfectly skinny women with no wrinkles. I take great pride in making sure that the characters I represent have a point of view and three dimensions. Bonnie Hunt March 2004 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Life with Bonnie [tv] site ...Cagney by Cagney - by James Cagney |
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The audition process is really a most inadequate way to determine if an actor is right or not for a particular role. Unfortunately, it's a situation that most actors have to accept. Work on developing an unshakable trust in yourself and your talent. It's important to present oneself as relaxed and confident even when you don't feel it. The role will find you if you are right for it. If you think it and feel it, the camera will capture it. Never interpret not getting a role as failure or as a reflection on yourself or your talent.
Gabriel Byrne
...from book: How to Get the Part... Without Falling Apart! by Margie Haber / > more books: acting
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When I'm not working on a film, I'm constantly on the phone motivating my managers and agents. In turn, they motivate me. I'm auditioning, reading scripts, catching up on politics, playing music; it's very much an ebb and flow, but it's important to be consistent, and crucial to be driven. Having worked continually in my youth, I came to a point where I began to feel disillusioned. I went through a period where I didn't want to do anything because I'd been working so much.
If you don't get a certain amount of time to feel rejuvenated as an actor, you can feel creatively drained. I spent my time playing and writing music with Bunny, the band I formed with Vincent Gallo. It allowed me to get inspired, and acting, once again, became a huge focus in my life.
Lukas Haas ... [Ingenue, Summer 2004]
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You went to college at Carnegie-Mellon where you were in their drama program... Holly Hunter: I had a pretty beautiful time there. I found over the years that what I learned at Carnegie has served me really well. If it does nothing else, that kind of training gives actors a sense of entitlement, just by the nature of the training and the discipline you're forced to go through. ...
I think it's nothing but a good thing. Having that sense of entitlement is something that most actors actually lack. Entitlement is a very, very fragile area for artists, actors in movies especially, who have tremendous amounts of money, status and trappings can begin to feel that that's what entitles you.
Whereas, training really enhances and supports the more fragile side: your imagination and approach, your desire to explore, all of those things I think are enhanced by going to a school like Carnegie, or Yale, or any of the top schools... [Venicemag.com Aug 2003]
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Katharine Hepburn 1907 - 2003 "Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living.
After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four."Katharine Hepburn, who has died aged 96, said this in 1941 when she made the movie Woman of the Year. She played a strident feminist, whose views were close to her own. .. [news.bbc.co.uk]
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After graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1928, she had small parts in stock theater companies. She was dismissed from more than one play when she was starting out, but she retained supreme self-confidence.
Late in life, she laughingly said of her younger self, "I am terribly afraid I just assumed I'd be famous." ...
In 1933 she returned to Broadway in a spectacular failure, "The Lake," which inspired Dorothy Parker to write her famous aphorism, "She ran the gamut of emotion from A to B."
Of those early years, she said: "I strike people as peculiar in some way, although I don't quite understand why. Of course, I have an angular face, an angular body and, I suppose, an angular personality, which jabs into people."
Over time her screen presence softened and became more likable; meanwhile, society was catching up to her willful, independent style. She had been wearing pants, then considered quite unladylike, since the 1930's. ...
At the conclusion of "All About Me," her own television biography, she said: "In some ways I've lived my life as a man, made my own decisions. I've been as terrified as the next person, but you've got to keep a-going; you've got to dream."
In typical Katharine Hepburn style, she faced the camera and, at the age of 85, tacitly acknowledged how close she had to be to the end. "I have no fear of death," she said. "Must be wonderful, like a long sleep. But let's face it: it's how you live that really counts."
The New York Times, June 30, 2003
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I think every actress in the world looked up to her with a kind of reverence, a sense of "Oh, boy, if only I could be like her." We never looked at her with envy or jealousy, because she worked with such grace and wit and charm. You only wish that one day you could be like her. Elizabeth Taylor
I think you either can do it [acting] or you can't do it. I don't think it requires any special brilliance. ... I have always lived my life exactly as I wanted. I've tried to please no one but myself and very likely displeased a great number in the process. But I'm entirely content. I can sit back in my old age and not regret a single thing.
Katharine Hepburn ... [LA Times, June 30, 2003]
...Me : Stories of My Life -- by Katharine Hepburn // Kate Remembered by Scott A. Berg
> related pages:......self-esteem / self concept.........social reactions / interactions.........androgyny.........role models
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"xXx" was your first big Hollywood role, but you've been an actor for almost two decades. Did you make
the conscious decision to take on Mainstream Cinema, or did the opportunity present itself by chance?Asia Argento : I guess I provoked that reality with my dreams. I wanted a new challenge. But I didn't look for XXX. I didn't even have an american agent at the time. The movie came to me by chance. A casting director contacted my office in Rome. I decided to go for it, for the part, go all the way to LA for the test.
I didn't think of what a mainstream movie was going to do to my career. But I hoped it was going to change my life. If I had the balls and the opportunity to do something like that in the past, I would have done it immediately.
Apart from acting, you've also directed films, delved into music, written.. paint and photograph
as well. Are there any other artistic mediums or media out there that you're interested in pursuing?Photography gives me the highest creative joy these days. So much freedom. Something that resembles reality. Much more than cinema. The feeling that that fleeting moment might have really happened, that those people were truly there. I work completely alone, no assistants, make up, stylists. It's better than directing and more spontaneous than writing.
Do you believe in any sort of preparation when doing a specific role?
Most roles don't require much. Half learning things that you'll never fully know. This is what acting is all about. I wish I could work with Polanski one day, he seems like the kind of director that asks for a lot. I need somebody to push me out of the cradle of laziness (of acting).
What would you like to best be known for? .......For being the reincarnation of Anita Berber.
from interview by Alex Garzon on silver gems - an asia argento website
Asia Argento is adapting JT LeRoy's book "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" for a film
she will act in and direct. More about JT LeRoy on writing: teen/young adultpainting above right: Otto Ten, Portrait of the dancer Anita Berber, 1925
*related pages:......directing.........photography~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. In the aftermath of his death [her father's, when she was 21] and her breakup [with former boyfriend Harmony Korine], Sevigny moved back home for several years. She also went into therapy, at her mothe's urging. "The first couple of weeks, I was really depressed, because you verbalize all these things that you never said before. Then it gets better, and I do think the therapist really helped me -- in gaining confidence, in dealing with criticism," says Sevigny. ... |
Part
of this self-examination means taking a critical look at her own
indie/edgy
values.
"I can't remember the last time I went to see an independent film," Sevigny confesses. "The truth is, sometimes I just want to be entertained. You know, to have fun, and... escape." ... I'm so sick of this hero worship [of independent directors].. People think directors are the be-all and end-all, and they have the last word on everything, and they're like rock stars." She lets out a low laugh. "I mean, I still love a lot of my directors. But maybe I've got more confidence. I'm not as easily manipulated as I used to be." from
article: Muse Me No More by Emily Nussbaum,
|
*related pages:......identity.........counseling / therapy..........self-esteem / self concept~ ~ ~ ~
|
Rose McGowan: Absolutely. I know I don't come across that way in interviews, and I know magazines love my body and my weirdo sense of humor, but there are many other sides to me. I'd love to talk to Susan Sarandon because I imagine she had many mini-heartbreaks, too, before she got to do the work she knew she could do - or Jessica Lange, who I imagine went through similar stuff after King Kong [1976]. ... To be honest, I think my biggest problem is people are scared of me. For many fellas in Hollywood, it's too much of an overload if they meet an actress with a lot of personality and talent and who looks like somebody they want to sleep with. Rockets start popping out of their ears. Interview mag.: Has your agent asked you to cool it? Rose McGowan: I was having a conversation about it with her the other night and she said I have to show a more vulnerable side. It upset me so greatly I was almost crying, because I'm fiercely protective of my spirit. All my life, I feel people have tried to stamp out what's special about me and I've fought that for so long. |
 .. .. Ultimately, though, it's worth waiting, whether it's to find your counterpart in love or to get the kind of work you want. My argument is, Why should I pander? Why should I downplay myself to make someone else more comfortable? That just makes me want to rip my skin off. Maybe it's really retarded of me, but I refuse to sell myself out. I know it would make things easier, but if I were to do that I just think something in me would die. [Interview mag., May, 1999] |
*related pages:......identity.........sexuality..........social reactions / interactions~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. I was like any kid: hanging out, climbing trees - so I kind of slid into it. People kept giving me movies and I kept doing movies. I questioned other things, questioned my school work and whatnot, but not that responsibility of making things. I became on the one hand superficially mature - because I was aware of the responsibility - but on the other hand deeply stunted, because I was shy and wanted to do well and make everyone happy. It was a very peculiar way to grow up. |
 .. .. I don't think I really started to evaluate who was giving these performances, and who was doing this work until I was in my twenties. And then I had to, as it were, re-choose it. For someone with a personality like mine, working over those years turns you into a bit of a puppet: people telling you how to be, what to do, how to speak. And me trying to please them all. Jennifer Connelly .... |
***related pages:**...early life.......introversion / shyness.......self-esteem / self concept~ ~ ~ ~
It's really fun to put on a whole costume and change your face and wear glasses. That's why we do what we do, because we like to kind of hide and obscure ourselves behind something. The more you get to do that, the more you get to let go and become another person. I know it sounds so corny, but I think that's why we do what we do. The roles that are more like ourselves are not as interesting and not as creative. ...
But really the key is to be relaxed... you have to be who you are and you have to go with your own instincts. You really have nothing else as an actor, but to commit to who you are. If they like it, they like it. If they don't, they don't. If you try to exude some star quality or charisma, it's probably not going to get you very far.
Amanda Peet***[from warnerbros.com interview about her film "Date Squad"]
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