> Also see The Inner Actor
“Guest author Carmen Lynne writes :
“After spending the greater part of my life as an actress and performer, I became a therapist in early 2007.
“While I still do a little bit of acting when I have a chance, I now mainly spend my time helping other people to fulfill their creative ambitions or to just [...]
Mia Wasikowska portrayed troubled, suicidal teen gymnast Sophie in the outstanding HBO psychotherapy drama series “In Treatment.”
Her work made Sophie one of the most powerful, conflicted and emotionally complex teen characters I have seen. She was both fascinating and wrenching in her distraught intensity.
In a magazine interview about her lead role in TIm Burton’s new [...]
“If you’re going to spend a life in the arts, you need to be infused with a sense of gratitude and a sense of wonder. It’s a privilege to do this profession.
“But there is a payment you have to make for that privilege, which is to do your best all the time.
“To challenge [...]
“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Daniel Day-Lewis describes being intensely immersed in his character when he is working on a movie.
He was asked in an interview what he loves about acting: “Without [...]
Bryce Dallas Howard portrays the “unapologetic” Fisher Willow in The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. “I learned some interesting things about myself. Fisher is unapologetic about anything she does or says, and I am not; in fact I am apologizing all the time.
“I liked that she was almost hedonistic in her approach to life, and [...]
Most people experience strong feelings occasionally, unless they are depressed. But for some, their emotional reactions are especially intense.
Psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902 – 1980) developed a theory of personality that is often used to understand gifted children and adults.
One of his ideas is Emotional Overexcitability (or Excitability), which can include intense feelings, extremes of complex [...]
Many creative people report feeling incompetent, inadequate and having low self esteem at times. But there are ways to shift those feelings.
A number of film actors report they don’t watch their own movies. When you can be seen in close-ups on twenty foot high theater screens, it may be especially hard not to criticize your [...]
Christian Bale’s tantrums
Acclaimed for his dynamic performance as Batman – such as in the new film “The Dark Knight” – Christian Bale won’t be charged after his arrest for alleged assault on his mother and sister, in part because they didn’t want to press the matter. Bale has denied the accusation.
But according to news reports, [...]
Maggie Gyllenhaal: [about her film SherryBaby] Obviously, I understood that all the things that happened in the movie were painful for her, but I didn’t let that into the work. Then all the terrible things I’ve had to go through surfaced after we’d finished shooting.
And I got over it. I don’t think I could play [...]
Hoon Lee plays David Henry Hwang’s alter ego in the play “Yellow Face.” He graduated with a degree in visual and environmental studies and English literature from Harvard University, is the son of two molecular biologists; his brother is a postdoctoral candidate in gene expression research at MIT.
“There was a lot of academia floating around [...]
In an interview about acting in her new film Bug, Ashley Judd describes the state of mind she values in her work:
“For me, what I look for is to do a take and have very little if any memory of what just happened. That’s the sort of take where I’m satisfied and sated and I [...]
Many people make use of their abilities and achieve satisfaction in life by becoming focused pros or even experts in one area. But many others keep exploring multiple talents, interests and passions.
In her article Are You a Scanner?, Barbara Sher identifies people with “intense curiosity about numerous unrelated subjects” who are “endlessly inquisitive and interested [...]
Robert Kiyosaki [author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad] and psychologist Kenneth W. Christian [author of Your Own Worst Enemy] note in my post Schooling can leave us with limitations that the standard educational system can have negative impacts on gifted and talented people. And many rebel at it.
The image is a poster for Fracture, co-starring [...]
Actor Virginia Madsen talks about her experience in ski school [Yes, Virginia, by Karen Breslau, More Magazine]:
Her third day on skis [Breslau writes], she persuaded her instructor to take her to the top of a black-diamond run — the kind inevitably named Devil’s Gulch or Dead Man’s Curve. She wanted to test herself.
“I was hurling [...]
Rachel Weisz: Everyone walking around the planet is the hero of their own story.
Mike Myers: And they can justify to themselves every action that they make. Sidney Lumet said in his book [Making Movies], “Freaks are not the freaks we think they are. We are much more connected to the most outrageous behavior than we [...]
