Passion: fuel and navigation for artists
Ellen Page [left] comments about working in films like Hard Candy and the upcoming The Tracey Fragments: “I don’t want to be labeled as some anti-Hollywood actress, because I loved the experience of X-Men and learned a ton. But when you shoot these smaller films, you have to trust each other. Everyone is there because they are passionate about it. And when I get passionate, I’m totally gone.” [Interview mag., June 2006]
In the same magazine, Abbie Cornish [Somersault, and the upcoming Candy, with Heath Ledger], recalls not even being interested in acting until she got in a film “by accident” at age 15. “I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for it, let alone getting to have all this fun and being fed all this wonderful food. Now, I’m passionate about acting. It inspires me and challenges me.”
Challenge may be an important part of passion. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi thinks “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.” [quote from my article Creativity and Flow Psychology]
In her article Hollywood is Hard, Amber Tamblyn cautions that you need to find and use your passion, especially with all the rejection and uncertainty of acting. “A lot of people think I’m cynical when I talk about acting,” she writes. “The truth of the matter is, I just don’t want someone to get some lame advice that will send them in the wrong direction. I want people to find their true love in working, whether it be acting, teaching, or any other job. Bottom line: Be Careful! A business like acting is 90% luck. You can be a star one minute and out of work the next. Always keep your hopes high and your energy positive, and don’t think it’s impossible, but know that it’s very hard.”
But passion can help you find your creative expression in spite of difficulties. Elisha Cuthbert commented about moving from Montreal to L.A. at 17 to pursue acting: “I just went with my gut feeling and thought that if I care this much about what I’m doing, then maybe there are opportunities elsewhere and I’d be stupid not to give it a try.” [imdb.com bio]
Danielle Panabaker said if acting “becomes too much of a job, I’m just not going to do it, because there’s no point. There are so many other people who could be doing this and who have the passion for it, that me taking up space is no good. I love it, and I’ll do it as long as I continue to love it.” [BackStage.com May 27, 2005]
Working with Jodie Foster in their movie Contact, Jena Malone, then about age 12, recalled in our interview Foster giving her advice that works for any artist: “Sometimes I did things that I didn’t all the way want to do. I half way wanted to do them, or something like that, and I always regretted it. So, I want you to always follow your heart and do exactly what you always wished for. You’re only going to be happy when you follow your heart.”
Filmmaker George Lucas declares “You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don’t have that kind of feeling for what it is you are doing, you’ll stop at the first giant hurdle.” [quoted in newsletter of Bob Proctor / Life Success Productions]
But Stephen Gaghan, screenwriter of Traffic; Syriana and other films, commented that many are not able - or willing - to follow their real passions: “It’s rare in Hollywood to get the chance to work on something that you actually care about. The tragedy of the place is all these talented people trying to get excited about stuff they themselves would only view at gunpoint.” [quote from imdb.com]
Painter Amanda Dunbar, acclaimed in her teens as a prodigy, commented in our interview: “As artists, we use not only our technical abilities to execute our work, but also all of our mental capacities, our spirituality, and at the same time we must make that leap of faith (that we all struggle to articulate) every time we begin our work. Some would consider this ‘irrational’. Why put yourself through all that agony for something that may or may not ‘pay off’ at the end? In my opinion, the answer is that it satisfies that innate and unexplainable yet powerful drive to create.”
> some related pages:
passion
acting : teen/young adult
The Inner Actor
The Inner Artist
..
