Articles and other resources on the challenges actors and performers face, with suggestions and strategies for improving acting emotional power and performance.
Acting Resources page – schools, coaches, programs
Using Your High Sensitivity Personality As an Actor
Actors On Being Highly Sensitive
Introverted, Shy or Highly Sensitive in the Arts
Claire Danes on being shy and high achieving
Talented and shy – Jane Fonda, Evan Rachel Wood, Nicole Kidman
Dealing With Stage Fright and Public Speaking Fear
Scarlett Johansson and Eric Maisel on stage fright
Ciarán Hinds on egos and acting
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Below is a listing of titles – to see most current posts, with excerpts, see the page:
Article list:
- Acting and Body Image: Portia de Rossi, Toni Collette
- Acting and image – ethnicity and casting
- Acting and image – The dark side of sexy photos
- Acting passion – being proactive in the ‘boy’s club’
- Acting passion – What is your calling?
- Acting schools – building you up, or tearing you down?
- Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame
- Actors and artists dancing with fear and courage
- Actors and charisma
- Actors and creative polymathy: Mayim Bialik, James Franco and others
- Actors and Drugs and Addiction
- Actors and Insecurity
- Actors and perfectionism
- Actors and privacy – Debi Mazar on publicity
- Actors and self esteem
- Actors coping with rejection
- Actors on building identity
- Actors staying healthy in a business with unhealthy pressures
- Agnes Bruckner on the best acting advice
- Amanda Seyfried on anxiety
- Amanda Seyfried on fame, anxiety and being self-critical
- Amber Riley on rejection: “How can I better myself?”
- Amber Tamblyn: artists should be inspired on multiple levels
- Amy Adams on creating both safe and painful roles
- Amy Lyndon on actor training and achievement
- Androgyny and acting
- Anne Hathaway on her depression as a teen
- Annette Bening on unconscious versus conscious
- Anxiety and acting – dealing with an ‘enemy of art’
- Are actors and performers raging narcissists?
- Are you unconsciously holding back your creative career?
- Artistic confidence – Rex Lee likes being strange
- Artists Facing Addiction
- Austin Highsmith: wanting to act more than anything
- Being bullied and an actor
- Being Shy or Introverted and an Actor
- Bonnie Gillespie on fame and redefining success
- Brandon Routh on Biohacking and Bulletproof
- Break the rules – Jodie Foster on good rules and not so good
- Brooke Shields and Kate Winslet on fame
- Brooke Smith on not being like everybody else
- Bryce Dallas Howard on learning more fearlessness from her character
- Building emotional boundaries to be more creative
- Cate Blanchett on Acting and Being an Artist
- Celebrity and fame and personal growth
- Claire Danes on taking time to discover herself
- Courteney Cox on being sensitive
- Creating a role – Taking your character home
- Creative Inspiration: Books with Actor Quotes
- Creative passion and gratitude
- Creative People and Counseling for More Emotional Health and Creativity
- Cynthia Bain on teaching young actors
- Cynthia Bain on teaching young actors
- Deal With Self-Doubt
- Deal with stage fright and anxiety to be a more powerful actor
- Dealing with fame – or not
- Dealing with fame and keeping your ego in check
- Dealing with our fear of rejection
- Dee Wallace on acting passion and limiting beliefs
- Dee Wallace on Conscious Creation
- Developing confidence as an actor
- Developing intuition to enhance acting performance
- Do Creative People Feel More Insecure?
- Drugs and actors and addiction
- Edie Falco on her anxiety
- Elisabeth Shue on pursuing excellence
- Ellen Muth on living in the real world
- Ellen Pompeo: strength from a challenging early life
- Embracing fear and discomfort as an artist
- Emily Blunt on fate and stammering and acting
- Emily Blunt on showing her real side and being balanced
- Emma Watson on how college is “empowering and liberating”
- Emotionally safe in an entertainment career
- Ethan Hawke on using multiple talents and interests
- Ethnic stereotypes and identity
- Facing Our Reality to Live More Fully
- Facing your emotional demands as an artist
- Feeling like a misfit – Sara Bareilles and other artists
- Felicity Huffman on becoming more of herself with age
- Finding and Expressing Your Unique Creative Voice
- Gabrielle Anwar on isolation and pursuing interests other than acting
- Getting out of the comparison trap
- Grace Zabriskie on “obsessional mode”
- Growing up exceptional: Emma Watson on being smart
- Heath Ledger on his nervous energy
- Helen Mirren: “I’m a would-be rebel.”
- Highly Sensitive and an Actor
- Highly sensitive and in the spotlight
- Holly Hunter on respecting the creative environment
- Hollywood and drugs and narcissism
- Hollywood competition – Amanda Peet: “There’s room for everybody”
- Hoon Lee: a black sheep because he was artistic
- How can anticipation drive stage fright?
- How can psychotherapy benefit actors and other artists?
- Ian McKellen on telling the truth so you don’t sell your soul
- Insecurity and darkness and comedy
- Intense but Relaxed – Acting with Confidence
- It’s About More Than Performing – Life Off The Set or Stage
- Jaime Pressly on fame
- James Franco on being a loner
- Jeffrey Tambor on using fear
- Jenna Gavigan on not thinking too much
- Jennifer Beals on her sensitivity
- Jessica Chastain and High Sensitivity
- Jessica Chastain: “I’m not an actor to be a personality.”
- Joan Chen on the emotional need to retreat
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt on feeding the soul & the poison of fame
- Judith Orloff, MD on helping actors deal with anxiety
- Julie Adams: “I knew I would be happier striving toward my dream.”
- Julie Christie on using pain as an artist
- Jurnee Smollett on her warrior spirit
- Keeping out of your head to act
- Kerry Washington on the power of silence
- Kristen Johnston on overcoming her love affair with chemicals
- Kristin Davis asks “Why risk self-destructive behavior?”
- Kyra Sedgwick, Anjelica Huston on motherhood
- Laura Linney on the more mystical part of acting
- Lea Michele, Julie Benz, Jim Parsons on auditioning
- Leslie Mann, audition anxiety and rude people
- Limiting yourself with drugs
- Liv Tyler on being authentic in your creative work
- Maggie Gyllenhaal on working with the dark and light
- Making people more aware of their inner world
- Melanie Lynskey: “Go to a dark, honest part of yourself.”
- Melora Hardin on acting, directing, singing
- Melora Hardin on multiple creative projects
- Melora Hardin on social reactions and confidence
- Michael O’Keefe, Mindfulness and Acting
- Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe
- Monica Raymund: being relaxed about the audition got her the role
- Multiple talents – Masi Oka and Dolph Lundgren
- Naomi Watts on the struggle for integrity
- Naomie Harris: “As an actress you can feel very alienated.”
- Nerves and attitude impact your acting
- Nicole Kidman on fame, and actors as highly sensitive people
- Overcoming Performance Anxiety
- Owen Wilson, Anne Hathaway and other artists who experience depression
- Philip Seymour Hoffman: “It’s an uncomfortable medium for an actor.”
- Pierce Brosnan on being self-critical
- Playacting: childlike creativity
- Portraying people with depth and complexity
- Pushed Into the Spotlight at an Early Age
- Rachel Weisz: “The actor’s job is to get into people’s skin.”
- Rashida Jones on the creative value of her mixed ethnicity
- Rebecca Brooksher on her experience at Juilliard
- Rejection – does it defeat you or fuel you?
- Relationships and actors
- Roles with creative meaning can be emotionally crucial
- Romola Garai on potential distortions of an acting career
- Rose Byrne on fear and focus
- Samuel L. Jackson on pursuing excellence
- Sarah Polley on fame and the big movie role
- Scarlett Johansson on Negative Body Image
- Scarlett Johansson: “I’m comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
- Secrets of the Actor – a podcast
- Self-esteem and Identity and Being an Actor
- Shia LaBeouf on fame and meaning and insecurity
- Shia LaBeouf: “You have to be brokenhearted.”
- Summer Bishil on acting
- Summer Bishil on the emotional workout of “Towelhead”
- Taking Risks With Your Creative Choices As An Actor
- Terrence Howard: “to discover more truths”
- The Power of Finding Your Creative Voice
- To Master Your Art, Master Your Mind
- Toni Collette on finding meaning in acting
- Using Visualization For Creative Achievement
- Using your high sensitivity personality
- Vanessa Hudgens on striving to be strong and aware
- Vera Farmiga: “What interests me, are the contradictions..”
- Vera Farmiga: It’s a profession so much to do with ego
- Winona Ryder on staying sane with so much attention and work
- Your unique artistic mind and spirit as a creative person
- Zooey Deschanel and Evangeline Lilly on beauty
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