introversion / shyness: page 2.......*
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introversion / shyness: page 2.......*
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Acting
is an escape and a refuge. You have to invent your own playmates if you
are so shy, which I still am. I had an enourmous imagination. So I
invented
them and played with them. Those invented playmates are much nicer
because
they do exactly what you want them to.
Being an only child and so shy, I was even afraid of the youngsters in school. I couldn't express myself, I blushed all the time and I was very scared. But at home I had all of the playmates I had invented, and I read plays out loud and felt very comfortable. That's why I said I must go on the stage: the stage was my only protection. [Being shy and performing] is a strange combination, but I am not alone. I have talked to so many other actors and most agree that we have difficulty to play ourselves. It's easier to play others and say the words written by somebody else. Even today, I am too shy to go out on a dance floor. I am even embarrassed to go into a restaurant. Ingrid Bergman.. [1915-1982] [Ladies Home Journal Dec. 1978] / photo at right: age 14 |
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I was kind of a late bloomer in most things. I was an introvert as a child. ... I wasn't very social and not a whole lot has changed. ... I think [becoming interested in acting] is probably a combination of being Slavic and being very emotional and being such a good listener. I love people so much, and their suffering, that to kind of inhabit them and vicariously live experiences and other people's situations was probably the most creative and healthy thing to do, rather than just living, living the role.
Lolita Davidovich***[CNN.com April 27, 2001]
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The successfully shy don't change who they are. They change the way they think and the actions they make. There is nothing wrong with being shy. In fact, I have come to believe that what our society needs is not less shyness but a little more. Bernardo J. Carducci, Phd
Director, Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast***[Psychology Today, Jan/Feb 2000]author of Shyness: A Bold New Approach
It sounds like some bogus actor speak, but it's genuinely the truth. I can be fairly audacious when I need to be, but for the most part, I'm pretty shy, and I have a very skewed perception of myself, I think. ... [At premieres], the whole time going down the red carpet [I'm thinking that] I just want to get inside, I don't want my picture taken, who the hell cares about me anyway? I just want to sit down and hide.
And I know in the back of my mind, it's like the worst thing someone in my position can do, because people are going to be thinking, 'Who the hell does she think she is?' and I'm like, 'Oh, if you only knew!' I'm so not that. I'm a basket case in matching shoes and handbag.***
Emma Caulfield^^^^['Anya' on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"] [from IGN Sci-Fi interview]
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Director M. Night Shyamalan [The Sixth Sense; Signs], who was born in India, raised as a Hindu but whose parents sent him to Catholic school for discipline, admits he was a sensitive kid like his young protagonists. "I was an overly sensitive kid for sure," he says, "and definitely shy. But with my friends I definitely wasn't shy. I was the smallest guy. I was the one leading everyone around. That kind of evolved into making movies where.. I get paid to boss everybody around."
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This guy in The Postman is a real nutcase. He couldn't be further from me. He's outspoken and confident. I've always felt awkward addressing groups of people and, unless I know everyone, I feel uncomfortable in large groups. ... From the time I was a child, I felt socially crippled. I wasn't good at sports. I was shy and I never felt I was accepted by my peers. Acting became my means of survival. Once I got up the confidence to audition for a movie, I got the first role I read for. I got a small part in Silkwood.
Will Patton****[Calgary Sun, Dec. 31, 1997] [quotes and photo from willpatton.net]
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Twist Magazine: We've heard that you were very shy growing up. How did you overcome it to become an actress? Alexis Bledel: I think I'm still a shy person. I'm still who I am, so it's not like I got over it, but I think in an effort to become, like a professional person, a lot of times you just have to put that aside and do your job and my job just happens to be one where you can't be shy.
from Twist Magazine interview posted on Alexis Bledel Central: alexis.sparkleteddy.com
> photo: as Winnie Foster in "Tuck Everlasting"~ ~ ~ ~
Over the years, in working with thousands of people who call themselves "shy," I have come to realize that this word is too general to be of much help in identifying a problem and solving it. The actual response to the stress of interaction is called social anxiety. Of course, just as one person might say he is "a little shy around women" and another might say she is "extremely shy about speaking in front of a group," it is also true that there is a wide spectrum of social anxiety, from mild nervousness all the way to social phobia, in which interaction-related anxiety is so extreme that a person actually avoids the specific situations that cause it. Jonathan Berent
*book:**Beyond Shyness : How to Conquer Social Anxieties
painting by De Es Schwertberger -
related book: Heavy Light~ ~ ~ ~
Heather Graham was no outdoorsy, cheerleader type. All "bad hair and braces," she remembers herself as "a brainy geek" who was painfully shy and utterly lacking in confidence. Despite her self-esteem issues, she was drawn to acting. ... "It was a way to come out of my shell," she explains. "I'm a dichotomy, very shy and insecure, but I also have a brave, 'I'll try anything' side. When you don't feel good about yourself, you have more to prove, so you work harder."Biography magazine, Sep. 2001
related page:**self-esteem / self concept~ ~ ~ ~
As a child, Dench received a school report saying, Judith must learn to curb her tongue." "Yes, I am talkative,: she agrees. "It goes with shyness. I'm not good at walking into a room full of people. I can't make speeches in public. People think that's affectation, since I am an actress. But as an actress, you're trying to be somone else. It's a hiding thing. It's also a way to communicate, both through the roles you play and offstage. When I meet people and they say, 'Oh, I way you in [such andsuch],' it helps me get over the doorstep of fright."
Biography magazine, March 2002 // more quotes by Dench on spirituality: brief quotes
bio: Judi Dench : With a Crack in Her Voice by John Miller
The American dream is to be extraverted. We want our children to be "people who need people."
We want them to have lots of friends, to like parties, to prefer to play outside with their buddies
rather than retire with a good book, to make friends easily, to greet new experiences enthusiastically,
to be good risk-takers, to be open about their feelings, to be trusting.We regard anyone who doesn't fit this pattern with some concern. We call them "withdrawn," "aloof," "shy,"
"secretive," and "loners." These pejorative terms show the extent to which we misunderstand introverts.from article On Introversion by Linda Silverman, Ph.D., Gifted Development Center
photo from the film based on the book: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
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Q: Are introverts and extroverts compatible with one another as mates?
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..Dr. Marti Olsen Laney: Yes, the most common couple is the innie/outie two-some. This is for two reasons; first, there are more outies in the world.
Second, since outies are out and about more they find innies and draw them out into dating. The innie calms the outie down and the outie encourages the innie to stretch their comfort zone. ...
Q: Do two introverts have a particularly harder time beginning in a relationship? and is their relationship easier to maintain? Dr. M: Actually when I interviewed fifty introverts, innie/innie couples reported the most satisfaction with their relationships.
They didn't argue about common innie/outie issues like going out on Friday nights or how long they should stay at parties. They enjoyed quiet activities together.
from Written Voices interview
photo: Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi in Ghost World
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Jennifer Connelly... in the gritty art film Requiem For A Dream [did] a full-frontal nude scene and her character becomes a drug-addicted prostitute who performs a naked lesbian show... And the screen star is happy with her racy past, explaining, "I don't regret anything. Those were formative experiences. I used to be shy and timid. I was a good kid and I wanted to be one, but it can lead to a reserve that can be a little hampering. It's been a gradual unleashing."
The actress, who also bared her breasts.. in Waking The Dead, Inventing The Abbotts and The Hot Spot, recently won a Golden Globe for her role as Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind. [imdb.com Celeb News Jan 22 2002]
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"In person, Emily is very guarded. She holds it all in... But on stage, all of these things come out like missiles. You can't help but be scorched." Director Chay Yew "In grammar school, I didn't talk. Everybody said I was the invisible one. I'm still very shy."
Emily Kuroda ["..one of L.A.'s preeminent stage actors... recurring roles in two network TV series... prominent role in a recent HBO movie.] [LA Times Sept. 30, 2001] << Kuroda also performs with East West Players
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When you enter a room, you have to enter the room. My personal style would be more like entering the room and not entering the room at the same time. Sneaking into the room. It's taken me a while to come up to what people expect of me, and I'm still a little ambivalent about it.
Sigourney Weaver*****[wenn.com/ Aug.20.01]
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When I get on the stage I can open up.Michael Jeter
[1992 quote repeated in Associated Press story about his death, April 1, 2003]
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"I've always been a shy individual. I haven't been comfortable around people. I don't know what it was -- fear or lack of trust or a sense of inferiority -- but there was almost a paralyzing shyness in me." Ed Harris [Parade mag 6.21.98]
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| Over
2,000 years ago, Hippocrates described a patient with social phobia,
also
known as social anxiety disorder (SAD):
"He dare not come in company for fear he should be misused, disgraced,
overshoot himself in gesture or speech or be sick; he thinks every man
observes him."
The lifetime and 12-month prevalences of SAD are 13.3% and 7.9%, respectively, making SAD the third most common psychiatric disorder following major depression and alcohol dependence/abuse (Kessler et al., 1994). ... There are two subtypes of SAD. Non-generalized SAD is the less severe subtype and includes those individuals who experience anxiety in only one or two types of social situations (primarily public speaking and/or performance anxiety experienced by entertainers). Individuals with non-generalized SAD usually have adequate social skills and function normally outside these specific performance situations. |
 .. .. Generalized SAD affects females twice as frequently as males, typically appears in the mid-teens, and rarely occurs after age 25. When fears interfere with social, occupational or family life, the affected individual is not suffering from normal shyness, but rather a treatable anxiety disorder. from article: When Does Shyness Become a Disorder? by R. Bruce Lydiard, M.D., Ph.D., Psychiatric Times, March 2002 |
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"For gifted women, isolation seems to be very typical. And part of the isolation has to do with introversion.
Not all, certainly, but I'd say the majority of gifted women are introverted."Kathleen Noble, PhD [from interview]
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"People assume you can't be shy and be on television. They're wrong." Diane Sawyer
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[He admits freely that he used to have a reputation for being difficult.]
"People interpret shyness as rudeness." Jakob Dylan [Time, Oct.16.00]
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When I was a child I was very shy and inhibited, and the only way I could come out of myself
was by acting with friends, which, for kids, is mostly make-believe. But I found that I could
communicate something when I was doing that, and be extroverted...When I first started, I couldn't talk at all on the set, especially not to the other actors,
because I was terrified.It was fortunate that my first role [in Eyes of a Stranger, 1981] was as a blind, deaf, and dumb girl,
because I could go and sit in the comer on my own. [laughs] But I remember at one point on
Fast Times at Ridgemont High [1982], a hairdresser started screaming at me...: How dare I come in
the room and not say hello? I was really happy and grateful that I had the job and I was working really
hard on it, but I had no idea I was perceived as rude. ...All the people that I had scenes with, like Phoebe Cates and Brian Backer, I became close to.
But other than that, I could barely function. On each of the next few jobs, I would just say,
on the first day, "There are going to be some days when I'm quiet because I am concentrating,
so please don't take it personally, because it's not about you - it's my problem."The work got easier for me after that; it is easier to have a good time and act than it is to stay
inside yourself all the time. Now I play gin rummy with the crew.Jennifer Jason Leigh [Interview mag., Jan.96]
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*more :*introversion / shyness : page 1***introversion / shyness : page 3******
...................introversion / shyness resources : books sites articles
**related pages:........anxiety.........identity.........self-esteem / self concept.........social reactions / interactions
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