Prompted by recent posts on actress Sally Field’s memoir, here is a repeat of two past posts on actors, acting, and multiple personality

June 30, 2018

New York Times article about “The Amy Adams Method” of playing Gillian Flynn protagonist in TV mini-series raises question of multiple personality in actors

In my post earlier today, prompted by an article in The New York Times—

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/arts/television/amy-adams-hollywood-sharp-objects.html—I focused on the multiple personality of protagonists in Gillian Flynn’s novels. But the New York Times article is primarily about an actress, Amy Adams, and acting.

The article mentions that the actress had “an attendant ‘negative self-dialogue’ that never quite went away. ‘I have this internal voice that is just not a cheerleader for myself’ she said.” (She may be describing the voice of, and dialogue with, a critical alternate personality.)

“Ms. Flynn said that…Ms. Adams ‘completely immersed herself physically, bodily, mentally into Camille’ [Flynn’s protagonist in “Sharp Objects”]. [The director added:] ‘I noticed her voice dropped a few notes and her way of walking changed…’ ”

[The article goes on to explain:] “To create a believable performance, many actors jettison their own personality, hoping their character will seize the resulting void like a territorial spirit. During the making of ‘Lincoln,’ Daniel Day-Lewis was so thoroughly consumed by his presidential portrayal that Sally Field, who played Mary Todd Lincoln in the film, later claimed she’s ‘never met him.’

“Some have noted that most method actors…take pride in burying themselves in work…‘Oh, my gosh, the demons they must take on!’ Ms. Flynn said.” (Her mocking metaphor of demon possession is an old theory to explain multiple personality.)

The above, commonly made remarks about actors and acting, make actors seem like a group that might have a high percentage with multiple personality, like fiction writers. So I have often been tempted to write about actors, but compared to writers, actors have very little written either by or about them.

December 30, 2016

Actors, Writers, and Multiple Personality: Is acting a form of multiple personality? Is multiple personality as common among actors as it is among writers?

When a good actor plays the role of a character who has multiple personality, it makes people think that it is easy to fake. But most people could not do it convincingly. Why can actors?

Why are some people good at both writing and acting? Shakespeare did both. And when Dickens did his very popular readings, he got into character.

Speaking of Benoit Constant Coquelin (1841-1909), a pre-eminent actor of the French theatre in the second half of the nineteenth century, American drama critic George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) said, “Coquelin is the only actor who ever lived who proved that he had a critical mind in the appraisal of acting” (1, p. 192). Coquelin may not be the only actor, but he did have a credible opinion:

“…the actor must have a double personality. He has his first self, which is the player, and his second self, which is the instrument. The first self conceives the person to be created…and the being that he sees is represented by his second self. This dual personality is the characteristic of the actor.

“Not that the double nature is the exclusive property of actors alone; it undoubtedly exists among others. For example, my friend Alphonse Daudet takes delight in distinguishing this double element in the personality of the storyteller, and even the very expressions I am now using are borrowed from him. He confesses that he also has his first self and his second self—the one a man made like other men…the other a being…” who takes “notes for the future creation of his characters” (1, p. 192).

I do not know enough about acting to answer the questions in the title of this post, but they are good questions.

1. Toby Cole, Helen Krich Chinoy (Editors). Actors on Acting: The Theories, Techniques, and Practices of the Great Actors of All Times As Told in Their Own Words, Revised Edition. New York, Crown Publishers, 1949/1970.