DarthMetaKnight wrote:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jim-carrey-were-nothing-rant“As an actor you play characters, and if you go deep enough into those characters, you realize your own character is pretty thin to begin with. You suddenly have this separation and go, “Who’s Jim Carrey? Oh, he doesn’t exist actually. There’s just a relative manifestation of consciousness appearing, and someone gave him a name, a religion, a nationality, and he clustered those together into something that’s supposed to be a personality, and it doesn’t actually exist. None of that stuff, if you drill down, is real.”
I legitimately feel for this guy. I really do. I've been there. I've totally been there and pondered that.
We should use this as an opportunity to raise depression awareness.
This strengthens my theory that actors so often struggle with mental health problems because they have identity problems. They often have either a weak sense of identity, or a negative perspective of their identity. Even if they don't start out that way, I believe that for some actors, acting can work to destroy their own identity.
Another things which I think contributes to depression among actors is the fact that it's difficult being famous. People develop a false, non-mutual familiarity with actors. They may expect them to be similar to the characters they play, and also tend to expect them to always be friendly. I think it makes it difficult for the actor to live life as an ordinary person in the crowd, and often holes them into a perception, which must be very difficult for people who become actors because they themselves are very multi-faceted people.
A little off subject but interesting none the less:
Historically humanity has had a love hate relationship with actors. Today acting is considered a reasonable profession if one is successful at it, but since at least the time of ancient Rome, to perhaps into the 1800s, acting was considered to be an disreputable profession, particularly in ancient Rome. In fact, in ancient Rome, an actor couldn't be raped, because their idea of rape was not in the act itself, but the impact on one's honor, and actors were considered to have no honor. In ancient Rome, it was dishonorable to make a spectacle of one's self, and actors not only made spectacles of themselves, they did so exhibiting themselves in weak or shameful acts on stage.
Even in modern times, many actors have expressed regret at some of the things they have done in front of the camera.
18 Sep 2017, 9:04 pm
