Is Jack Black an aspie?

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My husband won awards in high school for acting, he used Drama to teach himself how to talk to people, to overcome shyness/stagefright. You can read the script and lose yourself in the character. That's how a lot of people teach themselves coping mechanisms.

Yeah Diamond, I read his biography as well. When he first moved to Malibu he spoke about being happy entirely alone. (also describes him as being a loner as a child on his Wikipedia profile) He's an accomplished composer and painter.

Did you see 'the Worlds Fastest Indian'? great Film! Super performance from Tony as per usual

How are you so sure of that. Maybe your experiences have not been successful. But I am both aspie and actor. There's Aspies in every profession!

Actually, I once went to an acting class. The guy was apparantly well known, and had some REAL actors in his class. When I started, he told me I had all these problems, etc... I always wanted to "block", and they said not to. Apparantly many actors have trouble with that ANYWAY, look at all the blooper reels. One day there was an improv rotation where everyone improvised based on the previous person. I was in the middle of the rotation. I may well have been the only one he complimented!! !! ! WHY? Because I BECAME that character! I just fed off of what I was given. In a very real way I DID become that person. I lost myself in the part. I don't think being an aspie means you can't act. HECK, some acting is a possible symptom even!

But HEY, there were perhaps 20 other people in the class, and they didn't do as well that day.

BTW this guy was paid a fairly modest fee on the honor system, so he wasn't doing it for the money. Also, as I said, he had stars that were WORKING, etc... And he certainly had no reason to single me out, and other people agreed that I did well.

Steve

It hadn't occurred to me. What about Jack White though?

Really? I love acting. I almost made a go of it. It is really very easy for me, as you don't really have to interact with the other actors and the the audience is hidden by the lights. To paraphrase a wise woman, "don't project your symptoms on others."

John Malkovich is a likely candidate.

I disagree. The lack of actual emotional perception and expression present in Aspies tends to force us to copy other people's behavior in order to seem normal, and due to our obsessive natures, we often become far better at aping an NT than they are themselves. The main problem is that outside of a professional acting situation (where reality is effectively suspended) there's too much real pressure to use these abilities, so the aspie can break down. In a situation where an aspie has to become someone else, it becomes far easier to suppress the anxiety normally encountered in daily life, and this in turn makes it easier to "act."

Hollywood is apparently riddled with people with ADD/ADHD. They tend to be very creative, have fantastic senses of humour, and the utterly chaotic lifestyle that goes with being a celebrity probably suits most ADHD personalities just fine.

I think Jack Black fits the ADHD profile perfectly.

However, I don’t see Hollywood being a very aspie-friendly environment at all. The unconventional hours, the complete lack of day-to-day routine, the constant hounding by the media and paparazzi, the complete and utter loss of privacy. It would be enough to drive me to the looney bin.

That’s not to say that many aspies haven’t made it as actors. There are always exceptions. But it’s my guess that most aspies would probably be found more on the stage and in small productions, rather than on the big screen. Again, though, I’m sure there are exceptions.

I think that an actor can be an Aspie. I act all the time, I just can't force myself to do it in front of a camera. Every time I go out of my house, I am acting---and apparently, I am pretty good at it. But for some reason I just get petrified in front of other people and freeze. So my acting probably will never translate into a brilliant screen/stage career although I am sure that if the extent of an Aspie's acting in real life were taken into account (or, rather, how successful an Aspie comes off as "normal"), we'd all be getting Best Actor/Actress Oscar awards.

But I think that you can be an actor and be an aspie at the same time.

A very famous Aspie* (*in my option) actor the late great Peter Sellers. Said he has no personality outside the characters he played. Identity diffusion is an asperger trait that obviously helped his career, seen in his versatility as an actor, e.g. 3 different charcters in 'The Mouse that Roared' and 3 differnet characters in 'Dr. Strangelove' amongst others.
He is also famous for his many strained professional and personal relationships. He is know to have suffered from depression exacerbated by substance abuse.

'His eccentricities and unreasonable behaviour caused physical and emotional hurt to many people in his life, most notably his first three wives.' (wekipedia)


Some Peter Sellers quotes:

“There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me but I had it surgically removed.”

“Conversation like television set on honeymoon...unnecessary.”

"I feel ghostly unreal until I become somebody else again on the screen”

(Quotes from http://www3.thinkexist.com/quotes/peter_sellers/)




'Ying tong iddle I po'