No, obviously, that isn't the name of the movie, or the book it was based on (which stared at me throughout my growing up from the family bookshelf, displayed with its front rather than side facing). You see: this was my father's fantasy - not that he would become a famous theater critic for a major newspaper, but famous by way of my success, and as my very own personal critic, often ruthless. Because in his grandiose narcissist mind none of my success was my own: it was all his doing. He was the star. I was the trained monkey.
I've spent my whole life toggling between two kinds of codependency. There's the codependency of my covert narcissist mother, where I am safe from my late father's shouting, smacking, and abusing, but it's its own prison of shame and humiliation - an empathy desert; for the prize of economic and emotional austerity, you spend your life serving her own grandiose and fragile ego. (You wonder why former child actors end up homeless, mentally ill addicts - this dynamic is just about the leading reason. You run away from the stage parent - maybe literally - and end up in a different kind of jail.)
And there's the codependency with my father - who isn't even alive anymore. (See: you're so completely trained that it outlives their deaths.) I'd been living in the codependency with my mother for many years, secretly writing the story of my life - that was where I found connection, the one redeeming and not toxic space in my life. But with the first filming now months away, I was starting to panic: did I even know how to act anymore?
And the answer, sadly, is yes - not (in the sense of sadly) because I lost my capacity for connection, but because of all the crapola that goes along with it. I don't know how to be an actor without living in the world of my father, and that codependency. So, just recently, I snapped back into all that, learned what I'd been missing all those years: and it was the same thing I'd known most of my growing up. What you'll see on the screen is me connecting, because that's what you always see with actors (when it's working). What you won't see is the off camera terror: the masochistic politeness to the people in charge, the endless tolerance of extreme abuse. Do you know that when I was a kid we were instructed to take the coats of directors, producers, and casting directors - as if we were the wives and hostesses at cocktail parties. (I hadn't thought of that in many years.)
But the really sick part of it is how well it works. You follow this protocol and even with only the most basic level of talent and you will rapidly advance to the 5% club. 250 kids/people trying out? You'll be one of the 25 who get a call back. You may not get the part, but you may. And you know how you're going to be seen by the men behind things? As someone - even if you're a child - willing to do...anything...to get the part. They will act accordingly, because that's what people do.
This is supposed to be a PSA, which is to say I guess I'm supposed to have some kind of wisdom about this (i.e. how to do this without it being that), but I don't; this is what I'm in therapy for - the hope that it can be different, that I can learn how to make it so. All I can say is you wouldn't want to turn out your 8 year old child, would you? But here's the thing about acting: Orson Welles always said it was fundamentally feminine, if not homosexual. I agree completely. But going to that place - my feminine side (like my inner child) is cis, a boy - is like being hit on as a barely legal by an older man. If the stars align darkly, a part of you might like the attention, like being noticed. But if you go through with it you're also going to feel fear, intimidation, anger, resentment. You're going to feel controlled, and want to rebel. And that's the best case scenario - because at least legally speaking you're an adult.
But now imagine having that kind of experience...as a child. Your vulnerability will be mistaken for maturity. Your trained deference will be mistaken for a healthy ambition. And the most f*cked up part about it? The depths of empathy and capacity for connection - that beautiful and perfect place you go when you perform - will grow and thrive in a wilderness of moral and emotional degradation. You wonder why people in this business sometimes look so sad. That's the reason.
In other words, please don't eat the babies.
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