I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 29, and I thought it was because I'm in a wheelchair. And I realized that it's not that, it's because I listened to what the dismissive part of society was telling me and accepted it as truth. There was nothing that was keeping me from dating or falling in love other than the fact that I was scared of being rejected. And everybody has that fear. That's a universal thing.
Auditions are just torture. I'm trying to get better at it. It's a very difficult thing to do. You go into a tiny room with a camera with somebody who is doing this with 100 other people, and they're so bored, and then you have to be like, 'Hey! I'm gonna show you what I got!'
The one thing I really learned, and learned well, in group therapy was that you don't die if someone doesn't like you.
I don't even date; I'm terrible with women.
In Hollywood if you are not working, you are a leper. True, you are probably living in the most expensive leper colony in the world.
As a general rule, whenever guys have problems approaching girls, it's because they're afraid of rejection or they're afraid of something specific. The way that you get over a fear like that is you figure out what the worst is that can happen.
Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don't base your self-esteem on their opinions.
Very often when I go in to meet for movies or pilots, I'm put on videotape. I hate the notion that that tape is going to sit on a shelf and never get better.
Rejection-and the fear of rejection-is the biggest impediment we face to choosing ourselves.
Auditioning is such an unnatural thing. You're in a tiny little room with, like, seven people cramped together, acting to a casting director; just, none of it makes any sense.
It's hard to do things like auditions, because you don't want to put weeks of work into just an audition.
As an actor, and as you get to a certain level... and it's pilot season and you read the trades, you could have a nervous breakdown. 'So-and-so's signed for a pilot. Why aren't I?'
I had this fear of rejection. I had this inner unworthiness.
I'm an actor, I worry about everything.
I was a book editor for nine years. I'm familiar with the opposite experience, bracing myself for the likelihood that no one would want to publish my book.
It's hard to maintain a sense of dignity in an audition. I have done so many auditions where I've put it out there and have been met with that kind of blank stare - "Great! Thanks! OK! Great work! Thanks for coming in!" At the door I'm thinking, 'What the hell am I doing with my life?'
I guess I am running the risk of becoming the Hans Christian Andersen of opera.
It was something she didn't want me to do because she thought the rejection would ruin my self-esteem. My father was, like, 'If she wants to try it, let her try it.'
When I get really passionate about something, the audition process is really strenuous and hard on me because I feel so much for the project, and I become so attached to it. It's hard. It's stressful because you want it so badly, and you're crafting this character that you're falling in love with.
I wish sometimes that I could be Daniel Day-Lewis and say, 'You know what? If you want me to do this, I'm going to need a year to prepare myself.' But if I do that, they'll say, 'Thank you very much,' and they'll take someone else.
You live with the fear people might find out. Then you actually have the courage to tell people and they go, I don't think you are gay. It's enough to drive you crazy.
I was genuinely shocked to even be in the frame for a sitcom role on British TV.
Yet you told him you loved him?" "Yes, I did." Bridgid was clearly impressed. "You're more courageous than I am. The fear of being rejected pains me to even think about, yet you boldly told Brodick how you felt, even though he hadn't spoken his feelings." "Actually, he told me I loved him.
Fame terrifies me. I can say that with honesty. You're terrified that, when people know the real you, they won't like you.
You are exposing yourself all the time as an actor. There's the risk of being thought of as bad or boring or unattractive.
