Al Pacino has been in the news lately, with television appearances and a cover story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine as he promotes his new book “Sonny Boy.”
We who work or live in Williston Park were lucky enough to see him in the flesh as he arrived for the shooting of Martin Scorsese’ “The Irishman.”
I had a chance to talk to him and he had the persona of a scared bird with very alert hyper vigilant eyes. Like a squirrel was about the bounce on him.
Over the years I have met many famous people and they are different from normal people. In the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco I met the famed jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis after one of his performances and he had that same jittery, frightened look about him as well. And other famous artists are the same.
Dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham looked scared to me when I met him. The actor and writer Spalding Gray was my friend and he managed to control his anxiety by writing or also by sedating himself. Naomi Watts filmed “The Book of Henry” in Williston Park and she had that same look of fear.
When I met Robert Downey Jr. a few weeks ago at the Carlyle Hotel, he looked far more self-assured, but that may be because he had his 6-foot-4 body guard next to him at all times.
Pacino alluded to the character structure of great actors when he said that “I’m in the moment, and whatever’s in the moment is who I am.”
This refers to what Helene Deutsch called the “as if” personality, where the person acts as if they have intense emotions (“Hoo-ah!”) in order to deny inner emptiness and coldness.
More common names for this character trait are borderline, false self, the depersonalized self, or impostor syndrome. With the great actors , they have taken this character deficiency and successfully used it to create a wonderful career that we as fans can enjoy.
They easily embody the character they are playing since they have no real personality to get in the way of their role.
This trait may explain what happened to Will Smith at the Oscars when he grew incensed over a Chris Rock joke about alopecia, walked on to the stage and smacked him the face in front of a live audience of more than 20 million viewers.
During his acceptance speech he apologized and made a comment that he may have been possessed by the spirit of crazy Richard Williams, who he had just played in the film “King Richard,” the movie about the Serena and Venus Williams family.
I think that the great actors totally immerse themselves into their roles and it takes them time to return to “normal.”
Years ago I was at a dinner party with a television actor from the television series CSI. He was a quiet, passive type of guy and just for laughs I asked him if he would play-act a role with me where I was his psychoanalyst and he was a crime boss in therapy with me.
He said yes and as we got into the scene, he changed before my eyes from this quiet meek type of guy into a malevolent, terrifying crime boss. It scared me so much I stopped the game.
Each famous actor or artist has a special gift which partly derives from a defect and partly from talent.
They all have managed to convert these deficiencies into a gift they give to the world and for that we must be grateful and give them thanks.
They have an exquisite sensitivity that they have converted into a career that gives them all that fame.
