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Tag: Hollywood actresses

  • Liv Tyler Discusses Anxiety, Going To Therapy

    Liv Tyler Discusses Anxiety, Going To Therapy

    Tyler revealed that she uses coginitive behavioral therapy and meditation to manage her anxiety.

    Actress Liv Tyler, most recently of Hulu’s Harlots, spoke on her struggles with anxiety and her decision to attend cognitive behavioral therapy in a recent interview with The New York Times.

    Tyler, the daughter of Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, admitted that she doesn’t enjoy the spotlight, yet she loves the creative process of her work, and is trying to change her priorities and thought patterns to make the fame part—and her life in general—easier.

    “That is definitely the great puzzle and mystery of my entire life,” she said. “I’m always trying to learn as much as I can about myself, both from my mind and anxiety in general. I definitely have a side to me that’s very shy, or shy in certain situations. I’m better one-on-one, I think. I’m trying to articulate it. I’m still trying to understand it.”

    Handling Fame

    According to the Times, Tyler started attending cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) this year to help reduce the anxiety that so much attention from her career has brought her. She also spoke on her personal fascination with the human mind and her desire to better understand herself.

    “I tend to ask a lot of questions so that I can understand the world more, people more,” said Tyler. “It’s fascinating, people, how they think, how the brain works.”

    Tyler also practices transcendental meditation in order to help her cope with the stress of her career and motherhood. She spoke about this coping technique in 2013, saying that “it helps me make better decisions and be a better mother, and just deal with the daily stress of the modern world that we live in.”

    The pressure of the world, particularly as it embraces social media as an everyday part of life, caused Tyler to consider quitting acting altogether in 2017, according to The Irish Examiner.

    Finding The Balance

    Due to her natural shyness, she had trouble learning how to promote herself online through this increasingly essential medium, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

    “A world changing so much, I was just kind of trying to find my place in all of that.”

    Today, Tyler is still working on achieving a balance that works for her and her family. She calls herself a perfectionist and says she has trouble with time management and tends to overextend herself.

    “I’m always striving to achieve balance, which I think is a very tricky thing in the world today in general. I think our society is not really set up for balance, a lot of extremes going on.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Sex And The City" Star Kristin Davis Credits Acting For Sobriety

    "Sex And The City" Star Kristin Davis Credits Acting For Sobriety

    “I don’t think I would be alive. I’m an addict. I’m a recovering alcoholic. If I hadn’t found acting…acting is the only thing that made me want to ever get sober.”

    Kristin Davis, best known for her role as Charlotte York on the hit HBO series Sex and the City, revealed in a recent interview that she credits her acting career with helping her beat alcoholism.

    Davis discussed her sober journey on the Origins With James Andrew Miller podcast, Entertainment Weekly reports.

    “I don’t think I would be alive,” without her career. “I’m an addict. I’m a recovering alcoholic. If I hadn’t found acting…acting is the only thing that made me want to ever get sober. I didn’t have anything that was that important to me other than trying to dull my senses.”

    Davis said she started drinking when she was young.

    “I didn’t think I would live to be 30,” she said. “Luckily I quit very young, before any success happened, thank goodness.”

    With her acting career, Davis realized she had “something that was more important to me than just drinking.”

    As a teen growing up in Southern California, Davis drank to help calm her insecurities.

    “I’m kind of shy normally, so I felt like I needed help,” she explained. “One thing led to another, and I was drinking.”

    Davis then turned to acting, but then she started showing up to her classes hung over, and she knew she had to make a choice. She told The Week, “I thought, It’s going to be one or the other. I can’t really have both.”

    After attending rehab, Davis confessed she would miss drinking on occasion. “Every once in a while, I’ll be with friends and they’ll be drinking red wine, and I’ll think, in a really innocent way, ‘Oh wow, that’s such a wonderful glass of red wine. Wouldn’t it be fun to drink it?’ Maybe it would be fine, but it’s really not worth the risk.”

    At the same time, Sex and the City made the Cosmo a very popular drink, and as Davis told Health in 2011, “It’s caused a lot of confusion out in the world. I get sent many a Cosmo! I never drink them. I believe [alcoholism] is a disease. I don’t think you can mess with it. There was a time when people who didn’t know me well would say, ‘Couldn’t you just have one glass of champagne?’ And I would say, ‘No.’ I’m doing well. I still have occasional bad days. Why risk it?”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Moore Honored By Women’s Recovery House

    Demi Moore Honored By Women’s Recovery House

    “Early in my career, I was spiraling down a path of real self-destruction, and no matter what successes I had, I just never felt good enough.”

    On Saturday (Oct. 27), actress Demi Moore was presented with the Woman of the Year Award by Friendly House, a women’s recovery program in Los Angeles.

    Moore was honored at the 29th Annual Awards Luncheon hosted by Friendly House, the first residential program for women recovering from substance and alcohol use disorder, according to its official website.

    “Addiction is in the history of my family and I know truly how destructive it can be, and to be able to give women who don’t have the finances or resources this opportunity is remarkable, where they are human beings and not a number on an insurance form,” Moore said to Extra at the event.

    While accepting the award, the Ghost actress shared her story of crisis and redemption. “Early in my career, I was spiraling down a path of real self-destruction, and no matter what successes I had, I just never felt good enough. I had absolutely no value for myself,” she said.

    “And this self-destructive path, it very quickly brought me to a real crisis point.” It was at this point that she was hit with a divine intervention. “Two people, who I barely knew, stepped up… and they presented me with an opportunity—that was more like an ultimatum—unless I was dead, that I better show up.”

    Moore accepted the help and was forever changed by the chance she was given. “It gave me a chance to redirect the course of my life, before I destroyed everything. Clearly they saw more in me than I saw in myself, and I’m so grateful, because without that opportunity… I wouldn’t be standing here today.”

    Sobriety is a point of pride for all three of Moore’s daughters as well.

    In a 2017 social media post, Rumer Willis, announced that she was six months sober. “It’s not something I planned on but after the long journey of getting here I can honestly say I have never been more proud of myself in my entire life,” the eldest wrote.

    This was followed by a similar announcement from Scout Willis, who a week later celebrated one year of sobriety. “I am meeting the best version of myself every day,” the middle sister wrote.

    And finally, Tallulah Willis shared that she overcame both a drinking problem and eating disorder. “I did not value myself, my life or my body and as such I was constantly punishing for not being enough,” the youngest wrote.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Jamie Lee Curtis: Sobriety Changed Everything

    Jamie Lee Curtis: Sobriety Changed Everything

    The “Halloween” actress revealed in an interview that she would not be where she is now without sobriety.

    Now coming up on her 60th birthday, movie star Jamie Lee Curtis is focused on her legacy.

    “I want to die having said something,” she told USA Today.

    Curtis stars in the newest Halloween film, re-assuming her debut role as Laurie Strode to once again face the masked murderer Michael Myers. Between that first starring role and this most recent redux, Curtis has played a wide range of characters in a variety of genres. But the road was not always easy, and it was during these times that Curtis used alcohol and opioids to deal with the stress. She recalls the summer of 1987, trying to balance work and family while shooting A Fish Called Wanda.

    “My memory of A Fish Called Wanda is that I cried every day to and from work. Not that I laughed, not that it was super-fun, nothing,” she said. “My memory of A Fish Called Wanda was leaving my sleeping 6-month-old daughter, going to work an hour away and then working 12 hours, sometimes more, and then an hour back, often to a child asleep again. And that was like the beginning of it all for me.”

    Looking back, Curtis realized she was forgetting to take care of herself.

    “I think I was replicating my mom and really trying to just make everybody happy,” she reflected.

    Curtis has been candid about her former addiction and her sobriety, now going on two decades. Of all the things she’s accomplished, Curtis once said she considers getting sober her number one accomplishment.

    “As soon as I got sober, which is 20 years coming up in February, everything changed,” she said. “Because it was a big, big acknowledgment that I could not do all of the things I was trying to do.”

    The secret, Curtis suggested, was in prioritizing what really matters.

    “All I hear is the grading, the rank ordering in my industry. A-list. A-listers. I’m in B-movies. That’s how I’ve buttered my bread. And horror movies are like at the bottom end of the scale,” she said, referring to her legacy as a horror film scream queen. “…And yet I have navigated 40 years. I sold yogurt that made you poop for five years because it was a gig that allowed me to stay home and be a mom the way I needed to be a mom.”

    The newest Halloween, starring Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak, arrived in theaters on October 19.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Keira Knightley Talks PTSD, Dealing With Early Fame

    Keira Knightley Talks PTSD, Dealing With Early Fame

    In a new interview, Knightley revealed the toll that sudden fame took on her mental health after the box office success of Pirates of the Caribbean.

    Keira Knightley first broke through to stardom with the film Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, then she hit the jackpot with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. But early fame was very difficult for her to handle, and as she tells The Hollywood Reporter, she was diagnosed with PTSD after having “a mental breakdown at 22.”

    Knightley says the run of Pirates sequels “was completely insane – from the outside you’re like, ‘Whoa, that was hit after hit after hit!’ But from the inside, all you’re hearing is the criticism.”

    Knightley’s insecurities about being a young actress festered. “I was aware that I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? I didn’t know my trade, I didn’t know my craft. I knew that there was something that worked sometimes, but I didn’t know how to kind of capture that.”

    Being in the tabloids was hard to deal with as well. “I didn’t handle it well,” she reveals. “It was a really rude awakening to he world of misogyny…I never experienced that level of hatred on a day-to-day basis. There was a sense of, like, battle every day of leaving the house.”

    After Knightley suffered her mental breakdown at 22, “I did take a year off there and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of all that stuff.”

    Knightley traveled for a year, saying it “gave me that space I needed to be able to start again. I felt pretty much like I sort of didn’t exist and I was this weird creature with this weird face that people seemed to respond to in quite an extreme way, and I couldn’t quite figure any of it out.”

    Knightley also felt her family helped her through this dark time in her life, and she adds, “I can really enjoy things now. I look back and I just sort of want to give myself a hug and be like, ‘Oh, you’re doing all right, you’ll be all right.’”

    In 2015, Knightley spoke to Elle about therapy. “I highly recommended it. I don’t do it at the moment. But in my early 20s when I found everything completely overwhelming, 100%, I did it! I think when you’re in those moments in your life, and you want to get through them…you have to do whatever it is to help you get over it. You have to give it a go. Try anything that might help.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Emma Stone Talks Anxiety, Panic Attacks

    Emma Stone Talks Anxiety, Panic Attacks

    “You don’t have to be actor to overcome anxiety. You just have to find that thing within you that you are drawn to.”

    Emma Stone can vividly remember her first panic attack at age seven. 

    “I was sitting at a friend’s house and all of a sudden I was absolutely convinced that the house was on fire,” Stone recalled. “I was just sitting in her bedroom and obviously the house wasn’t on fire but there was nothing in me that didn’t think I was going to die.”

    On Monday, October 1, the actress sat down with Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz for a 30-minute conversation at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. She discussed her history of anxiety, beginning with the panic attack. Stone went on to describe how she would visit the nurse daily during second grade, where she would then call her mom. 

    “I had deep separation anxiety,” she told Koplewicz.

    Stone’s mother decided to take her to therapy and was informed her daughter had generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, ABC News reports. However, she chose not to tell her daughter, which is something Stone says she has appreciated. 

    “I am very grateful I didn’t know that I had a disorder,” Stone said. “I wanted to be an actor and there weren’t a lot of actors who spoke about having panic attacks.”

    Stone described how in therapy, she came up with a book called, I Am Bigger Than My Anxiety. She says she drew photos inside of “a little green monster that sits on my shoulder.” In the book, the monster — her anxiety — would increase in size if she listened and decrease if she didn’t.

    A few years after her first panic attack, at age 11, Stone says she began acting in improv and realized “my feelings could be productive.”

    She says she also kept involved in the local children’s theater which was helpful in managing anxiety.

    “I believe the people who have anxiety and depression are very, very sensitive and very, very smart,” she said. “Because the world is hard and scary and there’s a lot that goes on and if you’re very attuned to it, it can be crippling. But if you don’t let it cripple you and use it for something productive, it’s like a superpower.”

    Today, Stone says, she manages her anxiety disorder through therapy, medication, the company of others and staying busy. She also avoids social media. 

    “That would send me into a spin,” she said. “I don’t need to be getting constant feedback on who I am.”

    For anyone battling anxiety, Stone says the key is finding somewhere else to shift your focus. 

    “You don’t have to be actor to overcome anxiety, you don’t have to be a writer to overcome it,” she told Koplewicz. “You just have to find that thing within you that you are drawn to.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Drew Barrymore Talks Past Drug Use: Cocaine Is My Worst Nightmare

    Drew Barrymore Talks Past Drug Use: Cocaine Is My Worst Nightmare

    The “Santa Clarita Diet” actress got candid about her past drug use on Norm Macdonald’s new Netflix talk show.

    Drew Barrymore’s past struggles with substance misuse are well-known. After she became a superstar with the success of E.T., she followed the path of many child stars, battling addiction which threatened to end her career.

    Now in a recent appearance on Norm Macdonald’s new talk show Norm Macdonald has a Show, Barrymore says she has no desire to go back to those days.

    When Macdonald asked Barrymore if she missed cocaine, she emphatically replied, “Oh, God. It’s been a very long time, but no. Nothing would make me have a panic attack and seem like a bigger nightmare.”

    Looking back in hindsight, Barrymore said her early fame was “like a recipe for disaster. You know what’s exciting? I got my s— over with at, like 14. Like, midlife crisis, institutionalized, blacklisted, no family. Got it done. And then [I] got into the cycle of being my own parent. It’s sad that there’s this weird alchemy about kids doing this line of work that f— all of them up, and I’m no different.”

    Barrymore admitted she still drinks, telling Macdonald, “I enjoy my life and get out of my own head. It’s not that I’m this militant person of clarity and presence but [cocaine] is like my worst nightmare right now.”

    Substance abuse ran in Barrymore’s family. Her father battled alcoholism and eventually wound up homeless. Her grandfather was Hollywood legend—and legendary drinker—John Barrymore. Drew had already taken a trip to rehab by the age of 12, survived a suicide attempt, and was then institutionalized for 18 months.

    She described her lowest point to The Guardian. “Just knowing that I really was alone… My mom locked me up in an institution. But it did give an amazing discipline. It was like serious recruitment training and boot camp, and it was horrible and dark and very long-lived, a year and a half, but I needed it.”

    Barrymore told Howard Stern in a past interview, “It was a very severe, locked down, no-Hollywood-rehab-30-day-Malibu-beachside-bullshit [place]… They saved my life.”

    After getting back into civilization, Barrymore lived with David Crosby, who was also in recovery, for two months, then worked a number of jobs before she rebuilt her acting career. She’s currently starring in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Emma Stone Talks To Jennifer Lawrence About Her Anxiety Struggles

    Emma Stone Talks To Jennifer Lawrence About Her Anxiety Struggles

    In an interview for Elle magazine, Emma Stone spoke candidly about mental health to her close friend Jennifer Lawrence.

    Emma Stone has been very open about her struggles with anxiety, which she’s had since she was a child. Now, Stone and fellow actress Jennifer Lawrence have interviewed each other for Elle magazine, in which the Hollywood BFFs spoke about struggling with anxiety and how acting can be a release.

    In the interview, Lawrence asked Stone, “What do you think caused your anxiety? Do you think you were born like that, or do you think something happened that made you extremely sensitive, or do you think that you’re naturally pathetic?”

    Stone, who has battled anxiety since she was seven years old, replied, “I think your wiring is just kind of what you are. My mom always says that I was born with my nerves outside of my body. But I’m lucky for the anxiety, because it also makes me high-energy.”

    Stone has reached out to Lawrence on the phone, on what Lawrence calls Emma’s “frequent sleepless nights.” Stone’s racing thoughts have also been kicking up lately because she’ll soon be turning 30.

    Stone is currently taking a break from Hollywood. “I haven’t shot anything for six months, which has been amazing because there’s been more time to be with friends or travel.”

    Lawrence also pointed out that Stone doesn’t have a “big social media presence,” to which Stone replied, “I think it wouldn’t be a positive thing for me. If people can handle that sort of output and input in the social media sphere, power to them.”

    While Lawrence didn’t talk about her own anxiety in her conversation with Stone, the Hunger Games star did talk about her mental health struggles to Esperanza. Like Stone, Lawrence used acting as an escape and as a way of healing her self-image.

    Growing up, Lawrence felt like she was “a weirdo… I’ve always had this weird anxiety. I hated recess. Parties really stressed me out. I was having trouble at school and I had a lot of social anxieties.”

    Lawrence’s parents also took her to a therapist, and like Stone, she realized performing “was the one that that [made] anxiety go away. I didn’t feel good about myself until I discovered acting and how happy it made me feel.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Selma Blair Celebrates Two Years Of Sobriety

    Selma Blair Celebrates Two Years Of Sobriety

    “I prayed for a miracle at my lowest points. I am a living miracle. Thank you,” the actress wrote in an Instagram post.

    Actress Selma Blair had two reasons to celebrate this week: her 46th birthday as well as her second year of sobriety.

    Blair, who has starred in films including Hellboy and Legally Blonde, took to Instagram to announce her achievement.

    “2 years sober. 2 years feeling everything and nothing. 2 years of extreme gratitude and humility and grace,” she wrote in her post, which included a photograph of herself with a birthday cake. “I thank the lord and my friends. Thank you for the most special birthday week @fran.anania #amypines #arthursaintbleick.”

    Just last month, Blair admitted to having struggled with alcoholism, anxiety, and depression, but has been winning in her struggles as of late.

    “I prayed for a miracle at my lowest points. I am a living miracle. Thank you. Thank you. #birthdaygirl #almost46 #summersolstice #grace,” she wrote in her post.

    Blair hasn’t hid her struggles with depression and anxiety from fans. In a throwback post she wrote in May, she reflected on her career in Hollywood, including the highs and the lows.

    “For better or for worse. I want to have hope again. I want to thank you all for believing in me. I want to find the right work for me. And for me as a mom and as a woman who has come so far in personal ways,” she wrote in her May post. “I want to make us all proud. 21 years later. #heartonsleeve Opens a New Window. It’s a random Tuesday. Maybe miracles will happen.”

    The Cruel Intentions star once had a meltdown on an airplane flight, allegedly brought on by mixing medications with alcohol.

    “I made a big mistake yesterday,” said Blair after the incident. “After a lovely trip with my son and his dad, I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out and led me to say and do things that I deeply regret.”

    A few months after the incident, Blair gained some new perspective on the incident.

    “Hopefully everyone on the plane is doing fine now too, because it was very destructive,” she said on The Talk. “I am someone who should never drink, and I rarely do, and I don’t drink anymore, but I was going through something. I had a glass of wine and someone gave me a pill that I thought was something that I’d taken before… it was something completely different… and I had a total psychotic blackout.”

    View the original article at thefix.com