Most actors — no matter how successful — likely have played some role that they’re not exactly proud of for various reasons. Maybe it had to do the with the quality of the film, or they did something embarrassing in it, or maybe it was a commercial for an awkward product (nobody really wants to be the smelly person in a deodorant commercial, right?) When it comes to indie star Greta Gerwig, she has gone through phases of regretting some of her past films — particularly when the offers weren’t coming in.
Gerwig admits that she has changing perceptions on her past work, and some films she previously regretted she no longer does. She explains, “I’ve never worked on anything that I haven’t in some way enjoyed. I’ve gone through times where I regretted movies that I now don’t regret. I was naked in lots of stuff for a while. And it was like, ‘Why have I been naked in everything, and I’m a wh**e, and everybody thinks I’m a softcore p**n star.’ I was so ashamed. I remember going through all these like great actresses, like Cate Blanchett’s never been naked, Meryl Streep’s never been naked… Even when people would present me with like, ‘Well, Kate Winslet was naked,’ I was like, in a period piece! Now I don’t feel ashamed of it. So much of it is based on where you are as a person.”
She goes on to add that she wasn’t exactly ashamed about the movies, but she was concerned about how appearing nude on film would affect people’s perception of her acting. She says, “I don’t exactly what changed. When I did them, I wasn’t ashamed. And when they came out, I wasn’t ashamed. I think I was going through a period where I was worried that I wasn’t very good. There’s like a cliché of like, ‘she got where she is because she takes her clothes off,’ and I believed that worst thing about myself. And then it fades. I think the cure for any of that is really engaging with the stuff that you love, as cheesy as that sounds. I really do think that work gets you out of that. As long as you’re not working, all you have to do is sit around and think about how you’re not good enough.”
via Time
