A clandestine drink backstage before every entrance. A makeshift toilet to cope with unrelenting diarrhoea. Sick bags stapled behind the set. The extraordinary lengths to which actors – and their production teams – go to mitigate the paralysing effects of stage fright are today revealed in a study by an academic from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Several famous names have spoken anonymously about the symptoms, some of them shockingly extreme, of the dreaded anxiety that often accompanies performances.
Eight actors opened up to Dr Linda Brennan, a psychotherapist who heads the voice and speech department at the Los Angeles campus of the academy, whose alumni include Kirk Douglas and Anne Hathaway.
Brennan, who is also an actor, said the subjects had agreed to reveal their innermost feelings only because the study would not identify anyone. “That way, they could talk about what really goes on,” she told the Observer.
“In some cases, it’s pretty dreadful. One actor’s doctor told him he had to quit acting because his heart couldn’t take the stress. It can be very severe. Also, just the feelings of shame and humiliation. Many of these actors [with] severe stage fright felt like they were going to die.”
While the study focused on theatre actors, one “very well-known” star revealed that, while filming a TV series, she had backstage sick bags at all entrances and exits. She would vomit into a bag, go on and do her scene, then come off and vomit into another. This was the only way she could get through the shoot.
Brennan, whose research will be published this spring in a book entitled Stage Fright in the Actor, said the subject of stage fright for thespians – rather than for musicians, dancers and public speakers – had been stifled because of actors’ common feeling that the show must go on. They felt they had to deliver, when internally their world “was falling apart”, she said, adding that actors were also reluctant to speak out for fear their vulnerability would be interpreted as a lack of talent.
Yet stage fright has afflicted some of the biggest stars the acting world has ever known. Laurence Olivier suffered years of debilitating performance anxiety, recalling in his autobiography: “My throat closed up and the audience was beginning to go giddily around.” In 2016, Hugh Grant told the Hollywood Reporter: “I do live in terror of an attack. I used to get three or four [on a film].” Hollywood star Jack Lemmon once observed that, without “heightened apprehension”, an actor “probably won’t give as good a performance as he should”, but that stage fright was something else.
Actors told Brennan of the physical “hurt” and mental anguish the anxiety would induce, with one likening it to “a death experience” and the feeling of “losing consciousness”. They detail symptoms ranging from swollen tongues to fainting, uncontrollable crying, cold sweats, breathing difficulties and palpitations. “I don’t think that people really understand what some actors go through to deliver their performances,” she said.
Three actors who agreed to be interviewed, then became too emotional. Brennan said: “Stage fright was too difficult to discuss and we couldn’t complete the interviews.”
But others were grateful the subject was being addressed, particularly in an in-depth study of the causes. Brennan, who treats actors with the condition, is calling for all drama schools to offer lesson in controlling stage fright.
Actors spoke at length about the horrific ways in which they had suffered. One said: “When stage fright strikes, I have difficulty breathing. I cannot inhale deeply, and my breaths get shorter and shorter. Sometimes I get cold sweats and I get lightheaded. My heart races. At times, it feels like it is pounding out of my chest. Sometimes I feel as if I were running, even though I am standing still … Webs of darkness invade my stomach. Sometimes it is like butterflies creating a mild flutter. Sometimes it is a piercing stabbing pain in my core. Sometimes it is unbearable churning where I have to relieve myself over and over, hours before curtain…
“I become hyper-reactive and any sound, movement or comment can make me jump – or scream. Stage fright attacks my primary means of communication, my voice and my body. I get a dry mouth, watery eyes and a swollen tongue. ... Sometimes I can’t move. Stage fright feels like it is literally choking me.”Several spoke of fear of failure being central to the stage fright experience. One described it as “a raging negative voice in my head that interrogates me and inflames the fear... Stage fright feels… as if something is strangling me… It feels like it is destroying me… as if my blood is draining from my body.”
