Academy Award Winner, Jessica Chastain, once shared in an interview, her philosophy on the types of roles she sought as an actress. I was struck by her willingness, at such a young age, to not only seek roles that were beyond her comfort zone, but her expressed intention to do exactly so.
As someone that agonizes over which pair of slacks to put on in the morning, I was in awe of her brave approach to her profession…so much so that I copied her remarks onto a Word Document and filed it under “Inspiration”. Here’s what she said.
“Right after The Tree of Life (2011) came out, I started hearing about strategies for my career. And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to do anything based on a strategy. If I don’t continue to challenge myself and risk failure, I have no business being an actor. I’m not an actor to be a personality. I want to see every part I take like a master class. And you know what? I’m going to fail sometimes. And that’s OK. Because when you fail, you learn more”.
She added, “I always try to play characters who are very different from what I am. If the character was a good swimmer or a diver, I’d be interested because in my real life, I am totally scared of water. I would immediately feel compelled to do it because I’m always trying to tackle any fear I have. I don’t want my life to be controlled by fear, whether it’s the fear of being rejected, fear of being loved; I want to run my life with open arms. Also, I never want to play the same character twice. To me, that’s soul crushing.
I end up doing roles where I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass myself or fail. But then it gives you that extra hit of adrenalin, and you have to step up your game”.
Whether in business or our personal life, we would be wise to heed the advice of this talented actress. As the framed poster on my office wall reads, “Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible”.