Actor Adam Driver drew controversy on Wednesday after he walked out of an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s talk show “Fresh Air”. Driver, who was there to promote his new movie, Marriage Story, abruptly left after Gross played a clip of the actor singing the broadway tune, Being Alive -- one of the more emotionally intense scenes in the film -- which is currently generating Oscar buzz.
Some on Twitter have called it a diva move, which is not too difficult to believe. Driver, a former Marine, carries himself with an uncompromising type of intensity. It’s easy to see how the actor’s high strung personality might tip over into anxiety – or rage.
Though this is not the first time Driver has modified his behaviour in order to cope with his discomfort over his performances. He has admitted to feeling nauseous during a première of Star Wars: The Force Awakens; and hiding out in a greenroom during a screening of BlacKkKlansmen. At the Toronto Film Festival last year, he reportedly skipped the press lines for both Marriage Story and The Report, leaving journalists – who had praised both movies - unimpressed.
Driver’s reluctance to watch himself has been described in a New Yorker profile as a “phobia” and I have to say: I get it. I may not be a Julliard-trained actor with a handful of blockbusters under my belt but I can sympathise.
I never, ever look at photos of myself. It took me years to not run away when one was being taken. I had to have a headshot done for my job as columnist for a newspaper a decade ago and it was so painful I have not had one since, though I have needed to. It has affected my work in an industry that requires a healthy amount of self-promotion in order to survive.
I’ve taken two selfies in my life, one was for the hospital because they needed to identify me before I had my daughter, and the other was for a writing gig. Both were excruciating. When asked to do the latter I told my editor I’d rather have a pap smear. A gynaecological exam is a walk in the park compared to a photo.
When I had the privilege of appearing on morning television to promote a book I wrote a few years ago I had a panic attack in the greenroom. The very kind producer had to hug me. Afterwards my publicist gave me a gentle warning about the need for exposure. I had to excuse myself midway through her lecture to go to the toilet five times.
I can imagine that Driver probably left because he was about to do the same - or throw up.
Friends, family, co-workers have been routinely flummoxed by my behaviour, which, like Driver’s can appear ungrateful on the surface.
But a phobia by definition is not rational. That’s why it’s a phobia. What if Adam Driver told the producers he was terrified of spiders. Would they ask him to hold one?
That’s how I explain it to people who try to trick me into looking at photos of myself, or tell me I’m “not ugly”. How can I explain that this goes beyond ordinary body dysmorphia? Driver is a famous actor. Me? I’m a total extrovert, so it seems like a contradiction or an act. But the feelings are real. The dread; the adrenaline coursing through our bodies is most definitely real. But I’m working on it, meanwhile, if you can, don’t try to talk me round, just please work on understanding.
