[noelwelsh]

I think most actors are people who like attention and like being around other people (sure, not all are). I imagine if you're that kind of person it is great to be in a hit film like Star Wars. You bring joy to so many people and you get all these cool interactions like the one in the post.

[aleden]

"There are no artists. We are businessmen. We're merchants. And there is no art." - Marlon Brando [1]

[1] http://m.imdb.com/title/tt4145178/quotes

[talmand]

Ah, one guy that hated his industry speaks for the industry.

[unit91]

Still, we shouldn't discount his perspective so quickly. After all, this is Marlon Brando we're talking about...

[workerIbe]

Who is well known to have been bipolar.

[aleden]

A well-known psychiatrist with bipolar disorder, Kay Jamison, published a book titled "Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament". In her own words:

"The main purpose of this book is to make a literary, biographical, and scientific argument for a compelling association, not to say actual overlap, between two temperaments- the artistic and the manic-depressive- and their relationship to the rhythms and cycles, or temperament, of the natural world. The emphasis will be on understanding the relationship between moods and imagination, the nature of moods- their variety, their contrary and opposition qualities, their flux, their extremes (causing, in some individuals, occasional episodes of 'madness')- and the importance of moods in igniting thought, changing perceptions, creating chaos, forcing order upon that chaos, and enabling transformation." (5)

Some of the persons mentioned: Byron, Tennyson, Melville, William and Henry James, Schumann, Coleridge, van Gogh, Hemingway, Virginia Wolf. I think she presents a compelling argument that extreme fluctuations in mood, when coupled with an enforced rational thinking process results in more interesting creative output. Granted, their lives may still suck.

[workerIbe]

Sure, I agree, but an emotional quote on any given day probably isn't a good basis for an arguement.

[eon1]

And..?

[workerIbe]

On any other day the quote might have been quite different.