To be a great actor you have to be empathic. True or false?
Marlon Brando in the theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire
Is it impossible to be a great actor if you are narcissistic? One argument goes like this: A great actor cannot be narcissistic because narcissistic people lack empathy. And to be a great actor you need to empathise with your character – perhaps quite powerfully. This means it’s not an optional ability or trait if you want to have a notable career on screen.
Alexander Lowen is a psychiatrist and author on narcissism. His definition of empathy appears to lend to support to the idea that an actor would not be able to act well without empathy:
“Empathy, the ability to sense other people’s moods or feelings, is a function of resonance. We can feel another person’s sadness because it makes us sad; we can share another’s joy because it evokes good feelings in us.”1
Huff post journalist Melissa Schenker states,
“Some actors are highly emotionally aware and bring their power for emotional empathy to their roles – it is BECAUSE [sic] of their curiosity about the human experience and BECAUSE [sic] of their empathy, their ability to understand what life is like for another human, that they are an actor. Performers who choose their art form from an authentic curiosity and drive to learn, experiment, and share their craft are unlikely to be narcissists. Performers who chose their art form as an avenue to fame, for the sake of being admired, are probably narcissists.2”
Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
In this argument there are two types of actor: a ‘narcissist’ and a ‘non-narcissist’. But Hollywood actor Gene Wilder (famous for films like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Stir Crazy, and Blazing Saddles) once said that all actors are narcissists having come from dysfunctional family backgrounds. Others point to the fact that acting is a pursuit of admiration and even idealisation from a distance. Doesn’t this sound narcissistic? In his recent autobiographical film, actor Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, Rambo) recalls that his mother was unpredictable and his father ferocious. They would often fight, and Sylvester as a child lived in boarding houses much of the time. Looking back, he said,
“People say, ‘you were deprived, you weren’t nurtured’. Well, that’s true. But maybe the nurturing comes from the respect and love of strangers. To feel embraced and loved by an audience. Its insatiable. I wish I could get over it. But you can’t… I would spend untold hours in theatres…[Acting] is the life I wanted to lead… That’s who I wanna be. I wanna be the guy… who saves people”3.
Stallone sounds like he has done a lot of reflecting about what brought him into acting. He faced a lot of rejection, but his drive was strong. And this seems to have been a drive to be seen and loved by an audience as much as anything else. Is this not a part of narcissism?
Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa
Researchers Young and Pinsky4 gave a narcissism test (the Narcissism Personality Inventory) to 200 celebrities. Reality TV stars scored highest for narcissism, closely followed by actors. Overall celebrity scores were 17% higher than the US average. Researchers Wallace and Baumeister6 give one reason as to why fame might attract narcissism - arguing that “narcissists may gravitate to working environments where opportunities for high performance will lead to self-glorification”.
So, there are conflicting ideas about whether successful acting requires empathy. There are three ways of understanding narcissism and empathy that might help with this debate, and these are what I am going to look at.
Narcissism is not really a kind of person
If narcissism is a kind of person, then we have to decide whether a given actor is or is not a narcissist, and we have to conclude that either all are narcissists, or some are narcissists, or none are. The problem with this is that most experts on narcissism agree that it is not a kind of person.
Narcissism is on a continuum from ‘healthy narcissism’6 through ‘pathological narcissism’7 to narcissistic personality disorder and ultimately narcissistic psychopathy (see psychopathy post for details). Narcissism can be thought of as a set of strategies that we can use to manage ourselves and our relationships, in a flexible way or, for some, in a more fixed or even compulsive way. So, an actor might employ their narcissism at work, get their fix of admiration and performance, and then flexibly put down these strategies when they get home to their family (re-emerging at bedtime story time). In this scenario narcissistic strategies are part of a bigger repertoire. This actor is not very narcissistic.
What do I mean by strategies? I define narcissism as the taking up of power, performance, self-admiration and judgement – when vulnerability, powerlessness and humiliation have been unsafe – unmanageable. Usually, the experience of emotional vulnerability or shame being unmanageable was during childhood. To take up power, to perform, to judge – are strategies that we can use to make us feel ok again. We might do this in certain situations (flexible – less narcissistic), or in all situations (inflexible – more narcissistic).
I have written more about what narcissism is in the theory post. But if narcissism is a set of strategies, we cannot simply say that some actors are narcissists and will therefore lack empathy. And since acting is about performance, charisma and admiration, how would acting not by default attract a degree of narcissism? It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
There are different types of empathy
Since Dr Lowen (quoted above) wrote about empathy in 1985, our understanding of empathy has expanded. As usual, it’s more complicated than we thought. Consider the following three sentences:
“I can see how you get to that conclusion – I really can. But my own take on your situation is different”.
“I could see how angry he was but at that point there was nothing I could do.”
“As soon as I saw her face; that expression, I felt a lump in my throat.”
What these three statements have in common is empathy. What sets them apart, is that they are each showing a different type of empathy. In the first case someone is seeing the world from another’s perspective. Emotions don’t seem to be a big part of it. This is called perspective taking or cognitive empathy – attention to thoughts. In the second, it is emotion that is being noticed and taken an interest in – this is emotional empathy. In the third, emotions in the person speaking are being spontaneously triggered by emotion seen in the other. This is called the contagion effect – enabled by our specialist ‘mirror neurons’.
The chicken’s perspective
In an exercise at the Dramatic Workshop in New York, where a 19-year-old ‘Bud’ (Marlon) Brando was studying, tutor Stella Adler asked the students to imagine they were a chicken. Furthermore, the students were told, it was wartime, and “a nuclear bomb is on its way”. Whilst other students ran around in an acted panic, Brando sat completely still. At the end, when Brando was asked to explain himself, he said “what do chickens know of bombs?”8 Brando began, over the coming months, to attract applause. In the chicken exercise, was Brando being empathic? Probably. But probably not emotionally empathic. Brando was not feeling for the chicken he was imaginatively thinking for the chicken.
Separating out these different types of empathy has been found to be important in understanding one particular kind of mental health problem: personality disorder. In borderline personality disorder (BPD, AKA emotionally unstable personality disorder), there tend to be problems with perspective taking, whilst emotional empathy and contagion empathy may actually be more sensitive than average9. This is the area of psychological problems where we also find narcissism.
From an empathy perspective its odd to find ‘narcissism’ and ‘borderline’ together – because people with BPD often experience themselves as ‘empaths’ whilst narcissism is associated with a lack of empathy. Research confirmed that they are different. The typical profile of empathy we would expect in narcissism is almost the opposite of that found in ‘BPD’. In narcissism, we typically find a lack of contagion empathy, an insensitivity to the emotions of others, and at least average perspective taking7.
If there are at least three types of empathy, an actor may show great empathy in one and poor empathy in another. Are actors, with their search for public admiration more likely to show a narcissistic profile of empathy? Maybe a particular actor is exploiting his or her enhanced imaginative perspective taking ability, whilst in other areas of empathy they might be lacking. Both can be true.
Empathy is dynamic
An author in the 1930s called Thomas Burke made friends with a man who was “the most famous man in the world”10; Charles Chaplin. Chaplin, now a huge acting and directing star, had made The Kid; a compassionate film about a vulnerable boy whose childhood was in some ways like Chaplin’s own (see post). But as Burke observed the real Charles Chaplin, something shocked him and he tried to put it into words. He said Chaplin was “uninterested in people either individually or as humanity”10.
Charles Chaplin shooting The Kid
One problem with the idea that some actors are empathic and some not, is that many seem to be empathic in some situations and unempathic in others. Let’s return to Marlon Brando – double Oscar winner and a man proclaimed as one the greatest actors of all time. Let’s look at two more reports about this man:
Outside the Dramatic Workshop where Brando was studying, the students were one day gathered for a break. A boy of around seven years – apparently with Downs syndrome – walked along the street alone, looking lost. Marlon jumped to action and impressing those around him, was able to communicate with the boy in a way the others could not. He found the boy’s house and took great interest in seeing him safe – waiting to see the boy wave from the apartment window above6. One friend, Avra Douglas, said Brando felt;
“Very protective toward people who were denied a voice…he just had such enormous empathy”8
Many of Brando’s lovers though, might be surprised by this description of Brando as an empath (see Brando post). Marlon’s lack of emotional empathy towards his sexual partners in particular caused a lot of pain. One biographer asked,
“How could this man, so empathic and solicitous towards the underprivileged, have treated so many women in his life so callously?”8
When Alice Marchack took over as Brando’s personal secretary, she had been told that the previous two women in the role had had “nervous breakdowns”. Alice became something of a witness to Marlon’s private life. At times, she said, when a woman was devastated by his dismissive treatment, he would say to her, “can you believe she really thought I was in love with her?”9 So here is one man – a great actor. In some situations, he is experienced as being highly empathic. And in others he is experienced as lacking empathy. This doesn’t quite fit the black and white empath or non-empath world. And it brings us onto another aspect of empathy which has become better understood in the last 20 years. As well as being multidimensional, empathy is dynamic – not fixed. Our empathy increases and decreases in certain situations. Some situations switch it off entirely.
For some people, being in a close relationship has, during childhood, been emotionally unsafe. When reminded of this situation, we can feel as if we are again in danger. When we feel we are in danger (even if we are not), the empathic part of our brain switches off in favour of the fight-or-flight parts. This is a kind of post-traumatic reaction but does not necessarily mean the person has a diagnosable mental illness. Returning to Brando, and thinking about the boy with Downs syndrome, and the chicken, what did they have in common? Neither were close to him and neither came close to putting Brando in a vulnerable position. In fact, both were themselves in a vulnerable position. The thing that spelled danger for Brando – vulnerability in himself – was absent.
So, perhaps in some situations Brando could be supremely empathic. And it might be that empathising with vulnerability in someone or something else (even a chicken) offered some distance and relief from feelings of vulnerability in himself. Taking this one step further, It might even be that for the actor, empathising with someone else (their character) who represents a vulnerability ‘too close to home’ - that cannot be experienced directly, is a relief. In intimate relationships though, for Brando, empathy still might have disappeared from sight. And according to a number of women, it did.
I have not mentioned the gender of actors and all my examples are male. Women are more empathic generally than men. And I wonder if the different aspects of empathy I have mentioned affect female and male actors differently. Based on the research of Young and Pinsky4 though, female actors are certainly not immune from narcissism.
Actor = empath?
So, great actors may have a complicated relationship with empathy and also with vulnerability. Narcissism – a kind of phobia of vulnerability itself - can help explain these relationships. Some types of empathy, in narcissism might work even better than average whilst other types of empathy might be more or less absent. At the same time, empathy for others might offer in specific situations, escape from feelings of vulnerability in the actor – because it is the other person who is now vulnerable. There might be situations in which empathy is switched on, and other situations – perhaps the more intimate and personal – in which empathy is switched off.
I have said that in narcissism, vulnerability specifically has been experienced as dangerous. If we emphasise in narcissism the avoidance of vulnerability, we predict the taking up of power, grandiosity or fame – as a source of relief or escape. If we emphasise avoidance of the vulnerability in oneself, we predict a focus on the vulnerability of others. If we emphasise the finding of vulnerability in others, we might predict the drama of the character in the story and their urgent portrayal – as if one’s life – or at least escape from danger - depended on it. And I think this might sometimes look like great, great acting.
Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own unless otherwise stated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution I have been employed by. The content here is for information and should not be interpreted as advice.
References
1. Lowen, A. (1985). Narcissism: The Denial of the True Self. Touchstone
2. Schenker, M. (2013, Dec 13th). Celebrities are NOT all Narcissists. Huff Post.
3. Zimmy, T. (2013) Sly. Netflix.
4. Young, S.M. & Pinsky, D. (2006). Narcissism and Celebrity. Journal of Research in Personality, 40(5), 463-471.
5. Wallace, H. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2002). The performance of narcissists rises and falls with perceived opportunity for glory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(5), 819–834.
6. Malkin, C. (2015) Rethinking Narcissism. Harper Wave
7. Diamond, D., Yeomans, F.E., Stern, B.L. & Kernberg, O.F. (2022) Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference Focussed Therapy. Guildford
8. Mann, W.J. (2019). The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando. Harper.
9. Harari, H., Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., Ravid, M., & Levkovitz, Y. (2010). Double dissociation between cognitive and affective empathy in borderline personality disorder. Psychiatry Research, 175(3), 277-279.
10. Ackroyd, P. (2014). Charlie Chaplin. Vintage books.
This is a fascinating subject, thank you for writing this. I was especially intrigued by the parts about having empathy in some situations but lacking it completely in others. Many people are quick to label others narcissists or complain that they have no empathy, but then become confused when those people do nice things or do seem to show genuine compassion to others. It's helpful to look at it as dynamic.
I read Brando's autobiography last year and it was difficult to reconcile the narcissistic parts with the parts where he shows such genuine care and compassion for people and causes that had nothing to do with him at all. After reading your article, it makes a lot more sense to me.
I found this article because I thinking about how some actors are so skilled at portraying genuine emotion onscreen, but then appear to lack empathy offscreen. You provided some great points and food for thought. Thanks again.
Narcacist lack empathy, but they have this fascinating ability to read people & analyse body language, facial expressions at an extremely fast rate which then they are able to mimic back to you your own mannerisms during interactions. One form of manipulation they use... In saying that, I guess that makes them the world's best actors. You definitely do not need to feel empathy to be an actor ( prob work against you if you had to act out a scene that was disturbing, socially/morally unexceptable).
There are different types of Narcissism. As human beings we all have to a small degree some sort of narcissistic traits, but that doesn't make us all Narcissists.
A majority of people do feel empathy & genuinely are unable to intentionally harm or abuse another person for their own gain out of morals, guilt, conscience, knowing it's wrong etc.. Then there is a percentage of people that truly lack empathy on every level. For a small handful it may be biological but for the majority it was environmental caused by some sort of trauma at a young age where it became their coping /survival mechanism...