Tag: Age

Categories
Health

Nicole Kidman: Women in Hollywood Are 'Lucky' Now That They Can Age Like Men


I don’t know about you, but season two of Big Little Lies can’t come soon enough. For one, all the cast members are returning, including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Zoë Kravitz, Laura Dern, and Shailene Woodley. Plus, we all now know that Madeline (Witherspoon) is going to throw ice cream on Meryl Streep. Really, how could they tease something like that then make us wait?

But it isn’t just Madeline’s brilliant one-liners (“I love my grudges; I tend to them like little pets”) or Kidman’s profound portrayal of a domestic abuse survivor that makes the show so compelling. As Kidman stated when she accepted a SAG Award (her first, at age 50) for her performance, Big Little Lies proves there’s an appetite for story-telling about women over the age of 40. “Twenty years ago, we were pretty washed up by this stage in our lives,” she said. “That’s not the case now. We have proven…and so many more are proving that we are potent and powerful and viable.”

The same can be said for Kidman’s ongoing involvement as a spokeswoman for Neutrogena, where she’s using her influence to shift conversations around aging from something that’s stigmatized to something that’s celebrated. We recently caught up with her at an event for the brand to chat beauty, BLL, and more.

How do you think the way we talk about beauty is changing?

I think we share a lot more. It’s not secretive, like, “I come out of the house and this is how I look [all put together],” like in the fifties or sixties. It’s very much now, “What do you use? What’s the latest? Oh my gosh, tell me!” and everyone shares, which is really helpful for women. I think it’s changing the way we see each other. We’re lucky now that we can age—and still age really well—but all be very open about it.

Speaking of aging, what’s your opinion on the term ‘anti-aging?’

As we get older we can still look good, be healthy and vibrant and appealing. I think that’s what every human being wants. Nobody wants to look like you’ve had the life sucked out of you. I just say it’s about gracefully aging—because it can be fun!

What influence has the movement to embrace aging had on Hollywood?

I’m in a position as an actress where I love the lines being blurred, because I get to play younger, I get to play older, and I get to play my age. Men always got to do that, and we’re in a position now for women where we’re trying to carve that path. It’s still hard to convince [casting agents and producers] to [let us] do that, but it’s a lot easier. I think other women are going, “No, I want to see women who I relate to, who I’ve grown up with, not just be discarded. I want to see them achieving things and still going strong.”

For me, I’ve been working since I was 14, so I have this crazy, intimate relationship with fans in a sense that they’ve seen my life, they’ve seen me fall, they’ve seen me get back up—they’ve seen me go through so much and still be here. That’s really exciting. And when Big Little Lies came out, the support from other women has been really nice. [Actresses my age] don’t just disappear, but we actually have opportunities to take chances. It makes me feel very grateful.

A lot of women are still afraid or ashamed to reveal their age. Is that something you’ve noticed?

I think it has to do with self-esteem, and also with bullying. [That’s why I’m glad] there’s this enormous move toward supporting each other. I think there’s a thing now where so many women are saying to each other, “I’ve got your back, girl.” When you know you’re supported like that, I think self-esteem and confidence grows, and the more we encourage that the better. We need to constantly be working on supporting rather than criticizing.

When you were discussing Celeste’s character in Big Little Lies, what beauty aspects were important to you to focus on?

Well, I use sunscreen because we’re shooting outdoors in Monterrey. I love the Neutrogena Ultra Sheer with 100+ SPF. And I use the Neutrogena Ivory Base Foundation, because I like Celeste to have that very pale, porcelain skin since she’s got a fragility. But I always approach each character differently, so I try to approach it from the inside out, and I don’t wear really heavy makeup. It’s just not who I am anyway.

I like being able to change the way I look with each character. Sometimes you use prosthetics to do that, and then you really need to take care of your skin, because they’re so harsh. I just did a role in a movie called The Destroyer [out in December 2018] where I age up, and then I age younger in the same movie. The prosthetics take two hours and you have to use harsh alcohol to take them off. They’re really tough on your skin. That’s why I’ll go home and use a mask, like Neutrogena’s HydroBoost, because when you put straight alcohol on your skin, it trashes it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Related Stories:
–This Pic of Reese Witherspoon Hurling Ice Cream at Meryl Streep Is a Work of Art
–Read Every Word of Nicole Kidman’s SAG Awards Speech on Aging in Hollywood
–Nicole Kidman’s Golden Globes Speech Was All About the ‘Power of Women’



Source link

Categories
Health

Winnie Harlow: 'It’s Beautiful That the Age of Cookie-Cutter Models Is Ending'


I never wanted to be a model. Growing up in Toronto, I was always asked by friends who had a T-shirt line or were having a little community runway show to model for them. I remember a friend telling me: “I can see you on the cover of Vogue.” And I looked at her like, “OK….” Not because I thought I couldn’t be a model; I just never thought about it. But then Instagram was becoming a thing and I began posting pictures of myself, and people were liking them. I thought, You know what, why not give it a shot?

That was 2013 and the beginning of the time when models who weren’t cookie-cutter-pretty were getting booked. Right now it’s so beautiful that there are so many different people and so many different sizes and all that [represented]. Growing up, I would never have imagined someone with vitiligo or freckles on the cover of a magazine. Just the fact that Adwoa [Aboah]’s gorgeous face is on the cover of British Vogue, which I’m literally looking at right now, wouldn’t have happened before.

When it comes to inclusiveness, [the modeling industry] still has a lot of work to do. For example, with hairdressers—just because you’ve worked on one black person’s hair doesn’t mean you know all black hair. If you’ve worked on Naomi Campbell, that’s not the same as working on kinky hair. There are so many people who are like, “Yeah! I’ve worked on a black girl before. I know black hair.” And then they still reach for the tongs or use too high a heat.

With makeup artists, we need to have more people who know how to work with someone with a dark skin tone and not have it turn gray or ashy. Even this past Fashion Week, I was backstage and put in front of a makeup artist and I looked at the range of tones she had—she didn’t even have colors dark enough for my skin. If you don’t even have shades dark enough for me, that’s saying a lot.

We have to keep educating people. When the Evening Standard ran a picture of me with a caption describing me as a vitiligo “sufferer,” it tore me to shreds. I said to my agent, “WTF. Again? Is this a joke?” That’s how I feel every single time I see that word placed beside my name. It’s something I see often, so I felt like I should say something. Just because you see someone with whatever it is, even a pimple, you don’t get to say that they are suffering. It’s very rude for anyone to describe me as a sufferer, and it takes away from everything else—I’m 100 percent excelling in everything I do.

Today I represent a different standard of what people traditionally consider beauty. Sometimes I say there are a million different standards of beauty; sometimes I say there are no standards of beauty. In the end, it’s the same thing: We’re all beautiful.



Source link

Categories
Health

This New Program Aims to Hold the Fashion Industry Accountable in the Age of #MeToo


The claims made against Harvey Weinstein alleging the decades-long abuse of women put the spotlight on the #MeToo movement, and opened up a conversation around sexual harassment which has ricocheted across industries, from entertainment to media. It certainly has touched the fashion world, too, as new light is shed on the lack of protections for the young and vulnerable, particularly models, who operate within it. And while there has been awareness and small steps for reform in the past year—notably by luxury conglomerates Kering and LVMH, who jointly established a code of standards to protect the well-being of models—not much has changed in the larger picture.

Now the question is: What comes next?

The Model Alliance, a group founded in 2012 by Sara Ziff, founder and executive director, that advocates for models’ rights by supporting legislation (such as the Child Model Labor Bill, passed in New York in 2013) and strategic partnerships (such as one with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) to create private changing areas during New York Fashion Week earlier this year), is seeking to address just that with its newly-unveiled RESPECT Program. It’s a legally-binding contract between models, agencies, designers, and publishing companies to hold people accountable at every level of the industry hierarchy for the mistreatment of models; companies who sign on and don’t follow through with the terms outlined in the document would be in breach of contract and subject to legal action, the thought being that the suggested codes of conducts that have been considered the norm haven’t worked.

The RESPECT Program was unveiled last week in an open letter. More than one hundred models showed public support for it, including Karen Elson, Doutzen Kroes, and Edie Campbell. It reads in part:

RESPECT will go beyond addressing specific acts of sexual harassment,and also seek to foster a work environment that is no longer fertileground for abuse.

Every company in our industry says it abhors sexual harassment andwants to protect those at risk of abuse. We believe that if a companyis serious about protecting us, it will be willing to go beyond merepromises to do better and embrace enforceable standards, with realteeth.

“It’s become abundantly clear that sexual harassment doesn’t exist in a vacuum and that the power imbalance between models and agencies and their clients needs to be addressed,” Ziff told Glamour.

To figure out exactly how to do that, Ziff and the Model Alliance held listening sessions with models. “We heard things like, ‘How can we say no to inappropriate demands when we are waiting three to ten months to get paid for a job? What if I’m pressured to pose nude, or to lose weight by my agency or get dropped?’”

The RESPECT Program’s stipulations stem from Ziff’s own experiences, having worked as a model herself.

PHOTO: Patrick McMullan

Ziff backstage at a Cynthia Steffe fashion show in February 2004.

“About a decade ago I brought forward concerns about [photographer] Terry Richardson [after I worked with him] and it fell on deaf ears for the most part,” she tells Glamour. “I didn’t want this to just be a Band-Aid, I wanted this to be meaningful.” Ziff’s story is familiar: Models had accused Richardson, a photographer, of sexual assault and harassment for years, but many brands and publications continued to work with him on high-profile projects. (This includes some work for titles within Condé Nast, which publishes Glamour.) In the wake of Weinstein, though, companies began to distance themselves from him, pledging to stop commissioning his work. In recent months, models have come forward with sexual harassment allegations against other famous photographers, including Mario Testino and Bruce Weber, as well.

Central to the RESPECT Program is that signatories would be required to enlist some kind of independent third party to file complaints, so models wouldn’t feel forced to report bad behavior to the exact people who sign their paychecks. It also would require that models get paid on time for their work, so they don’t become increasingly indebted to their agency (and because of that, ultimately feel unable to report abuses). There would also be a comprehensive training on rights and responsibilities for participants. And, if someone is reported to be a serial sexual predator, anyone who’s signed the RESPECT Program contract would have to stop working with them altogether.

ERDEM - Runway - LFW February 2018

PHOTO: Victor VIRGILE

Ultimately, what would make this program such a big step in the industry is the fact that it’s a legally binding agreement. “[People who sign it] are sending the message, this is not just about platitudes, this is not just a PR move,” she explains. “We’re going to stand by this.”

Ziff has already presented the program to Condé Nast and several modeling agencies. She hopes to see companies ranging from publishers to fashion brands participate, because there’s still a lot of work to be done to prevent sexual harassment in the industry.

“Karl Lagerfeld made those disappointing comments a few weeks ago and a lot of prominent people didn’t take issue with it. It’s more important than ever to draw a line that we are not going to tolerate sexual harassers or enablers.”

Related Stories:

Ashley Graham Just Opened Up About Her Own Horrible #MeToo Story

A Shocking Number of People Think Women Are Making False #MeToo Claims, New Study Finds

Denouncing #MeToo Is Feminism Devouring Itself



Source link

Categories
Health

With Her Clothes, Meghan Markle Is Moving the Monarchy Into a New Age


Everything the British royal family does is steeped in tradition, right down to the clothes they wear. Dresses and skirts of modest length, hats before 6:00 P.M. (but not after—that’s when the tiaras come in); wearing all-black is simply off limits, unless there is a funeral to attend. Needless to say, getting dressed in the morning is a bit more complicated when you have a title. All of this makes Meghan Markle—the divorced, biracial, ripped-jeans-wearing, equal-rights-championing, politically-minded Hollywood actress that’s soon to be wed to Prince Harry—such a breadth of fresh air, particularly when it comes to her fashion.

Not since Wallis Simpson, who sparked a constitutional crisis across the pond in 1936 by marrying into the royal family, has as much of an outsider joined the House of Windsor’s ranks. And if anyone has the opportunity to change what it looks like—and ultimately means—to be in a princess (okay, technically duchess) in the modern age, it’s Markle. So say the insiders: “Meghan will become an international role model to women of all ages, and I’m sure she recognizes this great responsibility and privilege,” Myka Meier, the founder and director of Beaumont Etiquette, tells Glamour.

Meier trained in London under a former member of the royal household, and has worked with members of the British royal family, including Prince Charles. She believes that “Prince Harry has probably been very supportive of [Markle] letting her be herself and not feel pressure to change her style.” The fact that she’s worn everything from jeans, to outfits showing off her bare gams, to stepping out for official engagements with no makeup and her hair in a messy bun, to wearing all-black are all clear signals that even in her official duties as a royal, she is most likely going to show up dressed as “Meghan” rather than a “Windsor.”

PHOTO: Mark Cuthbert

According to her superfans, it’s the very fact that Markle doesn’t appear to want to conform to the royal status quo that makes her such a compelling fashion icon in the making. “She’s modern and on-trend like we’ve never seen from a royal before,” Christine OBrien-Ross, who’s been chronicling Markle’s style on the blog Meghan’s Mirror alongside Amanda Dishaw since 2016, says. “A lot of what we see her in is just not what you would expect from someone in royal life: We know things about to her, we can relate to her, she feels like someone who would be in our girl crew—but she’s also not afraid to take fashion risks.”

If the royal family all too often runs the risk of seeming stuffy and out of touch, Markle appears to be the perfect antidote. Take the ripped jeans Markle wore to the Invictus Games for her first official appearance with Prince Harry last fall—you’d be hard pressed to think of a British royal family member wearing denim in public, let alone a distressed pair.

Day 3: Invictus Games Toronto 2017

PHOTO: Karwai Tang

Then, there’s the outfit Markle wore to make her engagement announcement: a white trench coat and beige high-heels, sans stockings.

Announcement Of Prince Harry's Engagement To Meghan Markle

PHOTO: Karwai Tang

Per experts, there’s an unspoken rule that the Queen expects women in the royal family to wear nude stockings in public—Markle, like most women these days, just didn’t.

For her engagement photos, she dared to wear a sheer Ralph & Russo couture gown, with strategically-placed gold leaf embroidery for modesty. It was a sartorial choice that didn’t go unnoticed: “You’ve never seen a royal engagement photo like this,” one commentator wrote on Twitter; another wrote, “Now I love the classic, timeless elegance of Kate, but can we just take a minute to swoon at these new engagement pics of Meghan in that sheer dress..I. Can’t. Actually. Deal. Bring that sexy into the royals girl!”

The royal’s engagement photos, are, by design, a public relations campaign. Kate Middleton, wearing a modest white dress, was positioned as sweet and demure in hers. Princess Diana, in a conservative blue skirt suit and neck-tie blouse, was painted as matronly and traditional. Markle is seemingly sending an entirely different message: She’s hipper and cooler than pretty much anyone that has come before her.

“Meghan did things her own way wearing that sparkling gown,” OBrien-Ross says. “It shows that she is going to create her own path as a royal and, even in a formal gown, she is still just Meghan, that down-to-earth girl from LA.”

A sign that the world is ready for this different breed of princess? The famously tough British press has been eating up Markle’s style. A recent The Sun headline labeled her “relatable, sexy and trendier than Kate.” The Guardian calls her a “a California girl” thanks to her relaxed style. And The Financial Times referred to her as “unconventional” and “the most interesting addition to the Windsors since Diana Spencer.”

Prince Harry & Meghan Markle Visit Nottingham

PHOTO: Samir Hussein

Markle’s biggest fashion statement, however, has yet to be seen—we’re talking, of course, about her wedding dress. Kensington Palace has been predictably tight-lipped on exactly what Markle will wear to her May nuptials. However, she’s reportedly considering Inbal Dror, an Israeli fashion brand known for figure-hugging gowns—quite the departure from Grace Kelly, or even her future sister-in-law, Kate Middleton. It may raise some eyebrows, but it’s what we should be expecting from modern royalty, insiders say.

“We need to remember this is a 21st-century royal family, and styles thankfully do change,” explains Grant Harrold, known as “The Royal Butler” and whose worked for both Prince Charles and Prince Harry. “What might not have been ‘the done thing’ in the 20th century might become ‘the in thing’ for the 21st century.”

You don’t need to look very far into their family tree to see how the Windsors have evolved royal conventions. “The Queen over the decades has changed her style and got it right every time,” says Harrold. Similarly, the Duchess of Cambridge nudged the royal family forward ever so slightly wearing affordable clothes by mass retailers like Zara. And Princess Diana famously pushed the envelope with her wardrobe during her separation and subsequent divorce from Prince Charles. Consider Markle just a much more noticeable step forward in the House of Windsor’s legacy.

Members Of The Royal Family Attend St Mary Magdalene Church In Sandringham

PHOTO: Chris Jackson

And while it’s easy to dismiss the fashion choices of the royal family as trivial (or even inconsequential), think about the role clothes play in sending a message to the world more broadly, about who you are as a person: With girls in the U.S., the U.K., and across the globe inevitably looking to Markle as she joins the ranks of British royalty, what could it ultimately mean to them to have a different kind of princess to look up to—one who has had her own career, lives by her own rules, and is in touch with the world, all while dressing for herself? Maybe then, “princess culture” wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Related Stories:

The ‘Meghan Markle Effect’ Is Already Very Real for Fashion Brands

Meghan Markle Wore a Club Monaco Dress to the Queen’s Christmas Party

Meghan Markle Wears Self-Portrait for the Queen’s Christmas Luncheon





Source link

Categories
Health

Amber Rose on Ending Slut-Shaming in the Age of Donald Trump


Amber Rose loves a good celebration, but she’s ready to get down to business. On the eve of her third annual Amber Rose SlutWalk in downtown Los Angeles, she says she’s “hyped up more than ever” to spread her message to more than 20,000 men and women that victim-shaming must stop now.

“I’m a former slut-shamer and I had to take the steps to change,” she admits to Glamour. Going through a divorce (with ex-husband and rapper Wiz Khalifa) made her realize that the blame was unfairly being put on her from outside sources, and she was done feeling like a victim. “I didn’t even ask for fame,” she confides of those earlier years in the spotlight. “I didn’t even want this life and how I got it, and I’m just trying to figure out what to do with it.” That led to the start of the Amber Rose SlutWalk, and now, the first annual OPENed Women’s Conference, also happening this weekend.

“If you’re going through extreme slut-shaming, or if you’re a rape survivor, or have been sexually assaulted, the SlutWalk is a safe place to tell your story and talk to other people who have been through the same thing,” she says. “You don’t want to feel alone. We have counselors, HIV/AIDS testing, and workshops. We want you to feel that everything is going to be OK.”

But the road to feeling “OK” wasn’t an easy one, especially over the last year when the man that bragged he used to “grab [women] by the pussy” was elected to the highest office in the land. So what has Rose been motivated to do about it? And what is she teaching her four-year-old son as he grows up? Here, she shares the highs and lows of her journey to being a more informed feminist.

PHOTO: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images

Glamour: How have you changed since you began the Amber Rose weekend and started your own SlutWalk?

Amber Rose: I constantly learn new things. I wouldn’t say that I’m a seasoned feminist. I became a feminist probably after my divorce which was a little over three years ago. I completely changed my life. I’m a former slut-shamer. Society has taught me to be a certain way, and I had to take steps to change that. And so even with the women’s conference, I’m going to be there all day, getting educated as well. I don’t feel like I have all the answers. I feel like I grow every year and learn new things.

Glamour: Earlier this week, Robert Redford was on Megyn Kelly Today, and said that he wasn’t a feminist, but he loves seeing a female drive the story in film. It made no sense. How can you be vocal about wanting to see women get equal opportunities, but then actually say you’re not a feminist?

Amber: Because that’s just what guys say, like ‘boys will be boys.’ It’s all bullshit. It’s not out of the norm. But the really f-cked up part about it is a lot of straight guys think that being a male feminist is like you’re gay. It’s just so stupid. It’s really, really stupid. That’s why we need to continue to educate. And especially the guys—our sons, our dads, our uncles—and people that have been on earth a long time that have been taught by society that that’s all they know.

Glamour: When someone asks you what feminism means to you, how do you respond?

Amber: I just say equality. It’s really very simple. I just want equality. That’s it.

Glamour: How have you changed since Donald Trump was elected?

Amber: The thing with Trump is that guys have always said things like that. For me, it’s not really like, ‘Oh wow, he said that?’ I mean, guys say that all the time. So now, what steps are we going to take to say that’s not OK? It’s not ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘locker room talk.’ There’s so many powerful men out there that sexually assault women every day, and the woman feels like she doesn’t have a voice. So you sit there with guilt and shame your entire life and men know that. They know that the women are not going to say anything because no one would ever believe them. SlutWalk is giving women a voice and an opportunity to come and tell your story.

Glamour: SlutWalk is extremely timely this year because our education secretary, Betsy DeVos, just killed Obama’s campus sexual assault guidelines, which makes it so much harder for victims to get the justice they are looking for. For those that don’t understand how detrimental this will be for sexual assault victims, how do you get people to change their way of thinking?

Amber: I’ll tell you, when I go speak at colleges, a lot of boys will show up in addition to girls, and usually after they’re like, ‘You know I came here because you’re f-cking Amber Rose and you’re hot, and I wanted to see you,’ but then they’re enlightened. I’m not really a cookie cutter type of girl. I’m going to tell you how it is. I’m going to make you feel uncomfortable, and people like to think I’m controversial, but I’m just being me. I literally tell them, ‘Think of the act that it took your mother to have you, because when she was turned on and she was horny and she was begging for your dad, she was a sexual being. Your mother is a sexual being. Your mother has had sex, and guess what? If you have brothers and sisters from your mom with different fathers, then your mom is a slut by society’s standards. By society’s standards, your mom is a ho.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh my God, I have three brothers from different dads,’ and society would say that there mom is a ho. But they don’t ever think of their mother’s when they use these derogatory labels towards other women or other girls. I always say, ‘Everyone is someone’s daughter. Everyone is someone’s sister. Or mother.’ We don’t want to judge our own family members because we love them so much, so let’s try to apply that to people in our everyday life. And they’re like, ‘Oh wow.’

Glamour: You have a four-year-old son. What do you teach him about supporting feminism and equal rights?

Amber: I mean, he’s grown up in a house with me, so it’s not going to be a sit down, serious conversation. It’s going to be years of growing up with a feminist mother. He’s going to know. This isn’t just SlutWalk time, this is my everyday life. This is my passion, this is my calling. I try to find the means to help women find lawyers, and give them a voice and an opportunity to get justice. Those are the behind-the-scenes things that I do and don’t put on social media. I don’t want a pat on the back for it, but it’s just what I do.

amber-rose-son.jpg

PHOTO: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

Glamour: You said earlier that your divorce prompted you to change your way of thinking, but what prompted you to take action?

Amber: I would say that I was being extremely slut-shamed, for literally getting divorced. I was getting slut-shamed for going through a divorce, like it was my fault, it had to be me, [because] I’m the one that’s an ex-stripper so it must have been something that I did or didn’t do right in my marriage. I got the blame for everything and it was one of the worst times of my life. I saw this picture of a girl online with pasties on that said, ‘Still not asking for it.’ I was like, ‘Man, I’m not even asking for this shit.’ I didn’t even ask for fame. I didn’t even want this life and how I got it, and I’m just trying to figure out what to do with it. As I did more research, I found out what a SlutWalk is, and what it was about. I called my team and was like, ‘I’m going to have a SlutWalk this year and I don’t care what you guys say, I’m going to do it.’ And I just started it, and the process of raising money and getting my friends to support the cause. [But I] couldn’t get any interviews, no companies would work with me, everyone thought I was crazy, and yet I stuck to it. People said change the name [of SlutWalk] and you’ll be more successful, and I said, ‘No, I’m not. I’m not changing the name. They’re going to jump on board because I’m going to make it huge.’ The first year we had 2,500 people come, and the second year we had 11,000 people come, and this year already we have sold over 18,000 tickets on our website alone, not including who is just going to show up that is in downtown L.A. I worked really hard and believed in it.

Glamour: Lastly, what do you hope to have a better understanding of following this weekend? What do you want to be more educated about?

Amber: One thing that I want to be more educated on is knowing my full rights as far as the legal side of everything. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m really interested to sit with Lisa Bloom and her workshop to really know the ins and outs of the law for women. I’m really interested to find out.

The OPENed: The Women’s Conference by the Amber Rose Power Foundation is this weekend in Los Angeles. For more information, click here.



Source link

Categories
Health

Emma Stone Shares a Photo She Drew of Her Anxiety in Therapy at Age 9


PHOTO: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

There’s no shame in speaking openly about or seeking help for your mental health, but if you’re nervous to do so, let Emma Stone be your guide. The Academy Award winner has done both and, in the process, made huge strides in destigmatizing issues like anxiety and panic attacks.

During an interview with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on Tuesday to promote her new film, Battle of the Sexes, in which she plays tennis champ Billie Jean King, Emma revealed that she’s been in therapy for anxiety since she was seven years old and shared a picture she drew in one of her sessions. “I was nine. I was in therapy at that time, I drew this at therapy,” she said, then described the drawing, which has “I’m bigger than my anxiety!” written across the top in neat handwriting. “This is me, I guess, it’s really great artistry, with my shoes. And then this is anxiety here,” the 28-year-old said, pointing to a tiny green figure standing next to her in the picture. “It’s a little green monster that looks a little bit, as someone backstage said, a uterus with some ovaries. But I didn’t mean for it to be hormonally related in any way—as I said, I was nine.”

The La La Land star’s years of therapy have given her much more than just a collection of creative illustrations. “I was a very, very, very anxious child, and I had a lot of panic attacks. I benefitted in a big way from therapy,” she said, adding that acting and improv were also a huge help in learning to cope with her anxiety. And although her panic attacks have mostly gone away (“knock on wood”), Emma noted, “I still have anxiety to this day.”

[embedded content]

Emma has been refreshingly open about her mental health issues many times before, and has even previously spoken about the meaning behind her elementary school drawings of the little green anxiety monster. “I wrote this book [in therapy] called I Am Bigger Than My Anxiety that I still have,” she told Rolling Stone last year. “I drew a little green monster on my shoulder that speaks to me in my ear and tells me all these things that aren’t true. And every time I listen to it, it grows bigger. If I listen to it enough, it crushes me. But if I turn my head and keep doing what I’m doing—let it speak to me, but don’t give it the credit it needs—then it shrinks down and fades away.”

Related: Emma Stone Opened Up About How She Copes With Anxiety



Source link