Acting as a way of Life

Fri, 05/25/2012
Smartwaves
  Andie MacDowell: Acting as a way of life.

Tonight was the last SmartTalk presentation for the 2012 Wilmington, Delaware season at the DuPont theatre. Our presentor …

Andie MacDowell.

Andie presented  a look at acting as a way of life and what we saw in her was indeed something of an open soul. Andie is a mother, an actress and a longtime model for Loreal makeup. Andie looks proudly to the memory of her mother who strived for an education even when life was overwelming her. Her mother left an impact on Andie because of her struggle with manic depression; if only they knew then what we know now – her mother may have been able to get the help she really needed. When Andie talks about her mother she reflects that her mother was proud of her model daughter who lived in France, but she did not live to see Andie in the movies.

Andie describes a sad story of her youth but her adult life is one of true Hollywood glamour. Andie has suceeded as an actress and was nominated for a Golden Globe award for her role in “Sex, Lies and Videotape.”  When asked which is more difficult acting or modeling, Andie says that a lot has changed in both modeling and acting…but acting is more of an art form. Acting may be a way of life for Andie… but I think Andie’s real message is that life itself is an art form.

Something is revealed as I think about Andie and the stories of her life. She speaks transparently about her mother, her career, her family, her childhood and her lovelife -and these stories present as communication that she has shared before. She talks about the changes she has gone through as a woman and how she struggles with depression…but when Andie began to talk about her work with women who have cancer…there was a pause and Andie told us that these women “know the value of life.”

Andie’s appeal is instantly in her beautiful features but as she warmed up to the SmartTalk audience it was her stories that we really wanted to hear. We found out that she likes to walk on the beach and eat fruit and yogurt; she does yoga and her weaknesses are sweets, chocolate and m&ms. My friend Barb Miller was in the audience and asked Andie if there was ever a moment that made her laugh until she cried… Andie ended up telling us a story about a comical encounter she had with a certain fellow actor… I can not tell you what happened or how she reacted… but every woman in the theatre could relate to Andie in that moment.

I met Andie briefly backstage and she is striking with kind eyes and dark wavy hair – she is tall and slim and looks gorgeous from head to toe…. but she allowed us all to really see her heart tonight. She loves animals, being a mother to her three children and she sees the beauty in other people.  As women we face so many struggles – life can seem so unfair at times – we unravel ourselves to a place of simplicity and  complete openness – because this is where we learn to see the beauty in who we really are and in the things gone wrong, in the people and in the stories of our lives.

This is the part of life that can not be an act – it is a form of art that life is  – that brings us to the places where we are needed, wanted and enabled to do what we are truly called to do.  The SmartTalk women know that women are indeed to be seen and heard – and the therapy for our brokenness is in the truths that we share. Thank you Andie MacDowell -thank you for letting us get to know you.