Actors on Actors

I've watched several episodes of this series on YouTube and the only one that I truly enjoyed was Bryan Cranston and Jason Segel. The other ones were either boring (as in the actors themselves were immensely dull) or the actors came across as pretentious and self-absorbed or worse yet, spent most of their time smooching eachother's bums and going on and on about how amazing the other actor is, to the point where I had to stop watching most of them. The discussion between Cranston and Segel felt like a genuine conversation about their work and was engrossing.

I was particularly moved when Segel spoke about David Foster Wallace (who he portrayed in the film The End of the Tour), specifically Wallace's book Infinite Jest and a character that had jumped out of a burning building. Segel said of this, you cannot take for granted that the thing you're trying to escape is worse than death. I thought that was so perfectly put. He went on to speak of another character in the book: a woman goes into the hospital after a failed suicide attempt and the doctor says, "why did you want to hurt yourself" and she laughs at him and says, "you'll never be able to help me if you think I was trying to hurt myself. I was trying to stop the pain."

I used to think how terrible it was that I've spent so long contemplating putting an end to my life, how against nature it is to plot out my murder when it is I who is supposed to love me the most; the one that's supposed to protect me and care for me more than anyone. Recently I realised that ending my life would actually be the kindest thing I could ever do for myself because I would finally be free from disappointment and failure. I would finally feel nothing at all, which must be better than the depths of misery I have felt and still occasionally feel today. I just finished uploading Wallace's The Broom of the System on audiobook and hope to listen to it next week. More on DFW in future posts!