Mariel Hemingway is sharing her life-long struggles with mental illness, drug addiction, and family suicide (seven relatives — including one of the most influential writers in American history, her grandfather Ernest Hemingway — have committed suicide) in her new documentary, Running from Crazy.

The 51-year-old model and actress teamed up with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA; American Dream) to create a film that “places an emphasis on suicide awareness and the importance of mental health evaluations” and one that, the two hope, “offers hope for people living with mental illness by showing that they are not alone in their struggles.”

Back in February, Silver Linings Playbook star Bradley Cooper teamed up with former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy to do a press conference on the movie industry’s progress toward “removing stigma of mental illness.”

(If you remember, the DBSA named Kennedy, who was the author and lead sponsor of the Mental Health Parity & Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and co-founder of One Mind for Research, an honorary advisory board member back in 2012.)

Glenn Close launched Bring Change 2 Mind because she has a personal connection to mental illness; her sister, Jessie, has bipolar disorder. Joey Pantoliano launched because he manages what he calls brain “dis-ease.” Most of us admire these celebrities for being so open about such stigmatized conditions and advocating for awareness, research, and acceptance.

However, not everyone is comfortable with celebrities taking on advocacy roles — especially those celebrities who don’t have any personal experience with mental illness — and that is exactly what Bradley Cooper has done during his global Q&A sessions about Silver Linings Playbook and mental health.

So, I got to meet Boyd Tinsley last Saturday night.

BOYD FREAKING TINSLEY!

Some of you might know him from an awesome little group called Dave Matthews Band and, if you do (and you’ve been reading this blog for a while), you know how obsessed I am with DMB.

I don’t play favorites, but if I did, Boyd and Dave would be it. I just love Boyd, for reasons irrelevant to this post so I’ll spare you, so this was a huge deal for me.

Last week, we talked about

UPDATE: 2/25/2013: The Oscars winners are in, and although Silver Linings Playbook didn’t fare as well as some people predicted (Peter Travers not included), the lovely, though not very graceful, Jennifer Lawrence did leave with the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Congratulations Jennifer!

UPDATE: 2/24/2013: I finally watched Silver Linings Playbook over the weekend, and I loved it. Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman was spot on when he said the film portrays mental illness in “natural and poignant terms.” Nothing seems forced, cliche, or – above all – stigmatizing. I highly recommend it. Highly.

OSCARS 2013 UPDATE: Peter Travers, movie critic for Rolling Stone, has released his 2013 Oscar predictions in a video, which I won’t suggest you watch because, frankly, it’s exhausting.

So, because I love you more, here’s a run-down:

Travers predicts and/or suggests:

• Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) will beat Bradley Cooper for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
• It’ll be toss up between Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but seems to lean toward Lawrence.
• Robert De Niro was only nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role because “he was good for the first time in 20 years,” and thinks Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) will take home the Oscar.
• Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables) will beat Jacki Weaver for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
• Steven Spielberg will win Best Director by default because the people who should’ve been nominated (namely, Ben Affleck for Argo) weren’t.
• Argo will take home the Oscar for Best Picture.

So, how about you, readers? Have you seen Silver Linings Playbook? Do you think the actors, director, and film itself will receive more love than Travers predicts?

(Read on for the original post.)

Happy Mental Health Month, readers!

To honor Mental Health Month, we’re doing a weekly challenge over at Your Body, Your Mind throughout the month.

This week’s challenge is to incorporate laughter into our daily lives.

The physical, mental, and emotional health benefits of laughter are plentiful. Laughter can boost endorphins, help you manage stress, help you get a better night’s sleep,

As people who read up on celebrity news or keep up with entertainment media, you’re probably well aware of the humor waiting around every corner!

So, why not take a page from the Your Body, Your Mind readers’ challenge and try to incorporate more laughter in your week?

Keira Knightley may soon find her Safe Haven (oh my, how bad was that?), but the actress best known for her roles in hits like Pirates of the Caribbean, Atonement, and Pride & Prejudice apparently doesn’t feel as safe as some of us might expect.

Well, regarding her appearance, that is.

Although Knightley has appeared on lists like FHM‘s “100 Sexiest Women In The World” and Maxim‘s “Hot 100,” the actress tells Vogue that she doesn’t see herself as glamorous or even attractive.

Actually, she’s self-conscious about her body image and blames her career for her anxiety:

Do I really have to give a reason why you should spend your weekend listening to Dave Matthews Band?

Really?

Well, if you insist.

Dave Matthews spent last Sunday helping raise money at the ninth annual John Varvato’s Stuart House Benefit.

The Stuart House is a facility for child victims of sexual assault established by the Santa Montica-UCLA Medical Center’s Rape Treatment Center.

According to the Stuart House page on www.911rape.org, the Stuart House:

[...] remedies many of the problems in the traditional system that often revictimize these profoundly traumatized children, such as multiple, repetitive interviews in cold, institutional settings; low prosecution rates; and critical shortages in expert medical care and therapy services.

Speaking of Oprah…

She and Lady Gaga kicked off Gaga’s new “youth empowerment” foundation, the Born This Way Foundation, at Harvard University just a couple of weeks ago.

Although Lady Gaga has been active in the anti-bullying movement, the Born This Way Foundation is not an anti-bully organization; rather, Gaga says the Foundation is a “youth-empowerment foundation.”

The Born This Way Foundation lists three pillars – safety, skills, and opportunity – and aims to “foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated”:

The Foundation is dedicated to creating a safe community that helps connect young people with the skills and opportunities they need to build a braver, kinder world.

We believe that everyone has the right to feel safe, to be empowered and to make a difference in the world. Together, we will move towards acceptance, bravery and love.

Whoa, talk about big weekend for Daniel Radcliffe and fans.

First, Radcliffe’s new film, The Lady In Black, debuted to overall rave reviews this weekend.

I couldn’t get on Twitter or Facebook without seeing a post about how great it was, and although the majority of print reviews claim the film adaptation of the 1983 thriller fiction novel of the same name uses some tried-and-true techniques for scaring us silly, Los Angeles Times calls it “a good, old-fashioned ghost yarn of the Victorian Gothic persuasion,” The Hollywood Reporter says it’s a “nifty old-school horror film,” and NPR reminds us there’s a reason these techniques are “time-honored”:

[...] keep you on edge, they definitely do.

Oh, and The Boston Globe says Radcliffe is now “in for the long haul.”

Then, Radcliffe admits that he used to show up on the Harry Potter set drunk.