In an interview when she was about 15, actor Claire Danes said, “I never thought of myself as shy, and then I realized I am kind of shy; I’ve just built defenses to hide it.” [Photo from her movie Temple Grandin.]

I have often been struck by how many apparently very self-assured performers and actors have been shy or introverted as children. Many still are, as adults.

Musician Gwen Stefani is another example. She was a “shy girl who spent most of her time in a bedroom plastered with Marilyn Monroe posters, who nevertheless assumed she was destined for greatness,” according to a UK newspaper profile.

Recently teen actress and singer-songwriter Demi Lovato entered treatment for “emotional and physical issues” – which reportedly include self-harm in the form of cutting.

According to a news report, “People close to the 18-year-old star say she struggled with eating disorders and self-mutilation before her breakthrough [Disney] role.” [From Demi Lovato's crisis shows the risks of teen stardom, Los Angeles Times, Nov 6, 2010.]

What is cutting?

Dr. Michael Hollander, director of 3East at McLean Hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, commented in another article, “Often times, the individual is practically bursting with overwhelming feelings and this can be too hard to bear. I would say 80% of patients self-injure for emotional regulation.”

If they are highly sensitive, people tend to notice more of their outer and inner environments, and process more sensory information. All of which can help make us more creative.

Some areas of creative expression are especially appropriate for emotional sensitivity, an aspect of the trait for many people.

One example was actor Heath Ledger.

Director Todd Haynes commented after his death, “Heath was a true artist, a deeply sensitive man, an explorer, gifted and wise beyond his years.” His partner for several years, actor Michelle Williams commented about his vulnerability and underlying sensitivity.

One technical term for the personality trait of high sensitivity is “sensory processing sensitivity” – because it involves increased sensory input and responsivity. There are some intriguing research studies on how this works at the level of the brain and nervous system and affects creative ability.

One study, for example, found that the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment.

(“Decreased Latent Inhibition Is Associated With Increased Creative Achievement in High-Functioning Individuals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2003.)

Many talented, creative people have used drugs and alcohol. Some think a substance will help them be more inspired or productive.

Or they may be self-medicating their sensitivity. Sometimes they risk addiction.

Beethoven reportedly drank wine about as often as he wrote music, and was an alcoholic or at least a problem-drinker.

At least five U.S. writers who won the Nobel Prize for Literature have been considered alcoholics.

Musician Ani DiFranco produced her album “Educated Guess” entirely on her own.

An interviewer asked, “Your approach, your energy on the current tour and on the new album seem different. Why is that?”

DiFranco replied, “The difference is solitude. I have it in my life now, and I didn’t for years, at all… now I’m alone on stage, it’s been like a year and a half, and I’m alone in my dressing room and I’m alone in my home.

“And there’s just a lot less people around. So it allows for more contemplation.”

One of the most defining personality qualities of creative people may be high sensitivity, which can be experienced as sensory reactivity, and emotional intensity.

Here are some comments by actors about being sensitive and emotional – perspectives that other creative people may share.

Jennifer Beals once said, “I get emotional all the time. I get emotional every time I make a speech, or talk about other cast members. Every now and again, my heart just explodes and expands.” [Photo: with Tim Roth in the TV series Lie To Me.]

Laurel Holloman, Beal’s castmate on the Showtime series “The L Word,” has seen this firsthand: “If Jennifer is passionate about something, it comes to the surface within seconds. My theory on that is all the best actors have a couple of layers of skin peeled away. There’s a huge emotional life in Jennifer, and it’s kind of beautiful.” [From article The Real Beals, by Jancee Dunn, Lifetime lifetimetv.com, August 2004]

In a SALON magazine interview, Amy Tan said, “I think I was pushed in a way to write this book (‘The Hundred Secret Senses’) by certain spirits in my life – the yin people. They’ve always been there, I wouldn’t say to help, but to kick me in the ass to write.

“I’m educated, I’m reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule. But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses.”

Are there benevolent ghosts, angels, fairies or Muses? I don’t know, but I’d like to think so.

But Tan’s candor about such spirit beings may, for many people,  be “fodder for ridicule” or add fuel to the idea of the “crazy” artist.

Jane Fonda: “Acting was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, I was so shy. But I got fired as a secretary and had to earn some money.”

She discovered her passion for acting in the mid-1950s while studying with famed drama coach Lee Strasberg, who told her she was special and had real talent: “It was like the top of my head came off and birds flew out and the sun came out and my life changed.”

But, she admits, “I didn’t get over my shyness until I was about sixty.” ["Private Screenings," Turner Classic Movies interview by Robert Osborne, Mar 29 2007]

Fonda is far from unique in being shy, while still choosing a creative profession that is very public.

Julia Cho reportedly wrote her first play in eighth grade, and has received commissions from South Coast Repertory, the Mark Taper Forum and many other theaters.

She is a graduate of Amherst College, has degrees from UC Berkeley, NYU and The Juilliard School, and won the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play “The Language Archive.”

In an interview (15 minutes with . . . Julia Cho, by Cristofer Gross, The Theater Times), she made some very interesting comments about her experiences as a writer – which can apply to many other creative people as well.