In the spirit of “everything is autobiographical,” I found a conversation (in the Telegraph) with architect Frank Gehry and filmmaker Sydney Pollack that is compelling in its honesty and reassuring in a “misery loves company” sort of way. When asked if things got easier as they got older, here are their responses:
SP: It doesn’t feel to me like making films has gotten easier. I don’t have to struggle to know which end of the camera to look through any more, but I’m not sure that knowing more makes it easier.
FG: I guess there is always that insecure feeling that you have to have in order to go forward. And there’s the fear of being discovered as a fraud…I’m still insecure, I’m still nervous. When I get offered a new project, I look at it and think, “How the hell am I going to get around this?” My sleepless nights are mostly about stuff like that.
SP: I feel the same. With each new film, there’s this overwhelming sense that you might not figure out how to do it this time. I think that anybody who says they don’t have that insecurity is either lying, or they’re past it.
From Sydney Pollack’s film about his friend Frank, “Sketches of Gehry.”