Michelle Pfeiffer always fears getting fired from movie roles because she never had "formal training".
The ‘Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’ star suffers from imposter syndrome because she never studied acting and would perform "purely" on her "instincts"and she confessed that she never felt like she was "really enough" for the parts she has landed over the past four decades, but in hindsight she feels she has been overcritical of her abilities.
Speaking to ‘Entertainment Tonight’, she explained: "I think it comes from not having a background of formal training, you know, in the beginning.
"And I think when I started out, a lot of actors were coming out of Juilliard and I was just this young person from Orange County, kind of just getting by on my instincts purely and I think, for the longest time, I felt like it wasn’t really enough and maybe didn’t give me the credibility and maybe because I had to find my technique as I went along."
She also admitted her lack of confidence came from knowing that she "didn’t sort of start from a real secure place".
Pfeiffer has starred in some of the most iconic movies of all time – including ‘Scarface’, ‘Batman Returns’ and more recently ‘Avengers: Endgame’ – but in 2017 she told Darren Aronofsky that she has felt like a "fraud".
She told her ‘mother!’ director: "I have this constant fear that I’m a fraud and that I’m going to be found out.
"I think that’s because I started working fairly quickly and I wasn’t ready."
Meanwhile, the 61-year-old Hollywood star previously admitted she finds it increasingly difficult to find acting jobs she is "excited" by.
Pfeiffer took a five-year break from movies, returning with a slew of roles in 2017, and though she has worked on two major gigs, the second ‘Maleficent’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’, there hasn’t been many other jobs that have taken her fancy as she would rather enjoy her other hobbies than take on work that doesn’t float her boat.
She said: "I just look for [projects] I can get excited about. And honestly, that gets harder and harder because I also know what it’s like to not work so hard and enjoy my life, and I have other interests.
"But I also have always loved making movies and floating in and out of different characters . . . I love [how] with the film community, I feel really at home there, and I’m really incredibly lucky and grateful to have found my place in the world."
Michelle Pfeiffer always fears being fired because she didn’t train as actor
