Donald Sutherland’s acting career spanned over seven decades, but that doesn’t mean he overcame his performance anxiety. Speaking to Backstage, he recalled teaching a master class at Idyllwild’s theatre school and feeling the creep of anxiety as he stared at the crowd. “When I stood up and looked at all these 18-year-olds, I held out my hand, and it was shaking,” he said. “I said, ‘Look at that. All these years later, I’m still shaking.’ And that’s what the life is like. You will be nervous for the rest of your life. It’s wonderful and it’s passionate, but it’s a hard life.”
Per Interview Magazine, in 2020 Sutherland spoke about this anxiety to actor Hugh Grant. Grant co-starred in the mini-series “The Undoing” that released the same year and said he too experienced stage fright (once per movie). “You really cheered me up by telling me that you’re so nervous before day one of a shoot that you actually throw up. Is that true?” Grant asked. “The night before, I always throw up,” Sutherland responded. “I very nearly threw up before this interview.”
Perhaps related to his anxiety, Sutherland said he found it difficult to watch his work. “You put your body, your self, your soul, your ideas in the hands of someone else and allow them to take it, cut it into little pieces,” he said, per The Washington Post. Regardless, he didn’t let it stop him from succeeding.
