John Cameron Mitchell (no relation) on The Treatment, a podcast hosted by Elvis Mitchell (no relation):
Make sure that the experience is more important than the result. Not to give the result less work, but the experience part of whatever you’re doing, that’s the part that is your life, you know? Don’t hire people you don’t like! Find out from other people if they were good to work with. Maybe you could work with them before you hire them….
I disagree. I have little trouble working with obstreperous types, since that is how many people see me, erroneously. I have a different threshold for rejection.
And I told the actors who weren’t used to any of this attention – I had had a bit of it with Hedwig – “You’re gonna crash. You’re gonna feel – a few days from now, you’re gonna feel lower than you’ve ever felt.” And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” And then, of course, they did – because there’s a certain saturation point where they can’t feel the compliments anymore and they wonder – all they’re doing is talking about themselves, and it’s like cannibalization.
I said, “You’ve got to immediately think about your next creative thing – now. And when you feel this weird and bad – call each other. Call me.” You know, like when we were released last weekend, everyone felt really bad, because it was like postpartum or whatever was going on.
This might explain why, after launching something, I either forget it even happened or I feel like shit. Working in near-total isolation doesn’t help.