GROSS: Where does acting fit into this? Like, when you are acting – when you started acting as a kid – you were 11, I think, when you started performing – do you feel like you were escaping yourself and therefore out of your anxiety and escaping your body ’cause your body became controlled by the character?
STONE: No. If anything, the opposite. I felt like I – and I’ve understood it more over the years because I think – I’ve heard a lot of actors talk about – and maybe that’s because they’re doing these big, dramatic, kind of cathartic roles. And I’m drawn much more to comedy, or now, dark comedy. I felt like every reaction in my body is permitted. All of my big feelings are productive. And presence is required, so it’s like a meditation because anxiety lives solely in the past or the future – you know, either future tripping or past tripping – you know, things you can’t control on either side. And acting requires you to be so present, to listen, to be looking at the other person, to be living in the experience and living in your body. And that was the huge gift of it to me and remains the huge gift of it to me to this day.
GROSS: But that’s the thing. Because it’s, like, your job…
STONE: Yeah.
GROSS: …It gives you permission. It makes it obligatory to be in the moment.
STONE: Yes. Yes.
GROSS: It’s like, you can’t say, well, I can’t control it ’cause I’m worried about the past. It’s like, your job is to focus on now.
STONE: Exactly.