‘The Madison’ Star Michelle Pfeiffer Opens up About the Self-Doubt That Has Followed Her Through Decades of Stardom

Few actresses have a résumé as enviable as Michelle Pfeiffer’s, which makes her imposter syndrome all the more surprising to fans. The 68-year-old star is known for ‘Scarface’, ‘Batman Returns’, ‘Dangerous Minds’, ‘What Lies Beneath’ and ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’, and she’s a 3-time Oscar nominee.

Pictured here at the ‘Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’ premiere, Pfeiffer projects the kind of calm confidence that most performers can only dream of. Yet behind the glamour, she has spent years wrestling with doubts that many people would never expect from a Hollywood legend.

Her candid comments are making the rounds again. Speaking to The Independent while promoting ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, Kenneth Branagh’s remake of the Agatha Christie mystery, Pfeiffer admitted she’s always afraid of failing and fears she’ll fail in every new part she takes on.

She described worrying that she was disappointing her director and that someone else should have been cast instead. Pfeiffer even recalled telling Steve Kloves, the writer-director of ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys’, that she was ruining the film, to which he simply laughed.

The period role proved tougher than it looked. Her character was far more extroverted than she is, forcing her outside her comfort zone, and she said it took jumping into the deep end, even though that was hard to trust at first.

Her scene partner only added to the pressure. Pfeiffer said she was acting opposite Judi Dench and kept telling herself she couldn’t bomb in front of her. At the film’s London premiere, she revealed that meeting Dench brought her to tears and left her completely star-struck. It’s a charming reminder that even icons have their own heroes.

Pfeiffer has traced these feelings back to her early career. Unlike many peers who began acting as children, she waited until after high school, and aside from a few workshops and a high school drama class, she had no formal training.

In a cover story for Interview magazine with Darren Aronofsky, she explained that she started working quickly before she felt ready, learning in front of the world. As a result, she has long felt that people would one day discover she was a fraud who didn’t know what she was doing.

Those insecurities hit hard on ‘Scarface’. She told Deadline she remembered crying herself to sleep most nights over being the least seasoned actor in the cast, and she has also told The New Yorker there was real snobbery from actors who had trained in places like New York. That self-doubt helps explain her famous dislike of interviews. She has said part of her discomfort comes from a constant fear of being found out.

Pfeiffer also stepped back from Hollywood for a time to prioritize her children, becoming so selective about where and how long she worked that she described herself as unhirable. Once her kids were grown, she said she felt more balanced when working and wanted to act again.

She’s far from alone. Her co-star on Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’ spinoff ‘The Madison’, Ben Schnetzer, explained that actors are very familiar with the feeling, telling The Playlist, “It’s a real common thing in our line of work.”

These days, Pfeiffer seems to be finding joy beyond the pressure. She has described becoming a grandmother as heaven and said she was looking forward to taking much of this year off to focus on family. Her openness turns a private insecurity into something relatable, proving that even the most celebrated stars can feel like they don’t belong.

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