Thursday, Oct. 24, the College of William and Mary’s Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall hosted French actress and author Stephanie Szostak ’94. Szostak was a marketing major and member of the golf team during her time at the College, before joining the marketing team at Chanel and then landing roles in movies like the “Devil Wears Prada,” “We Bought a Zoo” and “R.I.P.D.” She sat down for an interview with The Flat Hat to discuss the inspiration behind her latest book “SELF!SH,” her career path and her time as an international student at the College.
Szostak believes she has been able to remember lessons learned in her career through what she calls mental fitness.
“Mental fitness means having daily practices that help you think better, feel better and do better, and one of the practices that I use is what I call my playbook,” Szostak said.
Originally, this “playbook” was an album in Szostak’s photos app, in which she collected photos of nature, inspiring Instagram posts, book quotes, therapy session notes and more. She would play this album as a slideshow, along with music she liked, to start her day.
“It would take just a few minutes, and then it would be a boost of joy and reminding myself of what helps me and what I’ve achieved,” Szostak said.
She explains that this method allows her to collect everything she needs, from various sources, in one place.
“There is so much wisdom, but how do you remember it all? How do you actually make it a part of your life if you don’t have your own toolbox?” Szostak said.
From there, the mental health nonprofit Give an Hour, for which Szostak is an ambassador, asked her to hold a playbook webinar. Afterwards, a member of the community asked her to develop a resource for helping people make their own playbooks, which encouraged Szostak to partner with Give an Hour to publish SELF!SH.
“It’s eight exercises of self-discovery that will help you gain self-awareness, gain insight on who you are, what’s important to you, your values, the things you’ve achieved in life, maybe some of the challenges that you went through and looking back, you’re like, ‘This was actually a proud moment for me,’” Szostak said.
As for her book’s target audience, Szostak described two types of people: professionals with stressful jobs who want to push their boundaries and people with trauma that have pushed their boundaries already. She explained that the playbook process may aid both groups in grounding their thoughts, especially in a fast-paced, internet-powered world like today.
“We wake up, and most of us have the alarm that goes off and then you grab your phone and you check the texts and the social media and the news, and then right away your mind starts being hijacked by all of this,” Szostak said. “So if you can think a few minutes before that to remind yourself of your intentions, then you’re more likely to stay on target during the day and better respond.”
Reflecting on her time as an actress, Szostak shared that a significant challenge at the beginning was dealing with imposter syndrome. When her career started picking up, she recalled that she could not help but feel like she didn’t belong, being less experienced, talented and famous than more seasoned actors on set.
“Instead of just embracing that and being like, ‘Yeah, okay, I don’t know really what I’m doing here but I’m going to learn,’ it made me have low self-confidence, and it impacted not only my performance, my acting, it impacted my relationships with people,” Szostak said.
Szostak credits her ability to tackle imposter syndrome to therapy, books and other people’s experiences, which gave her a better understanding of what she was feeling and why.
“What helped me was gaining self-awareness, gaining tools and practices that helped me not only on set, but also helped me gain a new sense of purpose and meaning in life,” Szostak said.
Similarly, Szostak said she has struggled with perfectionism, which she has learned to tackle by reevaluating the meaning of failure. She defined failure as not getting the expected outcome, before zooming out to question why that is such a problem.
“When failure gets to us, it is because we think there is only one path. We think this is the perfect way. ‘I need to get this in order to get there, in order to get there,’” Szostak said. “Letting go of perfection is a really big theme for me. The way to do it is really to understand that you can just surrender to what is.”
Szostak mentioned that the hardest part of the book writing process was the self-doubt that would creep in about whether she was even qualified to write it.
“Who am I to write a book about well-being? Who am I — in my head, this was my self-talk — to tell people what to do? What are they going to think? They’re going to think I’m an actress who wants to be a coach,” Szostak said.
At the end of the day, however, Szostak expressed that she is glad with how this project turned out, given how it has helped other people thrive.
“It’s actually really just humbling to see something and that now it has a life of its own, and just to hear feedback from people, it’s the most beautiful thing,” Szostak said.
Another project of Szostak’s is Our Boob Stories, a place on her website for people to break the taboo against talking about breasts by sharing anonymous anecdotes about their happy, sad, vulnerable or otherwise impactful breast-related memories.
“I was looking at all that was going on in the world in the space about body image and self-love and embracing who we are. There was no talk about boobs,” Szostak said.
Reflecting on her acting career, Szostak revealed that she didn’t always know what she wanted to do for a living. As a child, she did not know how to answer the common question, and even when she majored in marketing at the College she didn’t feel a strong attachment to the field.
“I think I was a marketing major by default because I did not know what I wanted to do, and it was very stressful. You know, everybody seemed to know, ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know,’” Szostak said.
However, Szostak did always have an affinity for movies while growing up.
“I always loved movies when I was young, and when I would leave a movie, I would think, ‘My gosh, I could be this person, I could play this role,’” Szostak said. “But I thought everybody thought like that, and I also didn’t dare to tell anyone, because I thought it was silly.”
As a French international student, Szostak chose to go to the College because she wanted a liberal arts education unlike what she could get in France. She also wanted a school in the Southeast, so that she could be closer to home and play golf as a student athlete all year round. Although it was difficult for Szostak to acclimate to the culture shock and the multiple choice format of many American exams, her advice to current international students is to find a community that will support them through it all.
“You’re not alone feeling like you don’t belong, like you’re different when you’re an international student. Probably all international students feel that way, and a lot of American students feel that way, too,” Szostak said. “So just be patient. You will find your tribe and go ask for help if you need help.”
While working in marketing at Chanel, Szostak enjoyed a debut in modeling when her boss asked her to pose for an in-house brochure. When the photographer believed she was from a modeling agency, she was given the motivation to give modeling a try by signing with Wilhemina Models. From there, she decided to start taking acting classes, despite discouragement by others at Wilhelmina.
“They were like, ‘No, you have too much of an accent. You’re too old,’ and then it took me three years to finally listen to this little voice inside,” Szostak said.
The next few years were marked by many ups and downs as Szostak landed roles in commercials and short films. She even got a leading part in an independent film called “Satellite” that received good reviews from The New York Times and got into the Tribeca Film Festival, although it was not released due to music rights issues.
“So that’s how it was for ten years: there’s some hope and then back to square one,” Szostak said. “A career in acting feels a lot like, you are just here and waiting behind a closed door, and somebody sometimes opens the door.”
Since then, Szostak’s favorite movie she has acted in is Iron Man 3, because she got to meet Robert Downey Jr. and was taught how to fight.
Szostak said one of the most important lessons she has learned in the acting industry has been to always remember what she is and is not willing to sacrifice. During COVID-19, for example, she had to step back from her role as Delilah on the ABC hit drama A Million Little Things, because travel restrictions between her home in Connecticut and the set in Vancouver would have made it impossible to see her family.
“I think it’s really important knowing, what are your number one priorities? Because if you don’t, or if you go against that, you’re not going to do a good job,” Szostak said.
Szostak emphasized that all of her experience goes to show that acting is not something to take lightly. Her advice to students at the College looking to pursue a career in Hollywood is to reflect on how much they want it, and why.
“In the acting industry, I would say make sure you’re doing it for the right reason, which is the love of the craft. Don’t do it for the fame. Don’t do it if you can imagine yourself doing anything else,” Szostak said.