Harassment, public scandals, falls from grace: Who wants to be a movie star?

If Daniel Bruhl’s new film ‘Next Door’ or recent interviews with Frances McDormand are anything to go by, being famous is a nightmare. How truthful and instructive are these insights, asks Geoffrey Macnab, and how does being a movie star today compare to being one in the golden age of Hollywood?

Daniel Bruhl’s viciously barbed new film is closely based on his own experience (Reiner Bajo)

In the eyes of the outside world, they have everything. They live in their own gilded cages. They are richer, happier and better looking than us – and probably higher up the evolutionary scale too. Should they care to weigh in on debates about politics, arts or the environment, someone will listen. If they want to set up their own wellness and lifestyle brands and sell us strangely shaped eggs or funny-smelling candles, that is fine too. They’re in that most privileged of positions – they’re movie stars.

The reality, it seems, is far more mundane and unpleasant than we like to imagine. In recent weeks, several of these stars have been grumbling about their predicament.

Oscar winner Frances McDormand confided to The New York Times last week her horror at having her privacy breached by a fan who rang her out of the blue. He told her he was watching her film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. Somehow, this fan had “tracked down her unlisted landline”. She hung up right away and is certain to have changed her number by now. The last thing she wants to do is discuss her career with random admirers.