“When you’re acting on a set, you are so f—ing micromanaged that I cannot consider that a creative release for me. If anything, it’s actually very oppressive for me,” The ‘Transformers’ alum said of stepping in front of the camera.
Megan Fox is experiencing a creative release, for perhaps the very first time in her career.
In a new interview with Women’s Wear Daily, the Transformers alum discusses her new book of poetry Pretty Boys Are Poisonous, and why she’s found the most creative fulfilment in writing and not in her work on a film set.
“I knew that I always had to put it out. I feel like one of my strengths is my spiritual foundation, or the way that I process things and my mindset, and I feel like of all the things I could offer people through the platform that is celebrity, that would be my best offering,” Fox said of the book of poems. “And so something like this I felt had to go into the public because it’s hopefully going to be much more impactful than a movie I’ve done or anything I’m going to post on f–ing Instagram.”
As for why she finds writing most fulfilling, Fox, tells the outlet that unlike acting, which she finds very limiting, writing allows her to be “reckless and not have a bunch of guidelines,” something the film star and model says she needs to feel creative.”Everybody’s going to get so mad at me for saying this, I don’t care: as an actor, you’re kind of just a puppet. You’re a puppet for the studio or for the producers, the director, the writing, whatever. You’re not really in control of any of the creative processes that are happening,” Fox explained.
She continued, “Yes, you can bring your creativity and express something through it within this very limited box. But I think there’s only a handful of actors who are really talented in that way, where they can fully express within the boundaries of what it is to be an actor. And I’m not one of them.”
“So I don’t experience it as being a creative release. I need a lot more control to feel creative,” Fox added of acting, “I feel creative when I paint or when I draw. I need to be able to be reckless and to not have a bunch of guidelines. And when you’re acting on a set, you are so f–king micromanaged that I cannot consider that a creative release for me. If anything, it’s actually very oppressive for me.”
When asked if that means she’ll be stepping away from acting in the future, Fox told WWD, “I am going to take that as it comes.””I don’t really have a plan. I guess we’ll see, the universe and the world will show me where I’m needed, and that’s what I’ll do,” she added. “Say a prayer for me.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Fox also discusses her public persona versus who she is, telling the magazine that she suffers from a “crippling” level of anxiety that often makes her not want to leave her house.
“I think a lot of people are under the impression that I like attention, which is hilarious because I’m so tragically introverted. I wish I loved attention. I would have the best life,” Fox said. “I would have so much fun. I have so many opportunities. I could be doing so many things, but instead, I have crippling anxiety and I never want to leave my house.”
While putting herself out there is part of her job, and one she’s had to do for her more than two decades in the industry, it hasn’t gotten any easier, with Fox telling the outlet that she recently suffered her very first panic attack brought on by the exposure of the book.”I wrote so much more that wasn’t included in the book. There was so much that needed to come out of me. I have so much resentment and so much rage and I just have so many feelings, and so the writing them wasn’t difficult,” Fox explained. “The writing them was fun. The living with them is the difficult part.”
The book recounts some of Fox’s most difficult relationships with men, and while she wants the focus of her poetry to be on her words and experiences, she’s also hopeful she can teach a lesson to her sons — Noah, 11; Bodhi, 9, and Journey, 7, whom she shares with ex-husband Brian Austin Green — about being better men than some of those she’s encountered in her life.
“I think because I have sons, it’s very important to me to raise boys who are not like these men that I’ve been with,” she stressed. “It’s very important for me to raise boys who are able to have a very deep emotional intimacy with their partner. It’s very important to me that they are not liars, that they are able to be fully transparent and honest and respectful and experience at some point in their life, I don’t expect them when they’re 16 to have a sacred love, but I do expect them at some point to get to that place, because I am their first introduction into women and the way that I love them is going to influence the way they are allowed to love others when they go out into a relationship.”
Fox, who is currently engaged to musician, Machine Gun Kelly, added, “And so I hope that just through my transparency in the way that I engage with them, in the way that I am demonstrative and affectionate with them, that allows them to love in a really healthy way.”