Politics & Power Quote by Emily Mortimer

Hollywood’s gravity is so strong it turns even private relationships into relocation spreadsheets. Emily Mortimer frames the decision with practical math - who would “give up much more” - and then quietly exposes the emotional cost hiding behind that pragmatism. She’s talking about America as the inevitable center of film work, but the real subject is how the industry makes “inevitable” feel like a personal choice.

The line about having to be in America to work in film isn’t wide-eyed aspiration; it’s weary realism. It acknowledges a creative economy that still runs on proximity: auditions, meetings, networks, the soft power of being physically available. Mortimer’s wording (“probably,” “end up”) carries a sense of drift, as if ambition is less a rocket and more a current you submit to.

Then she pivots: “I’m not sure that being an ex-pat is very good for one’s sense of self.” That’s the tell. Ex-pat life is often sold as cosmopolitan upgrade, but she calls out the identity tax: the slow erosion that comes from living in translation, performing versions of yourself for new rooms, and losing the everyday confirmations that tell you who you are. It’s also a subtle critique of the romantic myth of the artist abroad. For actors especially, the self is the instrument; uprooting it isn’t just inconvenient, it’s destabilizing.

Underneath, there’s a contemporary, adult fear: not of failure, but of succeeding somewhere that makes you feel slightly less real.