making a fool of one's self

I got the movie "the Upside of Anger" from Netflix. Saturday night I watched it, and also the extra stuff about the movie that's on the DVD. One piece of information from the DVD has stayed with me this weekend. Joan Allen is being interviewed, and she plays the main character in the movie. She is the alcoholic mother of 4 young women, all living in a fancy suburb of Detroit. They all believe that their father/husband has just left them for a swedish secretary, since he's just up and disappeared without a word about where he's going. Joan Allen is great in this movie, and "TUoA" is worth watching just to see her work.

In the interview, Joan Allen talks about going to the limits in her acting when she's just "making a fool of myself". This got me thinking about art and artists and acting foolish. Does the best work from creative people come from their moments of complete and uninhibited absurdity? Or is this just one of the many ways of making art, which every human has her own unique style of doing? Does this quote speak to me because I am a person who could afford to spend more of my life trying to make a fool of myself? Or maybe I'm doing a fine job of it, and nobody has the nerve to tell me?

Perhaps this is why the men I love are so good at acting foolish. I mean this as a compliment, really I do! A sense of humor that is off the deep end is what I'm most strongly attracted to. I get my best laughs from stupid, adolescent nonsense. Like Tim throwing the pail of ice cream out the window of Dupre Hall. Or the image of little Tim on the playground, pretending to stumble around drunk because he wants to make his kindergarten friends like him more. Or a grown man and father of 3tape recording himself crashing his bike and getting a bloody face.

I guess there is no accounting for taste, and Tim is one of my favorite creative personalities.