Alan Arkin: 'Success made me miserable'

Alan Arkin was "miserable" after making it big in Hollywood.

The star has enjoyed a celebrated career onscreen, landing his first Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his performance in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming and going on to star in movies including Edward Scissorhands, Little Miss Sunshine and Argo.

But he told The Guardian success didn't make him happy, admitting: "I was miserable pretty much all of the time."

In his new book, Out of My Mind, the actor details his journey to success, beginning life as a shy, anxious child and, while finding fame, experiencing a string of tragedies and dramas. At one point his mentor John (believed to be former Broadway star John Battista), who ran an Agni Yoga ashram in New York, was charged with the sexual abuse of three women and a teenage girl, whom he reportedly put in a trance-like state and then molested.

Despite the controversy, Arkin conceded: "My devotion to his teachings became virtually ironclad," and, after John committed suicide, he continued to practise his teachings.

"I felt that I had grown so much," Arkin continued, musing: "So much had borne fruit. Some miraculous things were going on as a direct result of meditation. It saved my life. I couldn't throw it out."

In recent years, the star has won fresh acclaim for his role as a weathered Hollywood agent in Netflix's The Kominsky Method and Arkin compared his relationship to acting with "a horse going down the trail".

"Acting is so ingrained in my physiognomy and the channels of my brain that I find myself missing aspects of the business," he noted, contemplating: "But I don't need it any more. I should probably get over it."