acting and scientology

"The purpose of the acting art is not to bring about therapy... One taps their own experience of love or violence and tries to pull from it whatever is possible in terms of an association or understanding, but there is also the imagination and the character and the writing. The personal thing is always very strong and can be created, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you go into the traumas of your life in order to get it."
-Milton Katselas, quoted in "The Actualizer," Mark Oppenheimer, NYT

Sounds pretty sensible to me; this style of acting has nothing of "be the bacon." Mr. Katselas is associated with the Church of Scientology; apparently the religion has tenets based on observation and clarity, which can be helpful to acting technique. Some performers that I especially admire (including John Travolta, Jason Lee, and Beck) are also believers in this religion that has infiltrated Hollywood. When discussing these performers my friends tend to say "oh, too bad he's a scientologist, I don't like him so much anymore." Which bothers me -- judging someone by what religion they espouse, as opposed to how they behave, is prejudice. Though I am non-religious myself (and in fact I believe that L. Ron Hubbard was one of the worst sci-fi writers I ever read), I don't see why the religion of performers should affect my enjoyment of their work. If a friend tried to proselytize me, it would bother me and affect the relationship; that would be true no matter what the religion was. But I don't know these people; I can only judge them by what they do in the public eye. And if scientology makes them better actors and happier people, I say go to.