Bree Stilwell

It’s a story I’ve told every single one of my therapists.

How as a young girl I used to stand at the bottom of our very long, very gravelly, very remote driveway, eyes peeled for a person of means and acute observational talents to ‘discover’ me.

It was both an Annie complex, baggage I’m certain most girls growing up in the 80’s carried with them, and something of a real psychosocial necessity to me. I was a girl with a bottomless pit of hidden ambition, living in an environment that unintentionally demanded the opposite.

I grew up in a deeply loving and creative family, in a home filled with music played at bone-splintering levels, books in every room, with hundreds of acres of farmland to support my romantic spirit. I also, proudly, held an outsized responsibility as older sister to a blazing star of a girl who also happened to have a physical disability.

We all have these stories. They are what makes us, us.

What’s of supreme interest to me is how we take these stories—the ones we tell ourselves and those others tell us—and allow them to write our rules.

I hid my ambitions as a girl because I felt I had to. And because I convinced myself it was the better decision, it ultimately became a non-decision.

How many of us have shelved our dreams because someone or something discouraged us?

How many of us kept them to ourselves because ambition felt somehow wrong, inappropriate or selfish?

I’ll tell you how many. TOO MANY.

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Feel as you may about the 2025 award season, I’m not ashamed to say I fucking love it. And this is why.

I love watching people who do hard, creative things get acknowledged and celebrated for it, and I love watching their joy in receiving both even more.

Who hasn’t dreamt of such things?

The cult of celebrity has a lot to do with how and why we get wrapped up in this stuff, of course—the pride, pomp and aspirational circumstance styled for us by the rich and famous. It’s a tight fit, and we force ourselves into it at times. Leaving the mundanity of our everyday lives for the seeming promise of exceptionalism.

We see our idols, living their unfettered lives in plain and exaggerated view, and we want that. We want to be beautiful and adorned and adored. We want to be special.

I certainly have.

That 8 year-old girl standing at the shoulder of a country road sure did. So did the 13 year-old version, obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock, planning daily to become the first woman to receive an Oscar for Best Director.

Same girl turned a woman eventually, and with a solid and indefatigable assist from the world around her, the various iterations of what were once ambitions were redefined for her as fantasies.

We encourage our kids to dream, but then pummel the life out of those dreams in favor of security, practicality and the comfort of conformity.

So when I watched Timothée Chalamet accepting his SAG award for Best Actor, unashamedly admitting to anyone watching how the receipt of such an accolade was proof he was on track with his ambition, to be ‘one of the greats’, and btw, how he had worked for five years on the thing, I think I may have leapt a little.

No laundry list of obligatory shout-outs. No feigned humility. It was a creative person taking the credit and accolades borne of hard work, acknowledging it was one stop on a much longer journey.

This is where the fame bit comes in. Now more than ever, we see fame granted not in applause for hard, tedious, valuable work, but for being the loudest person in the room, saying or doing something unacceptable and then repeating it, schtick-like, for being savvy enough to demand our attention for reasons we don’t quite understand, and for doing so without also doing any of the work.

One can actually be famous for applaudable reasons. The difference is in the intent (the what and why of the thing we’re trying to be exceptional at), and of course, how we measure fame (quantifiably for a entirely subjective category).

I want ambition to be a virtue again, and for fame to be measured not in numbers but in respect.

Ambition needs it’s mojo wrested back from the hacks, and fame, redefined not by measure of likes, virality, media coverage, followers or riches, but in the most classic sense of the word—by being known on account of notable achievements.

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In my early twenties, a local radio dj and promoter—of some fame himself—anointed me the ‘Night Mayor of Ann Arbor.’ Though I’ve never asked him, I reckon it was because I was, at a particularly young age, ever-present in the local music scene. I was fashionable and mysterious, a jazz-head and apparently effortlessly cool and beautiful (apparently, as I absolutely did not believe any of these things to be true at the time).

I was a tiny bit famous. For my outward appearance and devotion, sure, but I think too for my reverence and respect. It couldn’t be doubted, my interest in and informed dedication to the music I supported with my attention. I loved it, and, was admired by others for it.

Later, and a world-apart in my thirties, my voice was recognized when arranging a dinner reservation at the Michelin-starred restaurant group I worked for.

‘Is this Bree? THE famous Bree??’

The voice on the other end belonged to a woman I got to know professionally in Chicago, in my hot-shit maitre ‘d days. I was a gracious but resolute gatekeeper in both exchanges, and… small-f famous for it.1

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So what are the metrics of fame then, exactly? If it’s truly the ‘state of being known or talked about by many people, especially on account of notable achievements’, how many eyeballs does it take for a person to be famous?

And, if we’re committing ourselves to functioning above the norm, beyond the bar, ie. living our ambitions, what amount or style of acknowledgement proves the quality of our efforts?

I look back on these moments of my own small-world renown and I’m both a little embarrassed and delighted all at once. Embarrassed because I wish I had been more purposeful with my actions, more aligned with my greater ambitions, and also—big fat, fricking deal. Delighted though, because I was providing evidence, even at various stages of my life, of who I was in some way working hard to be.

So when I see a real-live and big-f famous movie star talk about their own ambition, sincerely and yes, with humility, about not necessarily striving for fame alone but for having dedicated themselves to an enterprise of greatness, I think not only about my ambition too, but also about our collective issue with it.

Too many of us are uncomfortable with ambition, selling ourselves short because it’s somehow not okay to want and do big, amazing things.

When writing this essay, I came across this piece on Timothée’s speech2 by Suzy Weiss in The Free Press. Initially thinking, damn, beat to the punch aaaa-gain, my annoyance quickly shifted targets. Weiss pushes back against the critics ragging on his overconfidence and oversharing, instead commending Timmy as ‘a try-hard’ and how that’s in fact a very good thing.

‘…America was built on hard work and earnestness—not layabouts. In times like these, it’s refreshing to see someone dig deep into their own well of talent, push themselves, and then actually admit: “I really wanted this.’

Okay. ‘Good thing.’ Love it. But in every single sentence where the word ambition could have easily and appropriately been used, Weiss instead inserts ‘try-hard.’ What the hell? It’s like we can’t even applaud ambition without denigrating it to having made an effort without a clear goal, let alone a goal of some significance.

A famous humanoid alien once said: ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’

Trying hard is in no way the same as activating on your ambition.

And another thing… fame is not at all quantifiable, nor does it necessitate being a celebrity. If being famous actually means being known by many for doing something ambitious, something above and beyond the norm, count me in.

I WANT to be famous, small-f famous… within my community of family, friends, colleagues & compatriots, and YOU.

I want to be known by these ‘many people’ for having achieved a notable level of wisdom, compassion, enthusiasm and creative contribution, for expressing love in everything I do and with everyone I come into contact with.

Let’s all be famous! Let’s trash the facade of what’s deemed possible and what’s not, what we’re encouraged to believe about ourselves by people who have no business doing so. Let’s not be afraid to acknowledge and follow our own ambitions, or to be impressed and inspired by the ambitions of others.

Be ambitious and be great and be famous. Be small-f famous amongst your people, and for the things most important to you. Love your own ambition for what it can provide you, but more so, what it can provide the rest of us.