For more than three decades, Bernard Hiller has built a career helping people shape their talent. Born in Argentina and raised in the United States, he found his calling in theater and film — not only as a performer, but as a guide to understanding the emotional forces that drive success.
Later this month, Hiller will release We Are All Born for Success (La Valle del Tempo, April 23), a book he describes not as a manual or a pep talk, but as a bold argument for a simple idea: talent, without the willingness to be seen, remains invisible. “On the set of life,” Hiller writes, “emotional truth is the most powerful weapon.”
Vulnerability, he says, is not a weakness — it is the key. “Being open means being alive,” Hiller explains. “When you shut down, you shut out opportunity.” Fear, too, has its place, he notes that it is a primal instinct that once protected survival but, left unchecked, can now hold people back. “Growth means moving through it,” he says. “Confidence is what you build by confronting fear, not avoiding it.”
While Hiller’s work began with actors, his message has resonated far beyond the stage. His workshops today attract business leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals searching for something deeper than technique — a more truthful connection to themselves. “The mind lies,” Hiller often tells his students. “To find what you were born to do, you have to listen to your heart. When you find the flow, everything else — work, life, happiness — falls into place.”
Obsession, he says, is not the enemy — it’s a signal. “It means you’re on the right path,” he says. “You just have to fuel it with enthusiasm, not doubt.”
On April 30, Hiller will appear at The Cineclub cultural center in Rome for a conversation about what he has learned — from Broadway, from Hollywood, and from decades of teaching in Los Angeles and London. But the real subject, he says, remains the same: the moment when you stop looking away and finally meet your own gaze.
