Actors Wanted

I find Gumtree an endless source of entertainment. Where else can you find an advert for someone genuinely looking for a flat in East Finchley just underneath someone's confession to the world that they are simply a liar (this is a true advert. I just saw it.) So I get a huge amount of pleasure searching for what people put up as 'acting' jobs on there.

Yesterday. while on one of these whims. I typed in the world 'actress' to see what jobs came up. I was expecting the usual short films, maybe a couple of local theatre groups looking for new members but I most certainly didn't expect to find this...

http://www.gumtree.com/p/community/sociable-actoractress-wanted/95150189

Putting aside the many questions I had whizzing around in my head (how nervous is she around her boyfriend? Who in their right mind would ever ask an actor to state their own fee? And most importantly...WHY?!) I mainly wondered if this is what people think actors do? Just because we're comfortable in becoming someone else for a few hours on stage or screen, do people think that we're happy to do this in real life? Surely this is the job of an escort? Or am I being an idiot and this is the best 'job on the side' an actor could dream of? I have to admit that I am hugely intruiged by the story behind this advert and it's taking a whole lot of willpower not to apply just to find out.

It did get me thinking though about how people perceive actors and what we're happy to do in real life. How many of us have been asked to approach someone just because we're performers and therefore we must be more outgoing? People will instantly presume that just because we have no qualms about parading around on stage dressed as a mouse that we have no problem going up to someone and asking if our group of twenty can all have free drinks for the night. And people also assume that we're going to be incredible liars. Somehow, because we're happy to pretend we're someone else, it's presumed that we're utterly convincing liars. We're not. Well, I'm not. I can pretend that I'm a 10 year old girl until the cows begrudgingly come home but ask me to pretend that I didn't eat that whole family bag of McCoys and that lie detector buzzer will go off in an instant. When I'm lying, I will create such a over-elaborate story that it won't be long before I'm revealing to you what grade I got for my Spanish GCSE mock exam and what I ate for breakfast on 24 May 1994. And I can see why people think that acting is a form of lying because it essentially is. But when you're an actor, you've been given your character and your lines and you know your boundaries. When you're lying, there are no boundaries and so the possibilities are endless which is why it is much more difficult and why this poor girl in the advert would never want me to be her wing-woman.

Worryingly, due to a lack of auditions and acting work on the horizon, I'm not entirely sure when my next blog will be. Hmmm, best see if that advert is still up...