Getting The Job

Tonight, we all (I’m classing everyone on my Twitter timeline as ‘all’) to find out which actor got a part. Actors, so I’m told, get acting roles all the time, but this one had a whole TV show dedicated to it. There were interviews, montages, talking heads, all in honour of an actor getting a job. Which is nice. But it’s not the usual way. Actors getting jobs is very different.

Peter Capaldi said that when he found out he got the role as The Doctor, he was filming The Three Musketeers in Prague. Which, of course, is totally how we all find out when we’ve got an acting job. Right? Yeah, maybe not. It’s been a while since I found out I got an acting job but here are a few that I can remember. In fact, if I got a pound for every time I worried that I'd never get an acting job again, I'd start worrying a lot more as it's clearly very profitable. But here are a few times that I can remember...

I actually missed my very first acting job offer. Due to Orange being all manner of incompetent swines, my phone stopped telling me I was getting calls and failed to let me know of any voicemails. I thought I was going through a particularly unpopular patch, having just left drama school and watching the last few pennies of my student loan drift away. But no, in the midst of the 25 voicemails that flooded in on morning was a message from a director offering me a job. It was at a big theatre and would’ve been a lovely start to my career. But sadly, by the time I found out about it, another actress had been offered the part.

So, I waited another 2 months for my next job offer. It arrived, rather wonderfully on my birthday. I was blow-drying my hair when an email came through to say I’d got the lead role in a play in my hometown. I was seriously excited. It was a lovely part, decently paid and I could show all those terrors I went to school with that I was doing alright. Despite getting back to them and confirming that I’d love the role, it took them three weeks to get back to me…to say that the show was being cancelled…

I’ve also found out I’ve got acting work while I was locked out of my flat, while driving back from the audition, on the tube and while in bed. The fact is, it doesn’t really matter where you are or how it’s done. Whether you’re in Prague filming for the BBC or you’re sat at home in your pyjamas, the thrill is always the same. The thought that this could be the job. This could be the one that makes you. The realisation that you’re doing alright, that maybe you did pick the right career. Who needs a dedicated show on the BBC when you’ve got that?