Cruel Intentions

Good intentions. That’s what this week has been filled with.

I’ve got a set of new headshots under my arm and a new-found need to stop my CV looking as sparse as an actor’s knowledge on tax returns.

So this week I was ready to go. I was going to go through my CV with a nit comb (where I found I was still claiming to be able to play the flute – I really can’t), contact agents, nudge casting directors and apply for so much acting work that, if I were to get them all, even Benedict Cumberbatch would start to feel a bit uncomfortable.

Although I’d love new representation and the attention of a brilliant casting director, it’s really acting work that I want. And need. My CV currently has more dubious spaces than a service station car park at 3am and my showreel has less footage than John Barrowman’s best bits.

So I hit the casting websites hard. And for those who follow my Tumblr, you’ll know how hard I hit them anyway. But this week I was in Casting Calls 2: Hit Harder. This week I was going to have an open mind, find some excellent roles to apply for and take control of my floundering career.

There’s a sacrifice scene but it’s done in a sexy choreographed way where her top’s ripped to expose her breasts.

Oh.

The lady is more of a slapper.

Oh no.

She’s chained up in what appears to be a coffin & a metallic device is lodged in her mouth. She’s lying on a pile of rotting skulls.

Oh bloody hell.

And that was when I could find roles where I actually fit into the casting bracket. Generally I was either too old, too young, too female, too foreign-looking, too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too unable to sing or just too unwilling to get my tits out for free. Then, of course, you find a role that you might possibly be able to play but they’re only casting in Manchester or they’re not paying or self-doubt whacks you round then head and you convince yourself that they’d never hire you anyway so why even bother.

But people keep asking me what acting work I’ve got coming up and I’ve got nothing to tell them.

So you find a weak handful of jobs to put yourself up for and then you wait. It’s like waiting for Christmas having heard a rumour that it’s being cancelled this year. But still you put yourself through the same series of events every single time...

You apply convinced that you’re perfect for the job. You feel safe in the knowledge that they’ll see your application, fall in love with you and that job will be yours. Then you see they’ve looked at your CV a few times and you get excited. You check the closing date for the casting call and are sure that as soon as it hits, you’ll get that audition offer. That date arrives and you hear nothing. Oh, maybe they’re delayed or taking their time. You check when the shooting date is. It’s tomorrow. Well, maybe that’s changed. Time passes. You eventually see the show or advert and have to finally accept that maybe they’re not going to call you in for that casting. Hey, hang on. You didn’t even see the role that you applied for. Oh, you were better off not getting it anyway. Ad infinitum.

But still, my week wasn’t completely fruitless. Despite all the agents and casting directors I contacted, despite all the casting calls I spent ages on making sure I sent the perfect cover letter, despite all that, I got a phone call from a temping agency wanting me on their books and a call centre offered me a job, sooooo…there’s that.

The Fear

The Fear.

As an actor, you have to learn to live with The Fear. In fact, you have to be so comfortable with The Fear that you can let it live in your house, not let it wake you up every single night and be totally understanding that it seems to have eaten all your food, spent all your money and makes you regret choosing Drama instead of Maths.

Yes, The Fear is the seemingly unending absence of work in your life. It’s the realisation that if you had a pound for every time that you worried that you’d never work again then you’d never need to work again. 

The Fear is currently trying to move into my house.

It’s amazing what you can do to try and put off The Fear and hope it lodges with someone else instead. I recently lost my resting job and The Fear booked its ticket here but I’m not ready for it just yet. First, I went up to Edinburgh for a week. I was doing one ten minute Casting Call Woe set while up there so, y’know, totally still working. Now, I’m back and next week I'm getting new head shots done and have one day's acting work booked in. That's the only acting work I currently have booked in for the rest of my life and that's quite a terrifying prospect. When I get up at 10:30am, I can feel The Fear hovering at the end of the street, waiting for its moment.

For the first time in quite some time, I’m totally unemployed. No acting work, no resting work. My savings account is now like the work colleague who finds themself on the same train home as you, desperately trying to avoid contact so it can be left alone to enjoy its book.  You know they don’t want to speak but you’ve made so much eye contact that, despite yourself, you’re clambering over people’s bags to go and bother it.

The fear is a dangerous thing. It makes you doubt yourself and forces you to look at your empty diary until you start putting in the birthdays of long-forgotten school mates just to have something instead of endless blank pages. The fear will happily force you into a call centre and will tell you that a break from acting is fine. TOTALLY FINE. It’ll drag you from the thing you love and do all it can to stop you looking back. Just keep looking forward and focus on how nice it is to be able to afford to buy your friends a drink for once.

I know The Fear means I should just tie myself to the temporary jobs' section on Reed and focus on how I can make a mean Excel spreadsheet and scan a document within an inch of its life. But I’m not. Instead I’m pinning my hopes on my upcoming new headshots fooling everyone into thinking I’m Benedict Cumberbatch and I'm tirelessly trawling through casting websites trying to find work. Actual work. And for those of you who follow my Casting Call Woe Tumblr, you’ll know how difficult that is. Pinning hopes on casting sites is about as safe as getting up on a rickety chair in the opening scene of Casualty. It means that every morning you get up, full of hope, and by lunchtime those hopes have been dashed due to you not being beautiful enough/white enough/naked enough/male enough. But you keep going because, well, that's what being an actor is. 

So, if you see The Fear while you're out and about, let it know that I'm making its bed up and getting in its favourite brand of tea, but I'm not ready for it just yet. Not quite yet. 

Temporary Measures

Today I sold my soul to the devil. Today I dragged myself out of bed at an ungodly hour (it was so early that I had to set an alarm) and hauled my tea and sleep deprived body into 'town.' Dressed all smart like, I got to spend an hour this morning pretending to be just like everyone else who actually does a proper job for a living. Like the dullest undercover spy that there ever was, I sat with my book on the bus and looked exactly like all the other people who get paid to do things. I bet they all thought I was going off to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay but like the amazing secret agent that I am, I wasn't. I was going to sign up to a temping agency.

After nearly two months of living in denial, existing on the scraps of currency that were found in my bank/purse/sofa, I finally had to face up to the fact that I will need to work if I want to continue living off more than thin air. So off I went ready to sign my life away to the world of work while I pointlessly explained to some unsympathetic being about how I really want to make a career out of hanging around theatres and film sets. But how wrong I was. I was instead faced with a lovely person who totally understood what I wanted (apparently I'm not the first and only person in the world who wants both money and their dream job) and they'll let me earn some cash when I'm not prancing off to auditions, actually doing some acting work or in desperate need of a lie-in.

But don't worry. just because Miss L has now entered the corporate world, this doesn't mean that clumsiness and stupidity don't rule the day. I managed to stand by the front door to the office for nearly five minutes, buzzing up to reception because the door didn't open. It's only when someone else walked straight in that I realised both my feeble arms and inability to complete simple tasks were in charge yet again. I also managed to knock the numerous forms that I was supposed to fill out from the hands of the receptionist and sent them cascading across the office floor. I think you'll agree that I set quite the professional imperssion when I enter a room. However, I'm pretty sure that I aced the spelling test (it's spelt 'compewtur' right?) and I managed to continue with the typing test when I realised that I was typing up a piece about how insecure the job market is and how you need to ensure that you're doing something that you love. As texts go, I'm fairly sure this isn't the most inspiring to have when you're sat in a very artificially lit, cramped room typing away to get money because the job you really want won't give you a penny.

So now I've doubled my disappointment when my phone doesn't ring. Now there will be days when even more people realise they don't require my services and even more industries decide they'd rather have nothing to do with me. Or maybe it'll be the other way round and I'll find that everyone discovers that they all need a piece of Miss L. I'll be so in demand that I'll top the 'Most Wanted' charts. Maybe.

Check back tomorrow for a guaranteed entry inspired by neediness, desperation and an empty purse.