Ain't Nothing But A Number

I think we all had a good chuckle at this news story over the last couple of days. Could someone really be so protective over their date of birth and could they really claim that it could jeopardise the possibility of them getting work in the future?

The debate over ageism within the acting industry is an age-old one and I think women in particular feel victimised. It's easy to feel that as you get older, all the younger actresses, looking gorgeous, youthful and eager, are coming in and snatching the jobs away. But surely they can only take the jobs that are applicable to them? The problem lies with the writers and producers and directors who insist on only writing parts for those under 25 and then maybe adding in an older man for good measure. I'm only just out of the 'young' age bracket and I get a little annoyed so I'm sure my frustration is only set to increase with age as I feel the little pool of parts I can apply for get smaller and smaller.

I can possibly understand why this woman might be annoyed as in the acting world, your actual age really has very little relevance to the roles you play. As long as you look like you can play the part then really that's all that matters. Who cares if you're 50? If you can still realistically play a 30 year old the the date on your birth certificate is utterly irrelevant. And I've never been in the casting seat but I'm pretty sure a casting director would look at the actor's headshot first and make their decision from that whether they think they could possibly play the part they're casting for. I'm fairly certain they don't get their calculator out and start working out whether or not their date of birth means that they could possibly play a 25 year old shop assistant. Thankfully, with the exception of one casting site, we're allowed to keep ourselves open to all roles and use our initiative as to whether we feel we can legitimiately play a role.

However, this doesn't mean that we always end up playing the ages that we should be and I've often found myself potraying characters in a completely different generation to mine. Most memorable was for a play I was in a few years ago. A child, despite having no lines, was a major part of the final scene and three young boys from local schools had been brought in to play the part during our three week run. However, because they were unable to attend our rehearsals which primarily took part in the coldest room in the whole of London during the day, I found myself, as the youngest looking member of the cast, standing in for this part. This was all fine until it was decided that on press night, it would be far better for me to play the role as the director was worried that the boys would get stage fright on such an important evening. It was ignored that kids are far more professional at these types of things and will just generally get on with it while the adults are all stressing about whether their hair looks alright and if they've done enough background work on their character. The show turned out to be amazing and by the end of the three weeks, we had a play that was getting amazing reviews and was selling out every night. But this press night was terrible. On two separate occassions, two actors found themselves in the unenviable position of being victim to wardrobe malfunctions and were on stage with their trousers round their ankles. Cues were missed, there were three separate moments of corpsing, I had to play the whole of my biggest scene facing upstage as the actor I was on with seemed to completely forget everything he'd ever known and we discovered that the giant piece of material at the back of the stage that was meant to mask us was almost entirely see-through. Then add to this, during a very naturalistic play, at the most critical and emotional point moment of the last 2 hours, a 26 year old woman wearing a skirt because her trousers had been picked up by another actor by accident, comes on pretending to be an 8 year old boy. It's safe to say that the magic of theatre was well and truly destroyed that night.

Today I've found just one part that I can actually apply for due to either being too old or too young. If you need me, I'll be the one underneath that pile of age-defying moisturiser...

Pot Luck Audition

Today I failed on the most basic of levels. In the world of acting I was given a one-way, VIP ticket to the top of the failure pile. I was ushered past all your hard-working, diligent actors who are all wandering around somewhere near the pile. Security whisked me past you all and carried me right to the top where I could relax and think about my record-breaking failure attempt.

But how did I get to this point I hear you all ask? (don't worry, I've got a microphone set up in your room, I don't have supersonic hearing.) Well, let's start at the beginning of this poorly written tale. Our story begins yesterday when Miss L was informed that the lovely agency didn't want to take them on. Apparently, it wasn't me, it was them and they just wanted to see other people. I'll admit now that I was upset, especially as I didn't have any auditions lined up. It all suddenly looked a bit bleak and I only have my sparse CV to keep me warm. In a desperate attempt to try and cheer myself up, I decided to trawl through the day's casting calls to see what was on offer. It's safe to say that they weren't good. Out there at the moment is an advert that ask for women who can jog graciously (nope, not gracefully but graciously. And no, I have no idea how you might tackle this either. I can only presume that you have to look delighed that someone has allowed you the dubious pleasure of being out jogging.) Another is casting the role of a middle-aged woman. No harm in that, you might think. However, they are asking for actresses aged between 25 and 40. Since when did any of those ages count as middle-aged? I'm very nearly 28 and still only just getting over no longer being in the 16-25 age bracket so to suddenly find that I'm now half way through my life is quite the blow.

Doom and gloom decided it was time to move in. They were just rearranging the furniture when my phone rang. It was a mobile number that flashed up beautifully on the screen. Scurrying to the only point in the flat where I seem to be able to get reception, I answered eagerly. I caught the words 'casting' 'free' and 'tomorrow.' I fired out the word 'yes' wherever I thought appropriate. And suddenly, after a few requests for repitition due to poor reception, I was attending a casting the next day. There were a few instructions as to what I needed to wear and that was it. T (he be the boyfriend) asked what it was for. I honestly had no idea. I think it was said somewhere near the beginning but I'd asked the poor woman so many times to repeat various details that I felt I couldn't possibly ask any more of her. Anyway, I was sure that a quick look through my submissions over the last week would shed some light. Frantically I trawled through everything I'd applied for this month and nothing seemed to fit. I hadn't even caught the woman's name. The only bit of concrete evidence I had that this audition actually existed was the woman's mobile number. A search of this brought up a Facebook group asking for numbers and this woman appeared to be a singer based in the south-west in 2008. Accepting defeat, I realised I'd just have to wait and see. An acting lucky dip, if you like.

So this morning I headed off. I got down there early and practically ran to the casting, eager to find out what on earth it was for. I practically snatched the forms from the receptionist and even when I saw the company (a well-known food brand if you must know) I was still none the wiser. I honestly had no recollection of applying for this. It seemed the acting gods had finally started listening to my pleas and were now doing my work for me. So I filled out the forms, giving details of every second of my little life over the past few years. I was then called in with three other actors and we were asked to perform the dreaded 'improvised scene.' I've seen what the advert will be and this scene will probably make up 2 seconds of a 30 second long advert. The camera will skim over this handful of characters, barely allowing the viewer to register their existence. However, we were asked to enter a 3 minute long improvisation where we played around with a disappointing array of props. We hadn't been asked to do this in silence but two of the actors seemed to think that this was best while another actress and myself gabbled away, desperately trying to make the most of this awful mime that we'd found ourselves trapped in. Minute after agonising minute passed as we all repeated the same movements over and over again until we were finally released back out in the lovely world where they gloriously allow you to interact normally.

This afternoon I found that unfortunately the acting gods haven't quite taken me on yet and I actually applied for the role just over a month ago. I still have no memory of this. I quite like this pot luck approact to auditions. Here's to hoping that I've been unconciously applying for other roles and the castings start flooding in...

Frustration

For today, I could very easily just copy and paste last week's The Waiting Game entry. My avid one follower will know that I met with an agent on Friday and that I was told that I'd be hearing back from them on Monday. Well, reader, I can tell you now that I still haven't heard anything back. I've given my phone lingering glances and I've stared longingly at my email but it seems that both are spoken for and neither is giving anything up. I've now become an expert at clicking 'refresh' and I'm sure I'm hitting the illegal limit for checking that my phone is on. Still nothing. Thankfully I've spent much of today on my own so I haven't been able to annoy anyone with having one eye constantly on my phone. My constant scuttling back to it when I try and be disciplined by using The Watched Pot method would try the patience of the saintliest of saints who has been granted his third sainthood.

I'm not sure what the etiquette is when you've been told to expect to hear from someone about something on a certain day. Do you just wait it out and spend the rest of your days snatching your phone the second it makes a noise and find yourself close to tears when it's just another voucher deal email? Or do you give them a quick nudge and run the risk of receiving a rejection email which basically tells you what you already know anyway? So far I've decided to wait it out. I'm already pestering my phone every other second. If I fire off an email then I'm doubling my inpatience by then giving myself yet another thing to wat for. My current thoughts are that if they were interested then they'd most certainly be in touch. Today, no news is bad news.

I hoped to be able to distract myself today by applying for lots and lots of lovely work. Today I decided I wasn't going to be picky about what I put myself up for. As long as I was suitable for the role and I was available on the dates given then I'd put myself up for it. But sadly I've chosen the 'Lets get men, children and anyone who lives anywhere other than London into acting day.' Of course. The one day I want to be productive, the world decides that it doesn't want to play ball. Yeah, my catching and throwing ain't what it should be but give a uncoordinated girl a break.

So, because I still haven't perfected the art of turning myself into a man or a child, or even a manchild, I have dedicated today to some of the most dubious of casting calls out there. Despite the sheer nature of acting and how public it is, the world of casting calls is a largely unmonitored one. Teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime. Teach a director to use a casting website and you'll be subjected to some of the most alarming adverts since Go Compare. Previous delights have been a photographer who was advertising for a personal project to boost his portfolio. Let's call him Alan. It was bad enough that he asked for models to be naked except for a mask but to then call the project 'Alan's Pictures'? I fear for the models who end up in Alan's 'special' file on his computer, only ever opened after dark and hastily closed should any unsuspecting friend or family member enter the room. Then there was the character description that asked for 'A typically pretty, girl next door type. We're not looking for the hottest.' If you're down on your looks and don't fancy an ego boost any time soon then this is almost certainly the job to apply for...and then probably get turned down when they choose the hottest girl that applied.

However, today's funniest has been the casting that asked applicants be happy to be filmed stepping out of a shower, ensuring them that their 'nibbles' would be covered. Yes, I'm a child. Ooo, so I have perfected the art of turning myself into a child. Step aside everyone, I've got castings to apply for!

Secret Agent

When at drama school, the talk for most of the three years based around getting an agent. When you're training, you think it's the most important thing since they sliced bread and they realised they could make much money out of it. Being agentless seemed like the worst thing on Earth. Those who didn't get interest in the third year were pitied and whispered about. Gossip spread backstage behind curtains and was discussed in dressing room mirrors. How could they possibly work without someone being in charge of their careers? Surely their three years had been spent in vain and they would just be aimlessly wandering the streets, their character shoes worn through and their copy of Contacts in tatters.

Of course, I've since learnt that not having an agent isn't the worst thing in the world. I had sadly pitched up in the 'any agent is better than no agent' camp when I left and therefore signed up with the first one that was interested. Had someone warned me that they would go months without getting in touch, that they'd shout at me when I wasn't available to go to a casting with an hour's notice and that they'd repeatedly put me up for the part of an extra then I'd have run for the hills. I'd have never gone to the meeting where we discussed my bra size for far too long and instead I'd have run off with my awful headshot in one hand (it caused someone to liken me to a pigeon) and my desperately sparse CV in the other. My agent was terrible. He had the thickest Northern Irish accent that the world will ever know which meant I repeatedly misheard what I was going up for. He never listened when I said I didn't want to be an extra and over the course of three years, he managed to secure me two jobs. Nearly all the work I did was found by myself so he was basically pointless. The day we finally parted ways was more joyous than you can imagine.

I've always been quite happy finding my own work. I can be completely in control of what I do and I know that I won't have an audition suddenly sprung upon me. However, my desire to spend my life doing student films is low and that means finding someone who can give you a leg up so you can struggle up to the next rung of this very slippery ladder. So, today I went for a meeting with an agency. And bloody lovely they were too. The journey there was far from perfect and went along in normal Miss L fashion. I was first nearly killed by a falling suitcase at Highgate station. Then, around the corner from the office, I was forced to make the choice of running under a cascade of water due to industrial window-cleaning or to dash out in front of constant speeding buses and lorries (the option to the cross the road was also present but we'll ignore that one.) Once I safely arrived at the office we had a 10-15 minute chat about what I was looking to do and what they could offer, I performed a monologue (this was my modern speech as requested, I didn't just suddenly launch into a lecture on the rights of women in the 1800s) and then we parted ways. I now have to wait until Monday to hear whether they're still interested which will mean I can basically write-off Monday as I spend every other second checking my phone, email and making sure that they work.

I came away from the meeting suddenly feeling very positive about having someone to look after me a little bit. The idea of being completely independent and in control of your career is a lovely notion but having someone to hold your hand as they deal with the big kids in the playground is a far nicer prospect. Hopefully my hand won't be empty for too much longer.

Cutting It Short

So, following on from yesterday's entry, I finally heard back from the hapless students to say that they'd like to see me for an audition today. I mean, they wanted to see me tomorrow when they contacted me but now it's today and today is the day I saw them...you understand, right? If not, the short answer is that I saw them today. Anyway, it seemed that someone was listening to all my bitching and moaning about waiting as they said they wanted to see me at 8am. Yep. AM. Not pm, the time when most people are out and about and functioning but AM. The time when all the good people of the world are still, at the very most, lounging around in their pyjamas and wondering what they're going to do with their day. They're not racing into town to audition for an unpaid student film.

I realise this sounds massively lazy and diva-like of me to say this but is anyone really at their best at 8am? When I used to work, my shift started at 8am so I'm perfectly capable of dragging myself out of my cosy little bed when it's still dark and forcing myself to face the world at a time when it really shouldn't be seen. However, that job just required me to hide behind a computer, play around with Excel spreadsheets and be shouted at by customers with a job lot of both time and money on their hands. No one there would be offended by my bleary-eyed, wild-haired early morning look. A camera, on the other hand, does not need to see me in pre-breakfast fashion. It causes lenses to crack and microphones to shudder. So I asked for another time slot and, god bless their little student loan funded socks, they gave me one a few hours later.

So off I went this morning. Note to self: if you're going to ask for a later time slot, don't then turn up late. Yes, it was the fault of the ever-faithful Northern line which, very much like my laptop, manages to run at its slowest when I really need to it be running at its quickest.  Thankfully, I was greeted by the most lovely group of students you could probably ever hope to meet. Despite the nagging feeling in the back of my head that I was probably old enough to be their great grandmother, I had a grand ol' time chatting away to them and working on the script. They were friendly, intelligent and a lot of fun. They seemed to like what I was doing with the script but for some reason my brain wasn't quite grasping what they were asking me to do. We ran through one of the sections of dialogue, they then directed me a bit and asked me to do it again. One of the directions they gave me was to add a bit more sarcasm to one of the lines. Surely that should be easy. When no one wants sarcasm, I bring it to the yard in a flash like an uninvited flasher. So when someone asks for it, why are both my brain and mouth both refusing to co-operate? Why are they similarly struggling with the terms 'confident', 'hesitant' and 'dismissive?' These are all terms that I understand and practice on a daily basis so why isn't it quite working? . We did a few more sections from the script and although it all felt 'OK', there was a horrible feeling that it all wasn't just quite good enough. Sadly, I just think there are days when your body just has other plans for the day and god help anyone who tries to add an amendment to their itinerary

And the battle for work continues. Or it would if I'd actually applied for anything today. Maybe I should just hire myself out to students who fancy practicing barking simple orders at weak and feeble actors and watching them squirm under the very little pressure put upon them. Could be quite the little money-making scheme. Or at the very least it might bring me up to speed with the rest of the world and finally teach me how to deal with the most basic of commands.

The Waiting Game

When you're self-employed, there's a whole lot of waiting going on. Of course, you try and do as much work as possible but ultimately, your ability to work lies in the hands of others. Hands that often have much better things to be doing and probably twiddle their thumbs for quite a considerable amount of time before they pick up a phone or laptop and decide they want to get in touch with you. I'm fairly sure that being self-employed means that you're meant to be your own boss but I feel like my career is at the mercy of others more than ever before.

I applied for a student film the other day and almost instantly received a reply back to say that they would send a script across within the next hour. Excellent. Suddenly my rather empty and bare looking day was starting to look like it was bearing unpaid and slightly unfulfilling fruit. So I waited. And then I waited some more. Finally I waited further to wait even more. And after all this waiting, still nothing appeared. Three days it took for the script to get to me. Now I'm a patient and understanding sort (unless public transport is involved) and I realise that things can crop up which can cause unforseen delays. I also understand that students need to learn and that if you put yourself up for a film made by university students who are still floudering somewhere in the depths of the learning curve then things may not always run smoothly. However, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take three days to attach a script to an email. Or have I been doing attachments all wrong? Because of this delay, I've been given 24 hours notice for the casting which is supposedly tomorrow. Now I'm totally free tomorrow but they don't know that. For all they know, I could be the busiest bee in the hive who has just received a massive honey order. Lucky for them that I only have tea drinking, cereal eating and general moping about in pyjamas pencilled in for tomorrow.

I should be used to the whole waiting thing by now. A few years ago I was contacted about a feature film which looked properly exciting. The director contacted me in the afternoon to see if I was available that evening for a casting. I said that I was and he said he was just arranging where to hold it and that he'd be in touch as soon as possible to let me know. Excellent. I hurriedly got myself ready, rifled through my wardrobe to get the perfect outfit and then I waited. Oh how I waited. I waited until it was impossible to wait anymore. By now it was nearly 9pm and it looked like I wasn't going to hear anything. I tried calling the director back but there was no answer. I texted and emailed to check that everyhing was ok but still nothing. Finally I de-make-upped myself, got back into my pyjamas and figured it just wasn't meant to be. Two days later I finally got an email from the director to say that they had found another actress who they felt was more suitable for the role so they would no longer be needing to see me. There was a brief 'sorry for not getting back to you the other evening' type sentence and then that was it. Apparently making someone wait around for hours until you click your fingers and beckon them across London is totally normal. However, I wasn't then aware that there was a further slap in the face to come. About four months later I get an email from the director out of the blue to say that a role had become available in the film and he wondered whether I could speak perfect 'Fusha' which is basically modern standard Arabic. As I've stated in this blog before, I don't know why directors think I would keep the fact that I speak another language a well-guarded secret. I explained that unfortunately I couldn't and I then received an email telling me how disappointing that news was and how I was almost definitely losing jobs because of it. And then on top of that, I received a full-on berating of my choice of headshot. Thanks. Thanks very much.

But at least most of this waiting was conducted in the comfort of my own home. Waiting at a casting is a million times worse. I went up for an advert casting a while ago and they'd asked people to turn up anytime between 2 and 5pm. Naturally, most people arrived at 2pm and there was already about 50 people there when I arrived. The casting was a pretty quick affair but unfortunately there was a powercut after the second or third person had gone in. The casting director halted proceedings, had a full-blown argument with the poor girl on reception and the builders outside who had caused the loss of power and while all this is going on, even more unsuspecting actors are arriving until the waiting room is just a sea of well-groomed bodies. It took two and a half hours to be seen, in that time we had all spoken, asked each other almost every question possible, discussed every topic available and exhausted conversation so much that a stony silence descended back on the room. When work is so scarce, walk-outs are a rarity at an audition. However, at this one, I'm pretty sure the god of acting work looked down on us that day for sticking around.

So, even after writing this blog, I'm still waiting to hear about this damn film. My bedroom has become a waiting room and Doctor Theatre does not have room for me today.

Charity Hilarity

In this un-saving-life job that we do, it's always heart-warming when you can actually do something which might save a life or two. Yep, you can take comfort from the fact that your performance might just entertain someone for a few minutes and let them forget about all the other life-saving duties they have to attend to in the other thousand or so minutes in their day but they will go back to their normal lives and your little stint as a mouse will just become a footnote in their biography. Although we can give people a little respite in their daily lives (unless your performance/show is so dire that you just make them grateful that they're not you) ultimately the world goes on and the way in which you portrayed a gay man will never alter someone's course. Having said that, my 3 month stint of playing a gay man was so awful that I'm sure it made some people reassess their sexuality.

Yesterday I went down to the Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protests on Westminter Bridge to try and stop the NHS reforms. If you don't know much about it then I urge you to read this article which explains things better than I ever could. I'm not a huge protester (they often happen at the weekend and therefore usually clash with a hot date I've got lined up with my duvet, kettle and a family bag of crisps) but the NHS means a lot to me as my mum has been employed by them for most of my life and also the boyfriend was performing at the protest. A gorgeous handful of comedians and musicians performed to do what they could to try and stop these terrible changes happening to one of the most precious things that this country has (it's not quite as precious as my Elmo toy but y'know, it's close) and it was so encouraging to see a group of people take time out and use their skills to try and make a difference. It was a most excellent day with no violence and I really hope that it can help in some way to save this most precious commodity.

I've done a couple of things in my chequered acting past which I hope have made the slightest bit of difference but sadly the opportunities are few and far between and unfortunately the heart-warming glow that I should've come away with hasn't always been there. A few years ago I filmed a commercial for a particular UK wide charity run for cancer where I had to pretend to be one of the runners for their TV and print campaigns. This may have felt like a worthwhile job if we hadn't been filming during one of the real runs where thousands of people were doing the run for real. They were running for real and legitimate reasons while we were there pretending to be running for pretend loved ones. So instead of feeling like I was making a difference, I felt like a fraud as I posed on the start line looking ready to run for a good cause. I then waited for everyone to race off and then sauntered to the finish line to pretend that I'd actually achieved something. But of course, my cold, empty heart would be warmed up by the fact that this advert would encourage thousands of people to enter the race and raise money to help fight this disease. Or at least it would've done if the advert had ever aired. Best put some more anti-freeze on the ol' ticker.

The other way in which an actor can at least attempt to make a difference is through TIE. This was the first job that I did on leaving drama school and was probably the best thing I could've done as if there's another job that can bring an actor back down to earth then I've yet to encounter it. Horribly early mornings, confusing drives to schools in the middle of nowhere and then soul-destroying performances to kids that really wish you weren't there. The play I was in was about the dangers of heroin and of all the TIE plays I've encountered, it was probably one of the best written. I played a 9 year old girl who was soon to turn 10 and she gets a grim look into her heroin-filled future. This play should've been an amazing opporunity to educate children about the horrors of drugs and even though it may have made a few of them think, I imagine most were quite indifferent to our slightly patronising ramblings. We went to schools that required us to walk through metal detectors and be body searched and we were told by teachers to keep our belongings on us at all times, even during performances. I'm fairly sure me skipping about in a flouncy white party dress as other actors took part in a 'rave' would just encourage these kids to turn to drugs. I was often heckled the second I walked on stage and although a handful of kids seemed genuinely interested, most shows went down like a lead-filled lead balloon which is tied up with lead string.

I think we were meant to take comfort from the fact that even if we saved just one child then our efforts were completely worthwhile. However, for each child saved, I'm fairly sure another actor was pushed to the brink and forced to seek solace from various vices. Oh well, I'm sure killing off a few actors is worth it if we're saving the adults of tomorrow. It frees up some of the acting work if nothing else and ultimately, isn't that what we're all striving for?