On Cloud Line

It’s well known that, as actors, when we meet someone, they’ll almost definitely ask if you’ve been in anything they might’ve seen.  This may come as a surprise to some people but we don’t actually just sit outside your living room window, keeping track of all the programmes you watch, entering it into a central database so we can all cross-reference our CVs with your viewing habits. Once that line of conversation goes nowhere, we’ll go down the, ‘Got any work coming up?’ route, a similarly short and futile pathway to head down. It’s at this point that I’m most often asked what the best acting job is that I’ve ever done.

Now, this is a question I often struggle to answer. Is it the painful months of touring schools playing an 8-year-old? Was it the play that was held in a venue that was so poorly protected from the elements that we went in one day to find actual snow drifts on stage? Was it the summer season that paid so poorly that I was forced to live off tinned soup for a month and the height of luxury was value gin mixed with cheap sparkling water and the tiniest drop of cassis?

Of course, I’ve had some amazing jobs too. I’ve starred in adverts alongside comedy heroes, I’ve put on my own show in Edinburgh and graced the stage with proper legends, I’ve even got to wear an Aldi warehouse jacket, but I realised this morning what the actual best acting role is that I’ve ever played.  It’s none of the jobs I previously mentioned.  It’s not a job that involved loved celebrities or endless supplies of pizza or even my own trailer. It’s not even the job that warranted my own police escort. And, if you’ve read my essay in The Good Immigrant, it wasn’t even the time I got to play Jack Frost. No, it was the time I got a line in the local pantomime.

‘So what did you do in Munchkinland Mr Scarecrow?’

That was it.  I’ve battled for so much more, lamented over a lack of lines and the unfairness of it all.  I’ve dreamt of starring roles and endless heartfelt monologues but nothing has made me happier than that one line.

I remember being taken to one side and being told that I would be getting this line.  For a quiet but confident 8-year-old child, this was quite the responsibility and I treated it as such.  Looking back now, I realise this part wasn’t given to me for any particular acting ability that I had, I was just a sensible girl with a loud voice who could be trusted with such a thing.  If I was told to be somewhere, that’s where I would be.  I’m very much the same now but sadly acting roles don’t seem to be handed out on your scale of dependability.

I treasured that line like I would a tiny kitten.  Those words were precious and demanded my full attention.  I’m embarrassed to say that in my professional career I’ve had thousands of words, acres of dialogue, hours of verse, and I’ve treated none of them with the respect that I held for that one pretty inconsequential phrase.

‘So what did you do in Munchkinland Mr Scarecrow?’

It was a line that probably didn’t even need to exist but I’ve never felt so important.  I remember I got to stand in the wings with the man who played the scarecrow and I basically felt 12 feet tall. I mean, I was a tall child for my age anyway but this made me feel practically Amazonian.

A line.

A precious line.

A line that had been given to me and no one else.

I treated that role like I was Olivier going on at the Globe. I wasn’t being paid, only getting a few snacks in between the matinee and evening performance, but I felt like an A-lister.

That’s the level of pride I want to feel for everything that I do now on. 8-year-old me has set a high standard, but if it was good enough for her then it’s good enough for me a quarter of a century on. If she had been asked if she was up to anything at the moment, she wouldn’t have coyly muttered that she only had a line in the local panto, she would have summoned a fanfare and boomed it from the rooftops.

So, when I next catch myself belittling an achievement, trying to talk down something just because I think it’s insignificant, I’ll remember her and be proud, as proud as an 8-year-old with a line that’s spoken in front of 50 people in a dusty school hall.

Thoughts Every Actor Has Doing Their Tax Return

January, a month of detoxing, curling up indoors wondering whether the sun will ever return and, if you're self-employed and disorganised, a time to cry over receipts and spreadsheets.  Yes, it's tax return month, and here are the various thoughts you'll probably have while doing it.

1.  It'd probably be better to just go to prison.

There will be a moment, usually when you're trying to hold a fraying receipt up to the light to work out whether that's an eight or a zero, that it'll dawn on you that if you went to prison then you wouldn't have to be doing his.

2.  Next year I'll put my log in details somewhere safe.

Seriously. Every. Bloody. Year.  'Oh, I know, I'll just write it on the back of this envelope that I'll definitely keep in the same place until next year.  I'll just put it on top of all the other envelopes that I've also written past log-in details on.'  Seriously, I've done this.  I'm an idiot.  After 10 years, I've now learnt to keep them in a draft email, on my phone and in the back of three different notebooks.  Next year I'm getting them tattooed on each limb.

3.  I will do this earlier next year.

You will think this. You will tell yourself that you will definitely get this sorted as soon as possible next year. Ohh, you'll show Moira, won't you? Come April, you'll smash that tax return, won't you? Of course you bloody won't. Come April you'll be embracing the possibility of sunshine and the possibility of maybe having a drink outside. The only thought you'll give that pesky tax return is whether those drinks are deductible after you drunkenly pledged that you'd show those directors what they've missed out on.

4.  Keep. Track. Of. Earnings. And. Spending. Throughout. The. Year.

I had this thought during my first tax return and it's one of the very few things I've stuck to. Seriously,  this helps. I have a boring file on my laptop with all my tax things tucked away and in there is a spreadsheet wishing I'd explore their full potential because all I do is put self-employed earnings in one tab, any PAYE earnings in the other and then my spends in the third. It's boring but it makes me feel super-organised. Plus it avoids the need to trawl through bank statements come tax return time, and anything that prevents me from seeing just how much money I spend in Itsu and Japanese Canteen in Holborn is something I'm all for. And on that note...

5.  Why do I spend so much money on...?

When you do find yourself working your way through your bank statements, cringing at any payment made between the hours of 2am and 5am, you'll start to see a pattern. Maybe it's daytime Ubers, maybe it's post-10pm KFCs or maybe, like for me, it's the alarming amount of £10+ payments made in Itsu (yes, I'm always there on my own. No, I don't think one Hip, Humble and Healthy is enough). Anyway, whatever it is, there will be something that just keeps cropping up. Maybe you hate yourself enough to tot all that money up and see just how much you're frittering away on overpriced miso and then think about what more meaningful things you could have spent that money on. I don't suggest doing this. Doing a tax return is awful enough without beating yourself up over a few unnecessary splurges in Whole Foods over a year ago. Did you enjoy that eye-wateringly expensive raw almond macaroons at the time? Great, then move on.

6.  Thank heavens I don't earn more.

This is the one time of year that I'm thankful for not earning enough to do nice things. Imagine having so many bloody acting jobs that you had to work out what you'd earned from all of them and then pay tax on it. Being a rester has its perks because even the HMRC self-assessment team don't care about how many days you've spent sat at home in your pyjamas eating Chipsticks.

7.  Why the heck don't they teach people how to do this at drama school/uni/anywhere?

When I was at drama school, tax returns were mentioned in very much the same way that Theatre in Education jobs were, they are inevitable but the less you know, the better. This is the sum of what we were told about tax returns at drama school...get an envelope for each month of the year and put all your receipts in the corresponding envelope. Now this is good advice but you do really need to let people know what to do next. I do worry about the class of '06, all found some 60 years later, dead amongst a sea of yellowing envelopes, each housing a desperate attempt to claim numerous Health and Happiness boxes, their poor families faced with a terrifying tax bill. Do I benefit from pre-owned assets?  Was I not domiciled in the UK and claiming the remittance basis? WHY THE HELL AM I BEING ASKED TO MAKE A PAYMENT ON ACCOUNT (this is the most terrifying thing in the world when it first happens)? Maybe drama schools are better now, maybe other drama schools are just better than the one I went to, but seriously, these things need to be taught. It's bad enough that you're churning out swathes of unemployable buffoons each year, don't make it worse by making them criminals too.

8.  Seriously, is prison that bad?

We've all watched Orange Is The New Black and thought that, overall, it actually looks okay. Obviously it's not but, come on, you might get to be friends with Taystee...

9.  Next year I'm going to pay someone to do this. 

I will never do this because I'm cheaper than value brand baked beans but there have been times when I've been on the phone to HMRC for 2 hours because I entered ONE BLOODY DIGIT WRONG on my log in too many times and it then locked me out where I've thought it would be preferable to have someone else pour over my pathetic earnings. Then I remember how many bowls of chicken tantanmen I could buy from The Japanese Canteen for the money I would spend on an accountant (yes, I know they can save you money in the long run) and I continue to patiently sit on hold and listen to The Boy Is Mine on the harpsichord for the nineteenth time.

10.  At least I only have to do this once a year.

Unless the introduction of quarterly tax returns happens and we have to go through this palaver EVERY THREE MONTHS. Time to start saving for that log-in tattoo. At least it would be tax deductible, right?

The Easiest Job In The World

"Wow. Being an actor must be really hard."

I hear this a lot. I think most people say it upon hearing that someone's an actor and I hope it's not just reserved for me when they look at my pitiful CV and can't think of anything else to say. I usually mumble something incoherently that demeans the hard work I've put in over the last 8 years to being a fully-fledged rester. They then think wistfully about their boring job and healthy bank balance and wander off to book another holiday while I'm left wondering if the free bar is still running.

But being an actor is hard. It's bloody hard in fact. What other job forces you, on a daily basis, to consider whether you're more suited to playing:

A cautious orange male hippo

or

Nude ghost

But, of course, all that hard work is worth it because when we do get work we're extremely well looked after. In fact, when looking at casting calls, I feel bit embarrassed about just how much we get in return for our work. The uneasy feeling of privilege sweeps across you when you realise you could be working with diamonds such as these:

Payment: Free food & entry to a raffle.

You'll preferably make a nice cup of coffee when we're all a little hungover at rehearsals.

No pay but the actor with the best outfit will win a prize.

It's not the levels of cheap alcohol we consume that leaves actors red-faced, it's the sheer embarrassment at just how well we're treated. And then there's all the people that we get to work with. When we're looking for work, we're constantly being reassured that being an actor is the safest job in the world:

We'd be delighted to take a clipping of your hair just for effect.

You'll be able to stay with the Director and DOP in his parent's house.

I'm seeking an impersonator who can act as my mum when me and my mum cannot meet up.

How can a job be difficult when we get to associate with such folk? And you can never complain about a career choice that lets you maintain constantly maintain such high levels of pride. Jobs such as these act as a wonderful reminder that we chose the right path:

Must be willing to have a condom full of condensed milk thrown at her face.

She is painted silver (nude), wears an elephant mask and is coated in gravy.

Please be prepared to muck in with the crew on the day as your role won't be significant. 

The director hopes to highlight George's distance from Jane by never having her in focus.

See? It's super easy. And you know what's even easier? Getting the job. In fact, it's madness that we're not working every single day of our jazz-hands filled lives:

Actress: You could prepare a monologue. Actors: You don't have to prepare anything.

To avoid time-wasting, the director's requested full-frontal nudity in the audition.

And when we're not working, it's so lovely to know that a filmmaker's main priority is bettering all the actors out there. Our well-being is at the forefront of their minds meaning that our reassurance levels are being constantly topped up:

We can pay for any cosmetic surgery she may require for the movie. 

I may require you to eat less that what you normally eat to perform well for the role.

But, of course, maybe I'm just being picky:

There's something unnerving about her. Maybe she's just read too many books.



All casting calls are taken from my Casting Call Woe Tumblr. A terrifying look at really horrible and horribly real casting calls.