Spinning Plates

During my day job a while ago, I was asked if this is what I did for a living. I was explaining that no, not technically, although it did take up most of my time.

'Oh, what else do you do?' 

I explained that, really, I was an actor. 

'Oh, so what acting work are you doing at the moment?' 

'Well, nothing at the moment.' 

I starting explaining that I'd recently done a couple of things, a couple of corporates, some role play, a voiceover job. 

'Have you got any acting work coming up.'

'Not right now but you never know.'

I suddenly realised that, to this stranger, I might as well have said that I was an astronaut. No, NASA don't know anything about me but I saw some stars recently and I'm pretty sure that I spotted the ISS flying past although it could have been a plane. 

I think there are two very distinct stages of being an actor, There are the times when you can very proudly declare, 'I am an ACTOR,' as someone luckily asks what you do for a living when you're in a whirl of auditions and acting work and emails asking for your availability. Then there are the times when you mumble, 'Well, technically I'm an actor,' as someone unfortunately asks what you do for a living when you're in a whirl of day jobs and commuting and emails asking if you fancy coming back to your old call centre job. 

When you're in your proud stage, it's glorious. THIS is what you expected at drama school, this flurry of spinning plates, you're doing it so expertly and you realise that this is what you're born to do. Then suddenly you remember that you have to eat off one of those spinning plates, then you see that one has a crack in it that needs mending and, oh, here comes someone else spinning the same plates as you but, hang on, where did they learn that Triple Platter Spin into Double Saucer Dive? It's then that you realise you're all spinning those same bloody plates from Ikea and you realise that you've been trying to keep them spinning for so long that you're not 100% sure what happens if you just stop.

Stopping is terrifying. Everyone thinks you're a plate spinner. You've dedicated your life to being a plate spinner. Your parents gave you money to go to plate spinning school. Everyone you went to school with knows you're a plate spinner. All the other plate spinners compare their plate spinning to yours and you know that if you stop spinning, everyone will assume that you're not very good at plate spinning anymore. 

The thing is, there are many reasons to stop spinning plates. It might be that want to try a new technique, or maybe you fancy a break so you can save up for some better plates or maybe, just maybe, your arms are just fucking tired. 

I made a decision a few years ago to not beat myself up over a lack of work. I worry sometimes that this attitude makes me a terrible actor, that I'm not committed enough to the cause. Social media can make you feel that if you're not living and breathing your acting career as well as making mnemonics to remember every casting director for every show in London right now then you're doing it wrong. The truth is, since I made this little pledge to myself, I've never been happier about my career. Sure, I'm not going up for the biggest acting roles but I also don't make myself feel like a worthless piece of crap every day either. 

I think I've realised that I like doing a little bit of everything. 

*rewind back to the spinning plates*

I'm a big fan of the picky tea. Or the bits plate. Or bits and pieces. Whatever you called it in your house, it's that tea that you'd have on a Sunday evening. A bit of cheese. Some crisps. Maybe a little sausage roll or pork pie. Some carrot batons. You might add some cherry tomatoes if you're not me. A gloriously crispy and tangy pickled onion. Nowadays it will also include some olives or artichoke hearts, some hummus and those bloody quinoa crisps that are too addictive for their own good. It's a beautiful fridge buffet that although looks like a mish-mash of leftovers, is actually a stunningly thought-out thing of all the things you enjoy. It's comforting and lovely and satisfying and, best of all, 

That's the plate that I want to keep spinning. Some acting work. Some writing work. My day job. Trawling casting call sites. Role play. Dedicated time to watch Drag Race. Thinking up excuses so I can blame a lack of acting work on National Sandwich Week or International Leaf Day. It's taken me eleven years to realise that this is how I like to do things. It might not make the most successful actor and it might not always give me the most exciting answers when someone asks if I've got any acting work coming up but, for me, there's less stress, I enjoy it and sometimes, just sometimes, there might be a pickled onion. 

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I've recently set up a Ko-fi page where the idea is that, if you like what someone does, you treat them to a virtual cup of coffee by donating them the money of what a coffee would be in a reasonably pricey cafe. I'm not a fan of coffee, I'm more of a tea person myself, and, to be honest, just people reading, sharing and commenting on what I do is payment enough but sometimes going through these casting calls requires much tea-based comfort so, you know, it's there if you fancy it... ko-fi.com/castingcallwoe 

Laying Bare

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this casting call..

Of course, I laughed. Everything about it is bloody funny, from the idea of being festooned by the occasional crab to being the Meryl Streep of stunt corpses. But, as this beautiful dead woman lies on our examination table and we investigate further, we quickly gain an insight into a huge issue on how women are portrayed.  Setting these hilarious little crabs aside, there is a huge problem with the casting of the Beautiful Naked Female Corpse.

Dead, naked women pop up regularly on casting websites. If they're lucky, they're not being shagged...

What these roles do is boil down to what is essentially wanted from a female character: attractive, naked and silent. Little thought has gone into the character. In fact, there's no character at all. Just a body to be gawped at, fleshy set dressing, a goose-pimpled prop. I'm starting to think that drama school is failing women in not teaching them how to get their kit off and learn how to keep as still as possible for as long as possible.

Reading these casting calls is utterly heartbreaking.  I'd find it easier if I didn't come across these so often but they are everywhere and it's reducing women to literally a piece of meat, a role that could be played by a mannequin. What's incredibly sad is that, often, the actress is cheaper than a mannequin. Pose this role as incredible experience, wonderful showreel material, some easy work, and save yourself a few pennies in the process.

I've never paid a dead, naked woman. I have, however, played a woman in a coma. I joked around at first, at how I was just getting to lie around all day in bed. The crew joked that I could have been horrendously hungover and it wouldn't have mattered. But then there's the horrible realisation that anyone could do this. There's no acting involved, nothing to draw on, nothing to feel proud about, you just lie back and think of what the heck you're doing with your life.

So why are there so many? Why, every time you watch a crime drama, is there a scene been played out as a woman lies there, nipples out, like a meaty coffee table? We have a woman, the victim, shown at her most vulnerable. She has no lines, no personality, she's just a thing to be referred to. Maybe, if she's lucky, there might be a flashback where we see how she dies, because if there's anything we like more than a dead woman, it's seeing that naked (obviously) woman being tortured...

But what angers me more than the nudity, the lifelessness, is that they're still, so often, required to be beautiful. Even in death, even after unspeakable murder, she must still remain magnificent. She is a woman, and even on the mortician's slab or dragged into a ditch, she must fulfil her duty as stunning set dressing.

Look at that last one. She's dead and yet she's still seductive, still beautiful, still a sex object. She's a piece of attractive meat that is there to be fucked. They mention that the actress needs strong acting skills, presumably ones that allow her to remain lifeless while she reminds herself that she deserves better than this. 

It was recently International Women's Day, a day that we clearly still need to have because this is how the world still sees women, as nothing more than a mannequin. My hope is that, by the next one, the Beautiful Naked Female Corpse will no longer be the role I see on a daily basis. We are not slabs of meat, we're not lifeless sex objects and, my god, we are not to be festooned with occasional dead crabs. 

I've recently set up a Ko-fi page where the idea is that, if you like what someone does, you treat them to a virtual cup of coffee by donating them the money of what a coffee would be in a reasonably pricey cafe. I'm not a fan of coffee, I'm more of a tea person myself, and, to be honest, just people reading, sharing and commenting on what I do is payment enough but sometimes going through these casting calls requires much tea-based comfort so, you know, it's there if you fancy it... ko-fi.com/castingcallwoe 

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?

Don't Believe The Skype

Technology is great. It means I can check the weather on my phone without having to even open the curtains, I can watch telly and not really take in what’s happening because I’m too busy tweeting about it on my laptop and I can judge the lifestyle choices of ex-schoolmates via Facebook while I sit around in my pyjamas on a Wednesday afternoon, wondering if I’ve already seen this episode of Escape To The Country.

Technology is bloody everywhere and, because actors are bloody everywhere too, it was only a matter of time before the two worlds collided. It’s hard to tell whether this has been a good thing or not. On one hand, I can now apply for acting roles that I’m never going to get at the click of a button but, on the other hand, I can’t check my phone without seeing I’ve been invited to like yet another actor’s Facebook fan page. NO I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE THREE AMAAAAAZZZZZIIIIIING AUDITIONS YOU’VE HAD TODAY #SOBLESSED #ACTORSLIFE

But the biggest impact the world of technology has had on casting (apart from, OBVIOUSLY, film, TV and the fact that we can now obviously be both seen and heard on screen too now like a particularly irritating Victorian child) is the introduction of Skype auditions. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s something very lovely about not having to leave the house to get work. Anything where this is an even slight possibility of wearing slippers while auditioning is top banana. But, ultimately, Skype auditions are a proper pain.

Imagine, if you will, that you were called up one morning and they told you that instead of coming into the office for your interview, the panel had decided to come to your house instead. One, on a reasonably slow day, that would probably make the national news and, two, your house will never look as grubby as when you realise someone who doesn’t live there is going to be seeing it for the first time.

Just like you’re never more than 6 feet away from a rat or 2 feet away from an out of work actor, you’re never more than a camera pan away from a laden clothes horse, much-neglected plant or patch of damp wall in our flat. So, time that should be spent preparing is instead spent finding the one camera angle that is well-lit, doesn’t include your pants drying in the background and stops the director being distracted by the mold visibly creeping along the wall behind you.

And then there’s making yourself the living embodiment of ‘all dressed up with nowhere to go.’ There’s something rather heart-breaking about spending the best part of an hour doing your hair and make-up and picking the perfect outfit to just make the 3 second trip for your bedroom to the living room. 

Then, of course, there’s praying to the Internet Gods that your flaky broadband holds out, roping in the elderly lady from across the road to read in the other part and hoping the daily Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t come by in the next 7 minutes.

But all this is nothing compared to what you actually have to do...

That is a genuine list of requirements that I’ve seen for a Skype interview. Now, I know actors can be worse than piles when it comes to being pains in the arse but an actor has had to have done something seriously awful to you to make them go through that. And actors will have put themselves through it. Actors will have shamelessly paraded around their living room, finally putting their copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare to good use by precariously balancing it on their heads while they wonder if they're now meant to show their best moves while it's still teetering up there.

Now, thankfully, I didn’t do this particular audition but I did put myself through something vaguely similar. I received an email last year asking if I’d do a self-tape to apply for a role in a music video. They wanted it done by the end of the day. Fine. I wasn’t doing much else that day and, thankfully, my boyfriend was on hand to film it for me. I opened up the instructions. They wanted me to be dressed in smart business attire, put money into a vending machine and pull out a branch. This was already too much effort for someone who had been holding a wee in for the last 30 minutes because they couldn't be bothered to get up. I read on. They then wanted me to move to a photocopier, switch it on and be amazed at all the weird photos coming out of it. And they wanted all of that in one 30 second video. If it went over, they said that they'd refuse to watch it. Oh for crying out loud…

I refused to actually find somewhere with a vending machine and photocopier to film the damn thing and was determined to do it all at home. The next two hours were then spent with me putting together an outfit that looked vaguely like what I’ve seen people on TV wear in offices and rearranging our study to basically hide everything in it. The photocopier was to be played by our knackered old printer. The vending machine - a wardrobe full of sheets and pillows. This was about as convincing as an actor saying they know the different between stage left and stage right without having to think about it first.

I already knew this wasn’t going to work.

First take – 30 seconds has gone by and I’ve only just established that I’m a bored office worker trying to get a drink out of my wardrobe vending machine.

Second take – I realise the ridiculousness of pretending to put a coin in a wardrobe.

Third take – I manage to get to the point where I quizzically look at the branch (played admirably by Thin Air) and then 30 seconds is up.

Fourth take – frustrated by this point, I race through it at such an angry speed that I’ve done the whole thing in 18 seconds.

Fifth take – like my last day of woodwork class in Year 9, I'm as close to nailing it as I'll ever be. The whole scene comes in at 31 seconds. I’ve already decided the email I'll be sending to Watchdog if they dare complain.

Then it’s back into pyjamas (I leave the make up on because I never do it this nicely and damn me if I’m wasting the time and effort spent on not looking like a clown) to then faff around with WeTransfer for the rest of my life. 4 hours. 4 bloody hours the whole debacle took.

I didn't get it.

NAKED SEXY BOOBS

Recently Telegraph Women did a piece on the phrases that are only ever used to describe women. Words like ‘feisty’, ‘bitchy’, and, my personal worst, ‘sassy.’ Now, because everything in my head eventually ends up at what flavour crisps to have today or casting calls, I thought I’d take a look at how women are often described in the world of acting. The list in the Telegraph piece are all too regular when it comes to describing female characters but, of course, the world of acting can’t help but go that bit further…

EYE CANDY

I always hoped I’d see this awful phrase just once but, sadly not. This soul-bustingly terrible term comes up all too often and, most of the time, it’s used to describe women. Not only is it hugely derogatory towards women for reasons that should be hugely obvious (if not, this blog probably isn’t for you) but it’s also impressively insulting towards men too. The idea that men can only watch something that contains beautiful women is about as ridiculous as getting an actor to get your tax affairs in order.

DEAD

Many drama schools claim to get their gorgeous little actor fledglings ready for the realities for the acting industry. If that was true then the men would be sent off to learn a new, interesting character everyday while the women would spend 3 years being taught how to remain still while a prosthetic wound uncomfortably dries on their face and a pathologist pokes their boobs. One year I'd like to keep count of the amount of times a dead naked woman is wheeled out on a slab in films or on TV but I fear I'd run out of numbers around mid-March. 

NAKED

Find a casting call containing a woman and it generally won’t be long before the subject of nudity is brought up. If you haven’t got a woman getting her bits out in your film then, quite simply, you don’t have a film. FACT.

SEXY

This is an interesting one. And it's totally fine to explain how your characters look but if you find yourself looking for a sexy woman and an 'interesting' or 'confident' man then you need to take a serious look at what you're making. Describing a woman purely on her looks does not a female character make. 

CALL GIRL

  

Or prostitute. Or stripper. Or lapdancer.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with these professions or including them in your work. However, if you do have these roles in your film or on your stage then please write them to be more than just a pair of tits.

SLUT

Just don’t. Same goes for slapper. Thanks.

BOOBS

Much like nudity, boobs are often what are included in a script in place of a well-written female character. And who can blame ‘em because, really, what’s a women apart from a cracking pair of baps? Yep, that’s right. EVERYTHING.

BEAUTIFUL BUT SMART

This, along with ‘surprisingly beautiful geek’ and ‘actually pretty with no make-up’, comes up a lot. Let’s get this straight; being smart and beautiful doesn’t automatically make a woman some kind of witch. You don’t need to mention it. If you've written a smart and beautiful female character then congratulations, you've just written yourself a woman. 

So there we go. There's just a few that make my forehead meet my desk, wall and floor. Please, let's save the hard surfaces of the world and stop using these terms ALL THE BLOODY TIME. 

A woman is not just a pair of boobs or naked set dressing for your film. We're capable of heading up a storyline while keeping our clothes on. I promise. 

Casting Call Terminology Explained...

Nudity required – you’ll be getting your boobs out.

Partial nudity required – you’ll be getting one boob out.

No nudity required – you’ll be getting your boobs out, we’re just not sure at what point yet.

We're making a film - you'll be getting your boobs out.

We need an actress - you'll be getting your boobs out.

Artistic – you’ll be getting your boobs out but we’ll film you in black and white.

Experimental – you’ll be getting your boobs out but you’ll get to wear a mask.

Brave actors required – you’ll be getting your boobs out in front of our crew which is made up entirely of our mates.

Please note, this is a student production – you’ll be getting your boobs out in front of people who may not have seen boobs before.

Historical – you’ll be getting your boobs out but it’s fine because that’s what they used to do in the olden days.

Futuristic – you’ll be getting your boobs out because regardless of what happens in the future, films will always need naked women.

Film noir - you'll be getting your boobs out but it's fine because it's classy and that makes everything ok. 

Documentary – you’ll be getting your boobs out but it’s fine because that’s what happened. Honest.

Mockumentary – you’ll be getting your boobs out because we reckon doing a mockumentary on the porn industry is well edgy.

Shakespeare – you’ll be getting your boobs out because we reckon setting Hamlet in a brothel is well edgy.

Indie - you'll be getting your boobs out because everything has to be well edgy.

Pantomime – you’ll be getting your boobs out because ALI BOOBIE AND THE NAUGHTY THIEVES.

Horror – you’ll be getting your boobs out just so you can die horrifically.

Sci-fi – you’ll be getting your boobs out and LASERS.

Comedy – you’ll be getting your boobs out because you’re the only woman in this and rules are rules.

Children’s theatre – you’ll be getting your boobs because, er, solidarity with the breastfeeding mums? Yeah. That’ll do.

We're casting Game of Thrones - you'll be getting your boobs out with dragons.

We're casting a new HBO show - you'll be getting your boobs out but at least loads of people will see them when they illegally download the show.

We're casting a new BBC show - you'll be getting your boobs out but no one will really care because Benedict Cumberbatch is in the next scene. 

This is a low budget film – you’ll be getting your boobs out and are expected to be grateful for the Zones 1 & 2 travelcard and a bag of Wotsits.

We’ll be taking this show to Edinburgh – you’ll be getting your boobs out which will be a nice memory when you’re in bed recovering from pneumonia.

We’ve already had interest in this film – you’ll be getting your boobs out so that we can keep them interested.

You must have trained at an accredited drama school - you'll be getting your boobs out because these are no university mammaries, they're RADA mammaries.

We'll be entering this into film festivals - you'll be getting your boobs out because, hey, they kept up their side of the bargain, so...

No pay but many members of our crew have won awards – you’ll be getting your boobs out because BE GRATEFUL THAT YOU’RE GETTING TO SHOW YOUR NIPS TO A BOOM OPERATOR WHO GOT THEIR DofE BRONZE.

No pay but this will look great on your CV – you’ll be getting your boobs out because every actress deserves to have ‘Naked Girl’ on their Spotlight page at least once.

No pay but this will great on your showreel - you'll be getting your boobs out because who doesn't want a constant reminder of the time they got naked in a stranger's flat?

No pay but we will feed you - you'll be getting your boobs out because we bought you pizza, goddamnit.

No pay and we won't be covering expenses - you'll be getting your boobs out because OH PLEASE JUST GET YOUR BOOBS OUT. Game of Thrones gets boobs all the time. Now we want them. BOOBS.