Have you thought about...?

As actors, we're all used to hearing a few very familiar phrases. So, with a little help from Orange Is The New Black, here's a handful of them... (Warning: this may contain spoilers. Seriously though, you should've watched it all by now.)


"So when are we going to see you in EastEnders?"

"I can't pay you, but..."

"Been in anything I might've seen?"

"Have you tried writing to Downton Abbey?"

"I have a friend who's an actor."

"Why don't you get yourself a better agent?"

"Is your agent like the one in Friends/Extras?"

"So what sort of acting do you do?"

"Have you thought about doing acting as a hobby instead?"

"So when are you going to get yourself a proper job?"

I Got 5 On It

When it comes to auditions, I’m the Queen of Screwing Up. I’ve fluffed more lines than a hungover actor on opening night. I’ve managed to nearly take out a casting director by over-zealously sitting on an office chair. I’ve managed to misinterpret instructions to the point that I’ve ended up putting everything in the room into a massive pile. I’ve turned up to a 3 hour movement workshop in the tightest jeans known to man. I’ve had an eye infection for a casting for an advert where only my eyes would be visible.  But this week’s faux pas might just be the worst…

It was a recall for an advert. I’ll be honest, I’d bloody love it. I remember when we were at drama school, it was the done thing to say that you’d never do a commercial. Everyone considered themselves above such things. Yep, we’re all above earning a few thousand quid for a day’s work. How I long to go back to a time when we all thought we were superior to bill payers.

So, yes. I kinda wanted this. I’ve booked a holiday and it’d be really nice to be able to afford to sleep in something other than a tent made out of my silly idea that I can actually afford to leave the country.

I’m currently on a pencil. For those of you who have jobs that don’t involve moping around hoping someone will cast you to play a tree, a pencil is the pain in every actor’s life. Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you’ll be a heavy pencil. A heavy pencil is really only something interesting to actors, stationery shop owners and staff at The Pencil Museum. I was told to pencil a total of 6 different dates, one of which was in the past. I really hope that’s the first test for when they’re casting the new Doctor Who… But anyway, I jumped through a number of hoops until I found myself in the ridiculous position of being pencilled for a recall that might not be happening. It’s this kind of precarious shit they should be teaching in drama schools, not how to be a bloody llama.

Finally, my recall was confirmed. Hooray.

It was going to be in arse-end of London. Boo.

I turned up to the venue and it was at one of the numerous audition venues in London which is a myriad of identical rooms that are attached to identical corridors. I was vaguely pointed in the right direction and was then left to my own devices. I’d been given the name of the room and had been directed to a corridor with three rooms, none of which were labelled. Which one to go with…

Room one contained 8 dancing men.

Room two contained about 20 ballerinas.

Room three contained 2 men breakdancing while wearing roller skates.

Oh, right. I’m not at a recall at all. I’m at my own worst nightmare where I must face up to my total inadequacies as a performer. Good-o.

I fannyed around, wondering where on earth I was meant to be. A head then poked from out of the Starlight Express meets Flashdance room.

“Are you here for the recall?”

Oh god. Why has a room where there is roller skating happening got anything to do with me?

“Don’t worry we’re sharing the room.”

With relief, I start waffling on. I make some bad jokes. I keep talking. I then find out that I’ve managed to bleat on over the skaters’ recording.

I’M A PROFESSIONAL! HIRE ME!

Once they’ve done whizzing around and making me feel like heffalump, it’s my turn, thankfully sans skates. I do my bit to camera. All good. Feeling optimistic.

I have a chat to the casting director, who’s lovely, she puts her hand up and, in my relief at not having to skate, on finding out that the casting director is nice, in getting through an audition without nearly killing someone, I high-five her.

I then hand over the script and go on my merry way.

I feel confident. Heck, I might just get this job.

I’m stood on the train platform feeling pretty bloody good about myse-

OH NO.

She didn’t want a high-five. She put out her hand to take the script back off me.

OH GOD.

I’m now that person. So bloody cocky that I high-five casting directors after an audition. I might as well have waited for the other actors to arrive, cocked my leg and marked my territory around the whole production.

So that’s another casting down the drain. Surely that’s worth a high-five?

All We Want

Actor. Actress. It does not matter. Whatever you want to call us. Thespian. Performer. Pain in the arse. Finder of free bars. Populator of call centres and front of houses. Pyjama wearer. Rester. You name it, we probably answer to it. In fact, that’s our job. To answer to your latest whim. You create the character, and we become it.

We’ll play heroes, villains, innocent bystanders who get caught in the crossfire. We play mothers, fathers, children and, heck, we’ll even play their pets if we’re desperate enough. We’ll play people who once existed and we’ll play imaginary beings who could never live. Whatever you ask of us, we’ll often do with very little question. You never know, if you’re lucky, we might not even ask if you’ll pay us.

But what we do ask, is that you allow us to be equal. Regardless of our gender, our race, our sexual orientation, our age and our ability, we just ask that you keep us equal. Please, kill your stereotypes. Women do not need to fulfil a teenage boy’s fantasy that, because it has remained unfulfilled into middle-aged manhood, has to be created on screen. Regardless of what you may think, we can wear clothes and we can speak and we can be older than 22.

That part you’ve just written. Does it need to be a white, able-bodied straight man? Does it really? Go outside for a few minutes. Yes, of course, those men are out there. But, thank Christ, there are a whole lot of other people out there too. People who deserve to be represented. People who watch things and want to see people like them on screen. People who don’t identify with men who went to Eton.  

We all want to play everything. Let us be your lead role. Give us a character that extends beyond our breasts. Allow us the chance to be remembered for something other than looking great in a bikini. We’re not here to eradicate men from the picture. The rest of us just want the same opportunities. The same chances to match the fact that we’re all doing the same job.

We’re not all the same. We’re gloriously different. Each one of us brings wonderfully different things along with us. We just want the chance to show the world what we can do.

We’ve been expected to play bit-part tokens for too long.

Equality.

That’s all.

That’s fair.

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.

The 10 Commandments for Being a Bloody Decent Actor

1. Thou shalt not snap when someone asks whether you’ve been in EastEnders. They're just not sure what else to ask someone who has decided to be a tree professionally. 

2. Thou shall always remember to smile appropriately when another actor gets work. Too little and you look bitter, too much and you risk jaw dislocation.

3. Thou shalt not tweet or create Facebook updates about how much acting work you have on at the moment. Just do your job and tell us when you’re nominated for a BAFTA. 

4. Thou shall remember that leotards are for indoor use only.

5.  Thou shalt not compare you career to anyone else’s, however tempting it may be. One actor’s TiE is another actor’s Hollywood.

6. Thou shall always treat crew with respect. If in doubt, imagine your mother is always watching you.

7. Thou shalt not feel bad about, occasionally, having a duvet day. Spending a whole Wednesday in your pyjamas watching RuPaul’s Drag Race is what makes being self-employed bearable.

8. Thou shall leave your tax return until the very last minute. Completing it any earlier is just disrespectful to your fellow self-employed friends.

9. Thou shalt not talk above speaking volume in casting waiting rooms. You’re impressing no one.

10. Thou shall remember that you do the best bloody job in the world. Enjoy it, keep that skip in your step and remember that for every awful audition, your best-selling autobiography gains another chapter.

Drama Fool

It's a rare thing for a drama school graduate to not mention within the first 5 minutes of talking to them that, given the amount of places available for the number of applicants, it's twice as difficult to get into drama school than it is Oxbridge. It's a statistic you probably couldn't care less about and, to be fair, most actors aren't too bothered either but heck, it at least validates our lack of interest in GCSE Physics.

Step One...

But the application process for drama school is a tedious one. Given the level of competition, people probably think that landing a place is the first major hurdle but it's not. Hurdle one is finding the money to apply. Each drama school charges between £30-50 as a non-refundable fee just for the privilege of going (I'm sure some people are readying themselves to tell me that, 1) not all drama schools charge and, 2) it's to cover costs. Thanks.) And then there's the money to get to these places. Because the world revolves around London and it's important that you train within sniffing distance of a branch of Balans, most drama schools sit uneasily within our fair capital city. And unless you're one of those odd children who grew up near a tube station then, chances are, you're going to have to pay to get here.

Step Two...

So, you've scraped your pennies together by whatever way possible (I had a part-time job in a shop that sold lava lamps and dodgy piercings and I also stage-managed a production of Summer Holiday made up of a cast of 45 4-15 year olds...never again...) and you're off to London! Or Birmingham! Or Manchester! Or, heaven forbid, Exeter (sorry, Cygnets.) Well, no. Not yet. You need your monologues first. For most people, you make sure you've got your keys and your phone with you before leaving the house. But for actors, you must never walk out without your Shakespeare and your modern. NEVER. You never know when you might bump into Rufus Norris on the tube and everyone loves a bit of Bouncers on the District Line...

So you've first got to find yourself a couple of speeches. That's easy, right? Shakespeare is full of the bloody things and the fact that everyone's writing a play these days, speeches should be easier to come by than Pret. Wrong. Firstly, there's a list of speeches you should never do. I would list them here but basically they're basically anything a female says within any Shakespeare play.

"They're so overdone," people will say at you which is supposed to put you off doing them. That theory didn't stop Wet Wet Wet covering Yesterday so it shouldn't stop you.

This period of your life will be mainly summed up by you guarding the Drama section in Waterstones are you flick furiously through every play trying to find a speech that's suitable for someone with no life experience and wants to go to drama school. I spent most of that time wishing I was a middle-aged man.

Step Three...

Once you've sent off your application forms and fees, you should start racking up some auditions. Now, the auditions tend to fall into two categories:

The In-Out

Though delightful in some respects, these can be bloody difficult. One of my drama school auditions (no, I won't name the school) was an In-Out audition at its very finest. I arrived and due to the person before me not having turned up, I was instantly ushered into a dark theatre. I'd been travelling for nearly 3 hours, I'd had difficulty finding the school (this was in an age when you were considered fancy if your mobile had a colour screen) and I needed a wee. But there I was, straight onto a pitch black stage and unable to even see the faces of the audition panel. I offered out a "hello" not even sure if there was any out out there to receive it.

"Your first speech, please," a deep voice ordered.

I do my Shakespeare. The urgency of the wee making me trip over iambic pentameters.

"Go slower," I hear, just as I hit the final note of my speech, desperately trying to look like I'm still in the moment and not wondering whether I should stick to wine or spirits at my friend's birthday drinks that night.

I launch into it again, this time probably going slower than is entirely necessary and convincing myself that there really isn't a panel there at all but, instead, a tape on loop.

I'm then shoved through my modern speech by the faceless dictator and then, within 10 minutes of arriving, I'm leaving. £30 audition fee. £20 travel. £50 to not even be able to physically make eye contact with someone. Thank you very much.

But, of course, the opposite can be just as worse. It's quite something, while auditioning for a precious place with your dreams and career prospects hang on this one moment, to look up and see the panel actually wince by the time you hit the second note of your song. I defy anyone to stay in tune while it looks like your prospective head of year is struggling to keep their breakfast down.

The Passive Aggressive...

And then, of course, there is the group audition. I've written before in great detail on my dislike of group auditions: having to take hours out of your day to feign interest in a whole load of other actors where you have to try and look supportive while all trying to outdo each other. The greatest challenge as an actor is to try and assist your fellow actors in tedious drama games when really you want them to be as skilful as a drunk descending a flight of stairs.

There's a particular look an actor takes on when trying to look supportive and open to the increasingly ridiculous games being thrust upon them. Mine seems to manifest itself as a immovable look of wide-eyed wonderment. I'll know I've done it because my eyeballs start to ache on the tube journey home.

In the midst of games, improvisation exercises, singing in the bloody round and movement workshops where you have to pretend to have no inhibitions whatsoever, you'll blurt out your speech at some point. If you're lucky then you'll get to do it for just the panel. However, get unlucky and you'll find yourself doing your speeches in front of all the auditionees. Land yourself in this situation and your supportive face will go into overdrive while you listen to countless versions of Lady M and perfect the art of stifling yawns and stomach rumbles.

Step Four...

You've forked out your precious earnings, you've forced emotions upon more speeches than a politician and you've played so many games of Zip Zap Boing that you've developed tennis elbow. You've terrified yourself at just how many people you've met and how few places there are and you've wished you wanted to do something else with your life.

So you wait. And then you panic. Panic about what happens if you don't get in anywhere and panic if you do get in somewhere and then you're signed up for this. A life of Stuck In The Mud and supportive faces and being winced at.

Whatever the outcome is, you've just learnt your first few lessons in what a ridiculous, brilliant, soul-crushingly wonderful but awful profession you're trying to get into. Welcome.

A Stand

Unpaid but this plumbing job will look fantastic on your CV.

We would not stand for this.

I can't even provide expenses but this bus route does pick up some really influential people.

We would not stand for this.

We have decided, to appeal to a wider audience, to 'skimplify' the uniforms of our female staff.

We would not stand for this.

Male office workers are expected to wear a full suit. Female office workers are expected to wear a bikini.

We would not stand for this.

I can't afford to pay you but I will film you teaching and you can keep the footage.

We would not stand for this.

We are hiring women in this hospital as we need some eye candy for the men.

We would not stand for this.

Of course, we understand just how difficult it is being a doctor. No pay.

We would not stand for this.

Due to budget constraints, we won't be paying MPs.

They would not stand for this. 

You must be more than a 7 out of 10 on the beautiful scale to join our HR team.

We would not stand for this.

You must be thin to represent our accounts team.

We would not stand for this.

All females applying to join our firm must be attractive. All males must speak Spanish.

We would not stand for this.

I can't pay you but this call centre does have a fantastic vending machine.

We would not stand for this.

To avoid time wasting, the manager has requested full frontal nudity in the interview.

We would not stand for this.

The company prefers nurses who will work for food.

We would not stand for this.

We may require you to eat less to perform well as a train driver.

We would not stand for this.

As the majority of our audience are male, all female prison officers will be wearing minimal clothing.

We would not stand for this.

Despite a turnover last year of £12 million, we will not be paying our retail staff.

We would not stand for this.

So why, as actors, are we expected to? All of these examples are modified examples of genuine casting calls I've seen. And if you're a musician or a writer or a comedian or a crew member then chances are you're expected to put up with similar too.

There's a difference between collaboration and exploitation and some employers are deviously blurring the boundaries to make sure we do as much as possible for their gain and our loss.

Enough is enough. This industry will never change if we don't start to make a stand. If you see an exploitative casting call then tell the site or tell Equity or, if you're really at a loss, then tell me. If we call out the bullshit then maybe, just maybe, it might start to go away.

Something Changed

Firstly, if you haven’t already done so, read this…

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/09/a-letter-from-scared-actress.html

Pretty shocking, huh? The thought of being involved in a project only to find out that not only have they completely changed what you say but that they’ve also turned it into an anti-Islam film is not a good one. And it got me thinking. Of course, it’s pretty rare to find yourself in such a situation but it did make me realise just how much control we give up.

Now, before we start, I’m happy to say that I’ve never been involved in a film that has ended with me having anti-Islam propaganda dubbed over my ramblings. Far from it. In fact, I’ve only been dubbed once and that was because I’d wildly exaggerated my music playing abilities and the director wasn’t impressed with my quivering version of Three Blind Mice. However, once you’ve finished prancing around in front of the camera, you hand over control to the powers that be and your screen fate is in their twitchy hands. During filming you’ve had wonderful ideas in your head of how the final product will look. In your rose-tinted brain, you’re wonderfully lit and every shot is beautifully framed and captures your every thought and word perfectly. 

But we know that this isn’t the case. What usually happens is that during your main scene, the light was just a bit off or someone failed to spot that the Red Arrows were performing 12 flypasts and your moment to shine instead turns into showcasing you as a disembodied voice. What was once gorgeous showreel material is now far better suited to going on your voicereel . You should be on screen in full cinematic glory but instead you’re reduced to embarrassingly pointing out your arm coming into shot  and trying to work out whether that’s your ear on screen. 

However, what’s even worse is when the damn thing doesn’t see the light of day ever again. The first two commercials I was involved disappeared off the face of the earth, both clearly too awful to even be shown at 1am on Food Network. While neither advert demanded a great deal of my acting talents, I was still excited about being involved in something that might actually make it on to TV. Everyone I’d ever met was on high-alert looking out for it but, after a few months, it’s safe to say that their interest waned. Then, one evening, I saw an advert for one of the products. I shifted to the edge of my sofa and scrutinised the screen hoping to catch a glimpse of myself. Nothing. My mum rang. I just saw the advert on TV. You weren’t in it. I explained that it wasn’t the advert I’d shot and that none of the other people I was filming with were in it either. I convinced myself that it was still to come and held a vigil by my TV for months waiting for it. Finally, after a year, I had to face up to the realisation that it just wasn’t going to be seen by anyone.

But to see it and find that it’s been changed to something entirely different?  I count myself very lucky indeed.