Quiet At The Moment

“Have you got any acting work coming up?”

“No. It’s just really quiet at the moment.”

If you’re an actor and you’re not Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Martin Freeman or Sheridan Smith then, chances are, you have this conversation on an almost daily basis. If you’re like me then you’ve probably already seriously considered having the answer tattooed to your forehead to save time.

But is it really “quiet at the moment”? Generally, it’s always quiet. Throw a date an actor and within seconds they’ll be able to tell you why they’re not getting work at the moment…

January 12^th? People are still getting back to work after Christmas and the New Year.

March 8^th? People are trying to work out when Easter is this year.

July 22^nd? Everyone’s going on holiday now.

October 28^th? Working out Halloween costumes, innit.

As depressingly impressive party tricks go, this skill falls somewhere between playing the spoons badly and being able to name every Big Brother runner-up. But still, every actor needs to be able to show off something. 

As far as acting work is concerned, I’ve had a terrible couple of years. Some people complain of dry spells whereas mine is increasingly looking like it might easily develop into a dry decade. But can I blame it all on the industry or is it me that’s to blame?

So I thought I’d take a real hard look at what work is out there. I took one casting website (a website I pay £20 a month to use and be able to apply for paid work) and recorded the work that has gone up this week. Now, firstly, we need to take into account that some jobs are posted and taken down the same day. I can’t record those because, funnily enough, my call centre manager isn’t particularly sympathetic when it comes to a vague idea I’ve had about a blog. So today I checked all the roles that have been posted (excluding teaching jobs) since Monday 13^th October and the results are as follows:

Paid work:

Female roles: 86

Male roles: 104

Unpaid work:

Female roles: 137

Male roles: 183

Now, my point isn’t going to be about the difference between male and female roles available. I’ve written about it before, I’ll probably write about it again but, for today, you can think about that on your own. My point isn’t even about the amount of paid work versus unpaid work. Again, that’s for another day. No, my point is about the amount, or lack of, work available.

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that I’m ok with working for free and happy to apply for both paid and unpaid roles. On the face of it, 223 roles for me as an actress in the space of a week doesn’t seem so bad. That’s about 32 roles a day to contend with. Considering I'm also trying to deal with getting in 8 glasses of water, 5 pieces of fruit and veg and 10,000 steps a day, it's almost too much to cope with. But, of course, take into account the jobs that aren’t in London, the jobs that need a 17 year old blonde, the jobs that need you to be a fire-eating juggler who can do a headstand on stilts, and, like a ratatouille that contains 6 (SIX) different vegetables, you're whittling your number down a lot. So that then narrows it down to maybe 4 or 5 jobs a day, if you’re lucky. Well, that’s still alright, isn’t it?

Well, not if you take all those other pesky actors into account. Apparently there are around 38,000 actors signed up to this particular site. And with 510 recent roles up for grabs then, well, that’s only 37,490 actors going without this week. This means there are only roles for just over 1% of the actors on that site and only paid work for a measly 0.5% of us. Of course, actors are getting their work from other sources too and a percentage of that 38,000 will be already working or not using the site…but still…the worst case scenario hypothetical statistics are making me a little teary….

And if we presume there’s a 50:50 gender split, I can be potentially up against 18,999 actresses. That’s a lot of people. In fact, that’s 18,999 more than I’d like there to be. 19,000 is the population of a small town. That’s not what I want from a small town. From a small town I want a cracking bakery and an OAP called Val who can tell me all there is to know about the local bus route.

I know people who have put up acting jobs on this particular website who have gone on to receive in excess of 1,000 applications. And often they only have maybe 3 or 4 roles to offer. Even if you’re looking to fill a cast of 10, that means you’re potentially turning down 99% of those who applied to work with you. Those are a lot of sad faces and if there's anyone who can ham up a sad face, it's a sodding actor. 

And then, of course, there are the practicalities of applying for these roles so you’ve got at least got a chance of being within that lucky 1%. If you’re relying on these sites to get work then, chances are, you’ve got a day job to keep the wolves from the door and the milk in the fridge. And these jobs (often promo work, call centres, waiting/bar staff or teaching) often mean that there’s very little time to get onto these sites and actually find yourself the work you really want to be doing.

I currently work in a call centre which means applying for these jobs during the day can be tricky. I get roughly 30 seconds between each call which, by the time I’ve shaken off the joy of being told to piss off for the 78^th time that day, I don’t really have a chance to find a suitable job, write a killer cover letter, select the best headshot and submit my details. I try and do what I can on my lunch breaks but, again, by the time I’ve eaten, rested my eyes and ears and then put my soul back together, my time is limited. So I apply when I get home at 10pm, hoping that they decide to check their submissions starting with the most recent. 

So is it really quiet at the moment? Yes, it is. When you're applying for poorly paid jobs on a Friday night, the buzz of an 8 hour call centre shift still ringing in your ears, that's about as quiet as it can get. It’s quiet for me and other 99% who are all hoping that, soon, we’ll get our chance to be in the 1%. But until that time, it's probably best you just don't ask... 

Dreams vs Bills

A few weeks back I blogged about The Fear. The Fear generally creeps up on you, or sometimes runs at you at quite an alarming rate, and makes itself known when someone asks you:

“Oh, so you’re an actor? What work have you got coming up?”

And you have nothing. Not a job, not an interested agent, not even a ridiculous sounding casting call to attend. The Fear makes you feel physically sick when you realise what little work you've got coming up.

Yesterday, with a real need to stop paying bills with savings, I found myself attending an interview for a call centre job. Now I have nothing against call centre work, in fact it’s been a damn good friend to me during leaner times. And I certainly don’t wish to demean call centre work because despite how mind-numbing it is, in fact because of how mind-numbing it is, it’s some of the most challenging work out there. Constant rejection, miserable conditions and exceedingly low pay…I can’t possibly imagine why actors are drawn to such jobs…

So, yesterday I headed to a dingy little office and was interviewed to check that I was eligible to speak to people on a phone. After far too many questions that began with “Give me an example,” I was told that I needed to be aware that I was “up against some very strong competition” for the various vacancies they had available.  I then watched the interviewer hover their pen over the 5/5 mark they’d given for one of my responses, change it to a 4, change it to a 5 again and then frantically scribbled out the 5. 

For God’s sake. I once spent an hour on the phone helping Paul McCartney’s PA put an order through for Christmas labels.  I deserve better than this.

I was then reminded again that competition was exceedingly high and I realised I was basically being told that I wasn’t suitable to pick up a phone and harass people. This is news that should leave me frikkin’ delighted. If only my landlord saw it the same way.

I left being told that they’d let me know in a week whether I was deemed worthy to willingly put on a headset and call people at quite impressively inappropriate times (yes, I once managed to call for someone on the morning of their very own funeral.) So that’s some exciting news to look forward to this week.

I’m not sure whether this little tale says more about the current job market or my career prospects. Actors have always been near the bottom of the food chain but now people are being forced into taking second, third and even fourth jobs, we’re being pushed so far down that we’re now amongst the ants and plankton. And the problem with actors is that we need a job that allows us to juggle paying bills with chasing the kind of dreams that many would consider nightmares. It’s really no surprise that many end up having to abandon all their hard work just to keep their head above water. As romantic as hopes are, real life does sometimes have an incredible knack of getting in the way. And often the 'resting' jobs we get are so poorly paid that the amount of hours we need to do to stay solvent means acting is lucky if briefly passes us in the hallway once a week. 

Basically, what we’re seeing here is the rapidly increasing chance of me becoming a chugger. Place your bets now on how long it takes…  

The Fear

The Fear.

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

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

The Fear is currently trying to move into my house.

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

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

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

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

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

Been In Anything I Might've Seen?

“Oh, you’re an actor? Been in anything I might’ve seen?”

You know your career is in dire need of help when it reflects poorly on the person asking if they have. Like many actors, it would be highly unlikely that you’d have clapped eyes on my brief offerings to the actor gods (Dench & Hurt.) In fact, unless you're one of the following people...

• A lover of Theatre in Eduction

• The person behind the fact that all three adverts I’ve appeared in have never made it to air

• Have a knack for stumbling upon poorly advertised plays

• My mum

…then I’ll never have been in anything you might’ve seen.

Never ask this question. Firstly, it makes the actor question their own dubious career and what if we have been in something you might’ve seen? Was our performance so unmemorable that you need to ask us? Are you really going to put us in the position where we have to meekly remind you that we were once in Channel 5’s Family Affairs? Really? Is that how you get your kicks?

AND WHY ARE YOU PRESUMING THAT ALL ACTORS KNOW WHAT YOU WATCH? DO YOU THINK WE HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH OUR DAYS THAN PEER THROUGH YOUR CURTAINS AND KEEP TABS ON YOUR VIEWING HABITS?

Sorry. 

And you should really stop watching Come Dine With Me and, please, clean your net curtains.

Basically, all you’re asking with that question is “Have you ever been on telly?” And I dread that question. Because I haven’t. In 8 years as an actor, I’ve had one TV casting (Hollyoaks. I didn’t get it but I did get to see the Grange Hill building so, y’know, those 3 years at drama school definitely paid off.) I can’t tell people things that might impress them when they ask me about my career. Of course, we don’t do this job to impress others (well, we do) but it’s hard to feel upbeat about your job when you watch someone’s interest physically get up and leave as you tell them about the time you played a stag in front of 8 people. And of course, a TV career doesn’t mean that you’ve made it, but in party-chat currency, it’s pretty damn useful.

Brilliant things are being done to ensure that more actors get at least a slight chance to be seen outside the trusty comfort of friends and family. The Act for Change Project that's asking for greater diversity on our screens and the calls for the BBC to stop going to the same agents time and time again to cast their shows are working hard to open up the TV industry to those who aren’t white or privately educated.

But there’s still a huge gap which was proved today by two stories currently in the news: one listing the top 10 earning actors (Robert Downey Jr made about £44m last year) and the other about Sir Ian McKellen calling for actors to earn a living wage (£8.80 an hour which would allow actors to earn £18k should they be lucky enough to work full time.) Most actors currently find themselves earning way below a living or even a minimum wage and are more reliant on their temp agency than their acting one. 

The main argument is that there are just too many actors but it would be easier to tell how many we need to get rid of ask politely to try a new career if the acting work and wealth were spread out even just a little bit. If the actors we see in EVERYTHING (I'm not naming names but I'm looking at you, Cumberbatch) donated just one job a year to previously unknown actors then imagine that. A few more actors might be saved for that special wince that's reserved for CVs and bank accounts and they would no longer dread being spoken to at parties. 

So, next time you meet an actor and go to ask that question, think about what you’re really asking them and just offer to buy them a drink instead.

An Actor's Diary

"So, you been auditioning much lately?"

It's times like this that I wish I'd never mentioned to anyone that I was an actor. I mean, do accountants get asked "Dealt with any spreadsheets recently?" God, I hope they don't.

Of course, if I hadn't mentioned to anyone that I was an actor then my career would be in a pretty sorry state right now wh-oh, right. Yeah, I'd actually have been better off not telling anyone I was an actor so at least I could live my current life without being asked the above question time and time again.

The problem is, it's quiet at the moment. Heck. If I had a penny for every time I mumbled that it's just not that busy at the moment then I'd never need to worry about it being quiet ever again. But it is. We're currently in this seemingly endless season of short weeks where everyone gets the self-employed experience of not really knowing what day it is and finding themselves in their pyjamas on a Monday morning eating chocolate. The problem is though is that if you ask an actor, it's always "quiet at the moment..."

January - everyone's still drunk on Port and wondering just how much more cheese one person can physically eat to possibly think about putting anything on.

February - short month, innit? No one's got the time and everyone's worrying about Valentine's which is pretty bloody important. Far more important than an acting career.

March - yay! An audition. Followed by nothing while everyone tries to work out when the bloody hell Easter is.

April - April Fools! Haha! Oh, your mate is hilarious. Pretending to be the casting director for Game of Thrones and telling you they wanted you. You totally didn't fall for it. No way. You spend the rest of the month crying and miss out on any other possible work.

May - BANK HOLIDAYS! SUNSHINE! WHO CARES ABOUT CASTING WHEN YOU'VE GOT A BLOODY SOLERO?!

June - there's actually some work about now but you've spent so much time this year wondering how to make a meal out of three frozen peas and half a lemon that you've got yourself some paid office work. Sorry, dreams. Bills gotta get paid.

July - HOLIDAYS! Not you. Oh no. Them. You get to temp to cover those who can actually afford to go away.

August - you watch sadly as the rest of the world heads up to Edinburgh for a month of being stuck in a cycle of damp clothes and wanting to build a fort of the bazillion flyers in your bag just so you can get a moment's peace from all the other bloody actors up there.

September - Edinburgh comedown? Panto worries? Everyone wanging on about the fact that we haven't had a proper summer? Whatever it is, your diary is quieter than an actor being asked how to create a formula in Excel.

October - the nights are starting to really draw in now so, y'know, shorter days mean no one's got time to put things on. Right? RIGHT?!

November - remember, remember, no one gets work in November.

December - panto time! Unless you can rock polka dot tights with the rest of them then this season is not for you. Oh no. You just get to be asked by people why you're not doing panto. And then there's Christmas, of course. No one's making anything now. They're waiting for January when it'll all pick up again...oh...

Paying the Price

The first Monday back after the No Man’s Land of Christmas and New Year is an exciting time for actors. Pantos are grinding to a halt and Santa’s Grottos are shutting up for another year so it’s time to start thinking about finding some good ol’ acting work.

As 9am…Ok, 9:30am…fine, 10am…oh for heck’s sake, MIDDAY hits, we all sit in our clean pair of pyjamas, logging into the casting sites that we’ve given our hard-earned cash to, in the hope that we’ll find that one job that will mean 2014 is our year.

So you can imagine my dismay when, fired up with the expectation of getting work that will definitely put me in all the ‘Ones to Watch in 2015’ articles, I find that there’s an awful amount of unpaid jobs. And when I say awful, I mean ‘actors first role out of drama school’ awful. So awful in fact that, by the end of the day, just one casting site had listed a meagre 37 paid roles and a rather staggering 293 unpaid roles. And that was just the jobs that had been listed that day.

It’s a terrifying statistic. It means that for every 1 actor that can maybe breathe a little easier for a month, there are another 8 actors desperately panicking and hounding their temp agency for more work just so they can afford to live in the damp-ridden, mouse-invaded shack that they call ‘home.’

Since I’ve started blogging, I’ve been very passionate about making sure people see the other side of the industry. I want people to see the side that isn’t represented in Sunday supplements where actors are interviewed in quaint little cafes during a few snatched moments between that 5-star run at the National and that feature film that the director demanded that they were in. For most actors, this industry is that friend who only gets in touch after they’ve contacted everyone else they’ve ever met. At its best it’s fickle and at its worst you wish you’d never met it.

So to see such a staggering amount of unpaid work is a worry. It means that acting work is the work you do in between your other job when really you wish it could be the other way round. I’ve written so many blogs on unpaid work that to write about it again would be pointless. It’s the sad fact of this industry that sits in a musty box along with sexism, racism, ageism and people who think it’s OK to not provide lunch on a shoot.

There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to make a living from what you want to do with your life. And it’s something a lot of actors will be coming to terms with at the moment while they sit, filing their last minute tax returns and realising just how little they’ve earned from such a wonderful job. Last year I earned £510 from acting work. That’s not even a month’s rent.

So why do we still do it? Why do we insist on supporting an industry that really doesn’t seem that bothered about us? Well it’s that little skip it puts in our step when we know we nailed that audition. It’s that little dance we do around the room when we get the call to say we got the job and we realise there’s no one else in the house to celebrate with. It’s that glow you get when you’re walking home after opening night, cheeks flushed with pride and three too many glasses of wine. It’s knowing that even though you dread being asked what you do for a living, you’re pleased you don’t have to answer them with any other job in the world.

It’s being able to sit at home in your pyjamas at 11am on a Wednesday and calling it work.