Miracles

Yesterday afternoon I found that just very occassionally, miracles can happen. Despite my apparently desperate attempts to sabotage my entire acting career, as described in Monday's entry Surprises, I only went and bloody landed myself one of the parts. It was one of those calls where the director spent a good few minutes telling me how much they enjoyed my audition and how impressed they were but I was still convinced that it would end with the dreaded 'unfortunately we just don't think you were right for any of the roles available at this time but we'll definitely keep you in mind for future roles.' But don't worry, the world won't be subjected to my highly skilled, rapping ways. Nor will it be forced to watch the part that was probably closest to my casting. Oh no. Instead anyone with internet access will worryingly be just a few clicks away from seeing me pretending to be a 16 year old Irish girl who lives on a London estate. Bin your router and get closing your internet accounts now. Soon the world wide web will be a far scarier place.

Shooting starts next week and I've just spent the last half an hour getting massively excited about the script. I get to brandish weapons, run away from monsters and strangle someone. It's one of those scripts that properly reminds me how lucky I am to do this job. Of course, the role doesn't pay but how many people get to spend their weekdays racing around a housing estate attacking monsters? Loads? Oh. Well how many people get to do it while doing a hack Irish accent?

But the miracle of getting the job doesn't stop there. Oh no. So, faced with the prospect of making sure that I'm tone perfect with this non-Welsh accent, I'd normally have to spend hours couped up in my room desperately mimicking poorly made YouTube clips. But not this time. Because Mr Miracle has decided that this week he wants me for a sunbeam, I only happen to be going to bloody Ireland this weekend. This means that I can annoy everyone I speak to by constantly whispering back everything they say in an accent that probably sounds like it's been backpacking round the world twice. If you live in Ireland then it's probably best to use this weekend as the perfect excuse to go on that holiday that you've always talked about. You have been warned.

I've got a week to get this accent nailed. If you hear a muttered dodgy Dublin accent next to you when you're on the tube or ghastly Galway mutterings drift your way while you're stood at the bus stop then I can almost guarantee that you finally discover who the mysterious Miss L is. If anyone has any tips, or even better, how to get Mr Miracle to stick around until the film has wrapped, then please let me know.

So Close

Today the 'So Close Bug' has swarmed into town. Every job I see today, on first glance, appears to be perfect. The role sounds like something I could do and they actually involve getting paid. Imagine that? A role that you could play and they'll give you a few pennies for being so god damn perfect for the part too? With each casting call, my heart has skipped several beats as I read down what the role entails. I start forming my perfect cover letter, content in the knowledge that the part is mine. That's until I read the final requirement. And damn, you can always bet on that final requirement being the one thing you can't overcome.

So far today I've got excited about roles that finally reveal that they require you to be black, 5'9" and blonde, have access to your own small child and be an astronaut. Even with the best will in the world, these are insurmountable requirements. Even if I didn't sleep for a week and did everything possible to work on these, there is no way that I can change race, grow an extra 5 inches, give birth to a small person or train to fly to the moon. Although frustrating, there is something quite nice about the 'so close and yet so far' casting calls. There is absolutely nothing that I can do about it. I can't feel guilty about the lack of time I'm putting into making myself a more versatile actor because these are aspects about myself that I can never change.

It's the qualities that you probably could have that are the annoying ones. The fact that I can't speak fluent Arabic is totally unforgivable on my part and means that I've lost out on quite a few roles because of it. If I'd bothered to keep up my flute and oboe classes at school then those casting calls that require the actor to play a portable instrument would be accessible to me. If I'd saved up my money for singing lessons rather than spending it on countless trips to London Zoo so that I could gawp at penguins for hours on end then I wouldn't have to shirk away from pleas for actors who can sing. These are the things that I beat myself up over and make me realise that there's always more that I could be doing. I've bought language tapes, various instruments and various sets of juggling balls but all get used for a couple of days until my annoyance at not being able to master means that they are consigned to a life under a thick layer of dust, fluff and receipts.

But it's not unknown for me to try and gain these skills in time for an audition. A few years back I was asked to audition for a very good play with a very good theatre company. They asked me to prepare a five minute story telling piece, to be prepared to show them a skill that they could possibly use within the performance and also a bellydancing a routine. Sorry, a what?! Why would they ask me to do that? Why would they be so cruel as to just throw that in? I checked back over the casting call and stupid Miss L had missed that one of the requirements was that the actor be proficient at belly dancing. Oh god. But instead of holding my hands up and saying that I'd messed up, I decided to use the week that I had to try and learn. This would be the perfect opportunity to finally add a new and interesting gift to my very sparse looking 'other skills' section on my CV. I bought a couple of belly dancing DVDs and then spent nearly every waking hour desperately trying to teach myself how to undulate my stomach without looking like I was midway through a seizure.

The day of the audition came along all too quickly and I was terrified. I was totally unprepared and had somehow convinced myself that I'd be able to wing this one. I had a piece of bellydancing-esqe music downloaded which I'd managed to listen to a couple of times and apart from a couple of moves, I had pretty much no idea what I was going to do. I went in an aced the storytelling part and then played the piano for a bit which all seemed to go down well. They then said that they were ever so sorry but unfortunately, because they were overrunning, there would be no time to watch me shimmy and shake in their faces. I was more relieved than a relief worker relieving herself on a sculptural relief while watching Comic Relief.

Thankfully I never heard from them again so my bellydancing days were shortlived. I may not be able to juggle and I'll never be able to play the lute but 'not being caught out' should almost definitely take pride of place on my CV.

Surprises

Sometimes I wonder if this blog is trying to write itself. I really thought that after a few weeks, I'd start to struggle with what to write about. Not all my auditions could contain ridiculous amounts of hilarity. Surely some auditions would crop up which were completely normal. I wouldn't fall over, be asked to take part in some far-fetched improvisation and then stumble over lines like the expertly placed trip wires that they are. But of course I was wrong. Somehow, every audition throws up some scenario that has me leaving what the hell I'm doing with my life and then how quickly I can get home so that I can blog about it. I'm pretty sure that I'm now looking at castings for the blogging propects rather than how it can help further my career. I worry that telling you all about my pitiful tales of somehow trying to earn a living is becoming a lot more important than actually earning that said living. Oh well, here comes another....

Today's audition was for an internet sitcom. It all seemed very normal. I didn't get to see a script before the audition but the little write up on the character was all fine and didn't set off even the faintest ring of an alarm bell. It was unpaid, of course, but it looked like it could be a fun project so I set off this morning feeling fairly upbeat about it all. When I arrived I was given some information on the project and then read through the scene I'd be doing. Still, all fine. The scene read OK and despite the fact that I'd be performing right in the window, in full view of a busy high street, I was one happy actress. I was first asked to perform a quick improvisation (very faint alarm bells started to become just about audible) where I had to talk about myself for a couple of minutes to camera. I'd only read one small scene where my character had about five lines so I didn't have a great deal to go on so I had to do more padding than an A-cup bra. I have an awful feeling I said 'I like going out and staying in' and I'm pretty sure my waffling on about South America would've been a lot more interesting if my mind at that point hadn't decided to refuse all knowledge of any South American countries. After that we read through the scene a couple of times and all seemed happy.

I was then asked to read for a couple of other characters. Not a problem. If there are other characters that I'm suitable for then I'm all for increasing my chances of actually getting a damn role. The first character was 16. Oh. Right. I mean, I've got a young casting but 16? Technology has come a long way but there ain't no computer programs that can make me look that young. Oh, and she's Irish. Brilliant. If you think I should be ok with this then please read this entry before going any further. I stupidly said that was fine with that. Had I known that what would then come out of my mouth would become increasingly American with each line, I would probably have politely declined. Amazingly Welsh didn't seem to feature at all. Maybe I'm finally improving. Or maybe I've just lost the one accent that I thought I could actually do. We then quickly moved on from this character to a 15 year old girl. For god's sake. Do they realise that I turn 28 soon and just want to taunt me with increasingly younger roles? Fine. This one's from a council estate and very much into using slang. Oh good. As I read through the scene it all seemed OK, the dialogue was quite nice until the very end when my character suddenly breaks into a rather sexually explicit rap. By this time, the next actor had walked in so this poor man had to sit ten feet away from me while I rapped about wanting a well-endowed man to...well, you can probably figure that one out for yourself. If you're out there actor man, I'm very sorry for ruining what was probably quite a nice Monday so far.

I hear back from them later in the week. If my lack of geographical knowledge, embarrassingly poor grasp of accents and sorrowful attempts at rapping don't put them off then I intend to set up my own drama school where the main lesson will be how to turn awful auditions into amusing blogs. The School For The Woefully Inept.

Lost In The Post

We’re told on an almost daily basis that we need to be doing all we can to be saving the planet. We should all be sharing baths with our loved ones, stepping out and getting into our second hand jumpers and then sitting down to a meal made solely from the vegetables from the garden. We recycle everything that we possibly can, we struggle to read under our energy saving light bulbs and our meticulously insulated homes are full of canvas shopping bags.

This planet may have its flaws and sometimes it gets things wrong. Earthquakes and tsunamis are when the world gets it totally wrong and those are the days when you wonder what on earth it was thinking. But look outside your window. It’s lovely out there. Even if you’re looking out on the most horrific view in the world, I bet there’s one nice thing out there. A tree. A flower. A bird. A crisp packet floating in the breeze. So I think we all agree that we need to keep this lovely little planet of ours safe. Kicking it when it’s down and taking the idea of ‘landfill sites’ literally ain’t the way.

So why do some agencies still insist on being contacted by post? In this modern age, so many of us are constantly attached to our inboxes. They’re in our pockets and in our handbags. They sit by us at night while we’re sound asleep and they’re in our hands when we call loved ones, take photos of funny shaped strawberries and drunkenly text old friends at 3am. Even if I didn’t have a phone that can do everything and more, I can access a computer that performs all the same actions on a bigger screen. Being contacted through these glorious machines is the best thing since that clever person decided that Kit Kats needed to be bigger. It’s so quick it’s frightening. When you post something to someone, how surprised are you when it arrives the next day? Imagine if that happened with an email? If someone doesn’t reply to my pointless electronic messages after 10 minutes then I start to suspect that the whole Internet is broken. And it’s efficient. If halfway through an email I use the wrong word, my mind distracted by what’s going on around me, I can just press that gorgeous little delete button and no one need ever know. Do that in a letter and you either have to try and find that bottle of Tippex that you bought 10 years ago, only to find that it is all dried up and useless, you have to cross it out and get annoyed at the constant flaw in your written art or you have to start all over again. None of these options are useful. They’re irritating and time-consuming. 

I can only imagine that agents and the like really enjoy receiving post. I have to admit that my heart skips a little beat when I see a hand-written envelope lying in the hallway. Instantly you want to know what it is and who it’s from. The joy that someone has taken the time to actually write something is just wonderful. When I was younger, my friends and I used to constantly write to each other. Pointless ramblings on pretty paper. Little in-jokes encased in brightly coloured envelopes. But I’m sure that agents know that every brown or white hard backed envelope contains a black and white 10’x8’ photograph and CV poorly designed in Word. Much like how we start to recognise certain bills by the colour of their envelope, agents must recognise the familiar A4 offerings. Then there’s the effort of opening the damn thing, rifling through the bits of paper and then said bits of paper need to be sent back with a note on why they’re not interested. An email can be filed away, responded to at the click of a button with a standard response and then deleted, never to be seen again. 

Yes, I realise that my laptop uses up energy while it’s plugged in but surely that doesn’t destroy the planet anywhere near as much as me sending out 100 letters to agents to tell them that I feature in the background reading a flyer in a student film. And it’s not just the paper involved. It’s the printing for my headshots. It’s the ink cartridges that my printer gets through quicker than I do crisps. It’s the postman driving them to the sorting depot thing and them then being sent back out to be delivered. All that energy wasted into one letter that at best will be looked at by an assistant and will then be flung back in the post with a little scribbled compliment slip enclosed. And that’s if the thing even arrives in the first place rather than being hoarded by some postman who has a penchant for other people’s mail. No polar bear will ever be harmed by an email.

And then there’s the receiving of the rejection letter. With a knockback email, you get the little rush of excitement when you see it pop up in your inbox but as soon as you’ve scanned the message, seen the words ‘thank you’ ‘unfortunately’ ‘at this time’ then you know you can just delete it and never have to look at it again. But with a letter you get that initial thrill when the envelope slides through your letter box. It takes time to open it with your jittery hands. You read the letter to find that they’re not interested so you throw it away. You put it in the bin but it’s still there. It will lie there, crumpled up but still staring at you. Taunting you until you can finally pluck up the energy to take the rubbish/recycling/pile of stuff on your floor outside and out of sight. 

It’s now got to the point where I’m reluctant to contact an agent if they only accept postal submissions. So listen up, agents. Your environmentally unfriendly ways means you’re missing out on being contacted by a slightly bitter and ranty actress. Ah. Maybe don’t go changing your policies just yet then…

Ain't Nothing But A Number

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

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

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

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

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

Pot Luck Audition

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

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

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

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

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

Frustration

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

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

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

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

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