In recent weeks I have managed to get myself an agent.
I have been acting for a long time – since I was about fourteen – but have been trying to do it a bit more properly for about the last eighteen months. By properly I mean that I have been trying focus on getting fringe work with known venues, as well as forming my own small theatre company with two friends and creating our own productions to give ourselves a series of decent showcases of our skills.
The basic rules that I’m trying to live by are something like this:
1. Don’t do shit.
2. Progress – try to work with new people, make new contacts, get experience of different styles of work (ie: devising, short film, physical theatre, etc)
3. Challenge yourself – don’t choose the easy option.
So far so good – each production I’ve been involved with has developed various skills and given me a bit more of push in my confidence. But all of the stuff I’ve been doing so far has had to work around the fact that I have a full time job; shift work, admittedly, which makes things a bit easier but still it does put a limit on what I can do. If for example, I get offered a part in a fringe production that runs for more than a week (and is unpaid), there is just no way that I can do it. I have to ration any holiday I have from work and make sure I take as little as possible in order to do as much creatively as I can.
This is one of the reasons I have been writing more recently. It is a good creative outlet that helps me not go mental when I’m between projects, it is teaching me a lot of new stuff about character development and structure of different styles of performance (film/short film/play etc) and might mean that I can make a bit of extra cash from it in the future if I work hard at it.
My heart really lies with acting though – it’s something I can do and do well, which is why I keep edging towards the precipice of packing all the sensible stuff in and having a proper go at it. From my last show (The Shape of Things at the Courtyard Theatre) I managed to get an agent – not sole representation or personal management – someone who will send me through castings occasionally to see if I’m interested in being put forward for them.
I’ve not had a huge amount – about seven or eight a week, mostly stuff I’m not that bothered about but I had one sent yesterday for an amazing HBO show that’s been going for a while. I did a bit of a double take and then saw “NUDITY REQUIRED” in big letters in the subject line. I chuckled to myself and thought “Well, that’s shagged that then.”
Until this morning. At which point I sent an email to my agent saying essentially “What the hell… put me up for it.”
It took less than 24 hours for me to forget any significant hang-ups I might have about getting my muff out on screen. I have also managed to brush aside qualms about the fact that I most certainly do NOT have the kind of body that every actor on this show has but am telling myself that if I get a casting I can just live on air and water for the next few months and hit the gym like never before. I am reassuring myself that the chances of even getting through the first round are so slim as to be almost ridiculous.
In an ideal world I’ll only quit my job for something that is a big step up so that I can retain some level of financial security. And if that means getting nudey on an internationally acclaimed American TV show (or even in front of the people casting said show) so be it.
In this world however, the closest I’m likely to get is this: me sitting at my work desk and daydreaming about how cool it would be to get on telly WITHOUT having to get my muff out.
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