The Secret Life Of An Actor: Sacrifice, Sudoku, and Sexless Sex Scenes

SACRIFICE

In many ways, being an actor is just like any other job – in a zero-hours-contractsort of way – with no guarantee that there will even be minimum wage at the end of the run; remember this next time that you go to a “fringe” production.

There is nothing to stop you realising your dream as long as you are prepared to invest huge amounts of energy (and a fair amount of hard cash) in learning and honing your skills on a continuous basis and you don’t mind sacrificing a secure roof over your head, the car, regular holidays abroad and an income that you can live on comfortably. Be prepared to apply continually for jobs in competition with hundreds of others and deal with constant rejection – week in, week out.

Get used to early mornings and late nights. There is no luxury of being an owl or a lark. You have to be both, and be fit at all sorts of times of day to produce deep emotions or light-hearted frivolity at the drop of a hat, whatever you actually feel. Ten or 20 times over if required. There is a lot of sitting around at auditions, in rehearsal and sometimes in performance. Doing the crossword and sudoku begins to feel as much as part of the job as acting.

Sex scenes? Par for the course, and I promise you, there is nothing remotely sexy about them. Really. Other performers and crew are generally very supportive as they know how awkward it can be, although don’t expect them to show you this in an obvious way. The first time that I rehearsed a scene in a play with no clothes on, I suddenly realised that the curtains were open on to the road, and that I and my onstage lover were in full view of passersby and a stream of traffic. Once the curtains were drawn we recommenced, only for a light to blow above our heads just as we got to a clinch, whereupon we were showered with fragments of glass. I have never seen a light do that before or since. In the dress rehearsal, the techies painted the surface of the stage where I was lying so that I ended up with a green stripe down my back.

Photograph by Dan Anderson.

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