The hardest part of being an actor is the not acting bit !

Many years ago I spotted an actor who I thought was very talented. The actor is question does not want to be named for this blog nor for me to even hint at their sex. I fully understand why, but their journey is one that needs to be told. 

I saw their work, first a few years out of drama school in a rehearsed reading. Then over a period of time I watched them in seven fringe productions, all of them unpaid. The actor was doing so well in their day job that they were offered a promotion, and a big annual salary, but it had to be permanent and no more of that acting malarky. They turned down the promotion, even though on paper the actor’s prospects were not good, as they did not even have an agent. They plodded on. Hope springs eternal. 

The actor was frustrated by the fact that some others from the same drama school were working and being paid as actors. More and more actors in the modern world are working for nothing. That just never happened in my day- ever. Actors who acted for no money were in amateur productions. Now it happens all the time. Even well known actors work for nothing. No banker, teacher, sales person, builder, car mechanic etc would dream of working for nothing. With so many actors it is becoming de rigueur. 

I put this actor forward for a number of jobs and even with my recommendation they did not even get seen, because their CV was weak. Many years ago now I once secured an older actor a job and the CV never came into it. The director and producer did not know what they had done before and did not care- the job was just based upon their acting ability there and then. 

However, what I have found over many years in the industry is that the acting game can be a tortoise and hare situation. 

I never went to drama school so the only experience I have of a group of new actors entering the world is a BBC production I acted in called SCHOOL PLAY in 1979. This was an important production for me, as it was while working on this that made me decide I wanted control over my life, and thus I would try to become a producer. I would strive to produce quality productions like that one (something I have rarely managed to pull off).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079863/combined

This was a highly prestigious production directed by the BBC's then Head of Drama. It had many top flight actors (such is the passage of time that most of you will not know some of the names). I was so excited to be cast as I would work with Denholm Elliott and Richard Warwick two acting heroes of mine. Other actors included Michael Kitchen, Tim Pigott-Smith, Jenny Agutter, David Troughton, Jeremy Clyde, John Normington, Jeremy Sinden, Richard Morant, Jeremy Kemp etc. 

The drama took place at a boy's boarding school but instead of using actual children they cast adult actors. It was based upon the director and writer Frederic Raphael's own school days at Charterhouse in the late 1940's. The oldest boys were played by actors in their 50's and I, at 23 was the youngest "boy" in the school. It was one of those public schools where they all did military training every day, so lots of marching scenes. 

Director James Cellan Jones needed around 20-25 support performers to be in the background, especially for the scenes on the parade ground marching in the distance. 

Rather than cast extras Jimmy wanted actors and so he went to various dramas schools and chose young men all in their final year.

We, the actors with lines, got to know them well and one day, the older actors among us, the producer and some of the crew started to discuss them all one day at lunch (when they were not with us) as to which of the group would make it in the business and which would not.

There were lots of good looking young men, lots of men who were funny and others with great personalities. There was one actor among them however that many on the production did not think would make it, Edward Hibbert. I can't fully remember why but it possibly because of one incident he had with a senior regimental sergeant major who was the productions adviser, which was frowned upon by the producer, but when I was told the story I thought very funny, and one that was both bold and stood up for actors rights in an roundabout way.   

Having spent an hour or so marching - up two, three, up two three, slope arms. Edward, fed up with being shouted at all the time, took his rifle off his shoulder and shouted back at the sergeant " I will not be shouted at like that anymore. I am not a solider I am a sensitive artiste" and he then threw the rifle on the ground and flounced off. 

Anyway some actors and crew thought he would be the very first to fall by the wayside. 

Almost 40 years on I note that of the 20-25 "new" actors in that production, only 5 of them are on imdb, which presupposes that the rest just did not make it.......... You know what I am going to say don't you! 

The one out of all of them to do the best, by a long way is Edward Hibbett. Which just shows you that even those who think they know something about acting - don't.

The actor at the top of my story after so many long, long years in the wilderness has just landed the job of a lifetime. I remember being with this person once when they were crying with frustration at what seemed like a hopeless situation, with no champion, no life partner, a damp run down rented home, and by then, even I thought they had no real chance of them changing their status quo. Year after year after year the best they could hope for was a two or three week non-paid job in a pub theatre in the arse end of London. But they hung on in there, and for them it has at long last paid off.

As I have written before, the one quality you need above all others to succeed in the entertainment industry is perseverance. 

© David Nicholas Wilkinson. 2016. All Rights Reserved.