February 2013
My first two acting jobs this year are worlds apart. It's lucky I'm so versatile. In the first gig I do a scene that involves running screaming across a vacant lot to my 'son' who is lying dead on the ground, the victim of an out of control drug dealer. This comes quite naturally to me.
For the second, I must centre myself and find my character's motivation, summoning my naturalistic acting skills—the result of much study of Stanislavksi's method—to play a senior manager delivering advice about employee 'development plans' and 'potential matrixes' via an autocue, for a corporate video.
And not only am I a versatile actor. I’ve got a wardrobe to match. A cardi for the ‘mum’, a suit for the ‘manager’. Perfect.
The truth is, both jobs are great experience but the first is a lot more fun, even though there's no pay! I get to work with a bunch of very switched on VCA students on an independent feature film (This Little Piggy) and the role is small, but I love the dramatic challenge. The corporate video requires me to do literally pages of a script, mainly to camera, and to make management jargon sound conversational! My task is not aided by the fact that I get the script less than two days before the shoot (agent's bungle) and barely get through the dialogues I have to learn by heart. It's a paid gig so I feel bad I'm not as prepared as I should be, but on the other hand, they're not paying me enough to feel really, really bad! (And it’s not like the job gave me anything I could use for my showreel, you know.)
Incidentally, the film role came about through one of the lead guys from Monster Pies (which just won Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film in the recent Melbourne Queer Film Festival). Who knows what's next? But hopefully my new agent and new headshots will be a step in the right direction on my journey from anonymity to stardom!
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