Actors
I work with actors, as I think you probably know by now. I work for an actors' agency and it's a co-operative agency, which means that it's run for the benefit of the actors, rather than as a wholly profit-making concern for some commercial agent who wants to get rich.
People tend to think that actors will all come over as great roaring look-at-me extroverts of the Brian Blessed type. But most actors - certainly not the ones I know - aren't like that.
Most actors seem very ordinary in real life. I know there are actors out there who are demanding, with luvvie tendencies - and, yes, I have known one or two - but most aren't.
Most are pleasant, funny, ordinary, likeable people in a very tough profession. When actors are interviewed, they often go on about the general wonderfulness of the people they're working with. One reason for this is because it's a very small world, "showbiz" and if they moan about a director or an actor in Yorkshire on Monday the person concerned will have heard about it in London by Thursday. And since there's no career structure - you're only as good as your last job - actors can never afford to slag people off.
An actor I know who worked on Coronation Street recently said how lovely one of the regular characters was - how helpful to her. It was Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, since you ask.
And that's what I'd expect. Any actor in a long-running role in a soap will be easy to get on with, because the producers won't put up with any who are trouble: why should they, when there are squillions of actors out there? Those who are drunk, or unreliable, or who gossip about others - - well, one day they'll pick up the script for their next few episodes and find that an errant comet lands on their character and squashes him or her flat.
So, as I say, the best actors seem very ordinary in real life.
What never ceases to amaze me, even after a good number of years of it, is how they can then transform themselves into someone totally different.
I can watch someone whom I know really well, in a play, or on television, playing someone very unlike themselves, and I'm just amazed that suddenly I don't seem to know them any more. Some just seem to come to life on stage: others when you point a camera at them. And yes, that's what acting's about, I know. But it's still a shock to me, always. In a good way.
People tend to think that actors will all come over as great roaring look-at-me extroverts of the Brian Blessed type. But most actors - certainly not the ones I know - aren't like that.
Most actors seem very ordinary in real life. I know there are actors out there who are demanding, with luvvie tendencies - and, yes, I have known one or two - but most aren't.
Most are pleasant, funny, ordinary, likeable people in a very tough profession. When actors are interviewed, they often go on about the general wonderfulness of the people they're working with. One reason for this is because it's a very small world, "showbiz" and if they moan about a director or an actor in Yorkshire on Monday the person concerned will have heard about it in London by Thursday. And since there's no career structure - you're only as good as your last job - actors can never afford to slag people off.
An actor I know who worked on Coronation Street recently said how lovely one of the regular characters was - how helpful to her. It was Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, since you ask.
And that's what I'd expect. Any actor in a long-running role in a soap will be easy to get on with, because the producers won't put up with any who are trouble: why should they, when there are squillions of actors out there? Those who are drunk, or unreliable, or who gossip about others - - well, one day they'll pick up the script for their next few episodes and find that an errant comet lands on their character and squashes him or her flat.
So, as I say, the best actors seem very ordinary in real life.
What never ceases to amaze me, even after a good number of years of it, is how they can then transform themselves into someone totally different.
I can watch someone whom I know really well, in a play, or on television, playing someone very unlike themselves, and I'm just amazed that suddenly I don't seem to know them any more. Some just seem to come to life on stage: others when you point a camera at them. And yes, that's what acting's about, I know. But it's still a shock to me, always. In a good way.
posted by Daphne at 6:04 pm
1 Comments:
Oh I agree with you on this. We had an out of work actor temp with us for at least 9 months and he was the best temp we've ever had bar none. Turned his hand to everything, very sociable and friendly and extremely flexible. I was livid when he was let go with all the other contract staff as we downsized (and continue to do so!).
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