Les Miserables... Casting gone mad?

Hello one and all. I hope you are well. I am writing whilst gazing out of the window awaiting another flurry of snow as forecast by my mother. It was supposed to appear three hours ago according to her, but there's still no sign of it. She needs to find a more reliable source.

Anyway, this entry is about a film that I took myself to see two weeks ago. 'Les Miserables'. I'm not going to say that this is a review, but more of a sharing of my thoughts.

You probably haven't been able to escape this film. I don't know who the readers of this blog might be, but I'm guessing you fall into one of the following categories when it comes to the film:

1. Theatrical types. You may not be an actor or in the performing industry yourself, but you love a bit of musical theatre, maybe you even do amateur dramatics, but as soon as you saw/heard about this film, you knew you HAD to see it. You probably also know all of the words to every song in the musical.

2. Boyfriends/husbands. Your significant other simply had to go and see it because Hugh Jackman would seem like he was singing just to her, and you dutifully went along because that's what god boyfriends/husbands do.

3. Hugh Jackman obsessives (see above)

4. People who found themselves intrigued by the trailer. You were perhaps in the cinema and saw the trailer and thought, "Hang on, is that Russell Crowe singing? Wait a minute, that's lots of famous actors singing, I shall have to investigate."

Or something like that.

Anyway, I had a few reasons for wanting to go. Firstly, I do love quite a large number of the songs in the show. Secondly, I saw the show in London and was slightly disappointed. I think this was mainly to do with our seating, we were so high up in the theatre that I was pretty much staring at the tops of the actors heads, and I got quite bored of this quite quickly. Sometimes I think that film adaptations of musicals should not be done, but I thought that this one would restore my faith in the musical after such a miserable(!) time at the show.

When I went to the cinema to see 'Skyfall', I saw the trailer for 'Les Miserables' on the big screen and almost wet myself with excitement. It looked beautiful, Anne Hathaway looked and sounded positively traumatised, and just hearing the music sent shivers down my spine. I had high expectations.

Later that night I was talking to the other half about the trailers that we had seen and was a little surprised by the way the conversation went... Him: "I didn't know Russell Crowe or Hugh Jackman could sing." Me: "Oh, well don't worry, I won't drag you to come and see it with me." Him: "No, I'll come with you."

Maybe this was my chance to turn him into a musical theatre fan, and then I could drag him to London to see lots of shows! Or not, I ended up going by myself.

I hate being the last person to see a film when everyone else has seen it and has already done their analysis of it, so I booked myself a ticket for the first showing at the local cinema on the day of release. I armed myself with drinks, snacks and tissues and prepared myself.

It started well, the opening bars of music brought tears to my eye, and watching Hugh Jackman pulling that big old boat when he looked hideous gave me a little shiver.

And then Russell Crowe appeared, and did something that I assume he calls 'singing'. I thought he was absolutely dreadful. The only way I can describe what noise he was making is that he seemed like he had a tennis ball stuck in his throat. I'm not a huge fan of him anyway, I can't recall anything stand-out that I've seen him in. I'm not aware if he trained as an actor, but walking and talking at the same time is something very basic that he couldn't master. Every time he was walking they only showed his feet!
I looked him up on the internet after I had seen the film and was surprised to find out that he is in a band. As a singer! I know that the songs he sings in that are probably a lot different to musical theatre but surely he's aware ofhow to put emotion into what he's singing. It seemed to me that he was just standing and singing, not putting aything into it emotionally at all. His character commits suicide towards the end, it just happened far too late.

My other grumbles were to do with the characters of the Thenardiers, played by Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen. Normally I really like these two, but I just felt that they were the wrong choice for the film. They seemed to just be playing them in exactly the same way as they do for most roles that they play these days. Helena was pretty much Mrs Lovett from Sweeney Todd, another film where I winced at her singing, and Sacha absolutely baffled me. I believe he was attempting a cockney accent for when he was speaking, but then, for some unknown reason, he sang with a French accent. Who on Earth does that?!? I was very confused.

I was not let down by Anne Hathaway. Despite being killed off within half an hour or so, she was pretty much the standout actor in the whole film. I'm not the most vain of people, but when it comes to my hair, no-one touches it. The fact that she really had all of her hair cut off was almost enough to send me over the edge, but when she sang 'I dreamed a dream', I couldn't hold back the tears. It was a good job that the woman originally sitting next to me moved away! I'm sure that through the blinking away of all of my tears, that the song was done in one continuous shot, which made it all the more powerful to me. I want to be as good as her one day please!

I was also surprised by a few other people in the film. Samantha Barks was good as Eponine as I had expected. I watched her on TV when she was on the Andrew Lloyd-Webber search for Nancy, and knew that she could sing, but her acting was better than I expected. And who'd have thought that Eddie Redmayne had such a beautiful voice?!?
Sadly Amada Seyfried was a bit of a disappointment to me. I loved her in 'Mamma Mia', she was pretty much perfect in that, but I felt let down in this. I think the character of Cosette is a bit rubbish anyway, I'd much rather be Eponine, but the way she trills like a little bird also started to grate about half way though her screen time.

I was pretty delighted to have found myself a husband in the form of Aaron Tveit as Enjolras though! I thought that Eddie as Marius would have my full attention, until the lovely Aaron opened his beatifully chiselled face to sing! Good lord! A perfect piece of casting there, well done!

Browsing the internet after I had watched the film, I looked at the cast list and saw names that I recognised from the world of musical theatre that had tiny parts in the film. As happy as I was for them that they were in the film, I was slightly annoyed that they weren't shown off to their full potential. I haven't heard one single person say that they liked Russell Crowe's portrayal of Javert, and I have seen plenty of actors who would have been a million times better.

Some people say that they are surprised when they see and hear Hollywood actors sing, but they don't realise that actors train in everything, they can probably dance rings around you too. But then, there's always one that slips through the net. Yes, Russell Crowe, I'm talking about you.

I think it's just a shame that there are so many talented actors out there that get overlooked in favour of big names that sometimes really can't do the job. The film has has huge audiences, probably mainly to do with the cast, but I think that even the pull of Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway could have achieved the same numbers, if the other roles had been cast differently. Jean Valjean and Fantine are mainly the characters that everyone talks about anyway.

But to sum up, I did enjoy the film, and will probably be one of the ones that snap up the DVD on it's release date, but I wasn't as blown away as I thought that I would be. It was beautifully done, and I really did enjoy being so close to the actors faces that you could almost touch their tears and snot as they cried their way through their troubles. It felt so much more real than the stage show, I could really feel the emotion that everyone felt, rather then people standing there singing prettily.

Overall, a good job done. But the next time I watch it, I'll be pulling on my policeman's hat and singing the role of Javert myself to drown out the Crowe!

Nxxx

My degree, should I have bothered?

So, I’m going to talk about job hunting again. A few days ago I said that I had received a list of websites from the job centre that are supposed to be helpful in finding work.

To keep the job centre and my bank manger off my back, I decided to give the list another look, to see if I could find a part-time job that wasn’t anything to do with acting. I keep putting it off as it’s quite hard to find a job that would be flexible enough to let me go to auditions, have time off for doing acting work, and take me back after the acting job is over.

But I went online and gave the general job search websites a browse. I looked at cleaning jobs, pub work, even retail. I could tell by most job descriptions that they wouldn’t be flexible enough for my needs so didn’t think it was appropriate to apply.
There aren’t many shops left in Kettering that I would want to work in any more, I’m not being a snob about it, but I’d quite like it if I got a job that I actually liked. When I was at university I worked in a supermarket and once I left, I vowed that I would never work in another one again.

Therefore, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find a vacancy at Next. The job was only at weekends, and it’s not too far from where I live, so I thought that it was quite suitable. It always seems like a nice environment when I (rarely) go in, and everyone seems very friendly. I thought I’d fit in quite nicely!

I scrolled down the page to see if there were any requirements for the job. Depending on your thoughts on time, it was either very late at night or very early in the morning, so I thought maybe my tiredness was playing tricks on me when I read the words “Please note you MUST NOT have a DEGREE”. Excuse me?!? How on earth does having a degree prevent you from putting a hanger on a jumper? The number of people going to university these days is getting higher by the year, and with most of them not going into work in the area that they’ve studied in, they’re going to have to find other work.

Despite the fact that I didn’t really want the job, I was quite angry that I wouldn’t be accepted for it. Just because I have a higher level of education, it doesn’t mean that I’m not capable of doing the work. People would kick off if it was the other way round and they were saying that you had to have a degree to work there.

I really can’t wait for my next job centre appointment, especially if they ask me why I haven’t applied for any jobs outside acting. Although I know they’ll still try to come back at me with some snide comment when I tell them that I’m over-qualified for the job! (That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write!)

It seems that I can’t win. In their eyes, acting isn’t a good enough job, but now that I’m trying to look for anything else, I’m being punished for pushing myself further in education and having letters after my name!

Looks like my best option is that lottery win… or a millionaire ;)

Natalie BA (Hons) xxx

2013, the year I become a reality TV star?!?

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening or goodnight, wherever you may be! I'm back!

I do hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year, I know I did! :)

So, 2013 started straight off with rehearsals. Yep, the evening of new years day found me back at Starlight HQ rehearsing for 'Fame'! I was slightly worried about how much I had missed due to being Bedford-bound roaring and howling like a Wild Thing for a few weeks, but luckily there wasn't too much to catch up with and by the time the performances arrived, I knew what I was doing for 90% of the show!

It was glorious to be back in a huge theatre again, even when we had a twelve hour rehearsal working with the set(!)

The two days of performances flew by, but we all had a fabulous time, partying in the dressing room between shows and stuffing our faces with chinese food! The show was good fun too! Despite having missed lots of rehearsals, I felt really sad at the end of every performance, it felt like it was all over before it had really begun. I even shed a few real tears at the end of the final performance during the funeral scene, so much so that I couldn't sing properly!

But just like that, it was all over and I'm back to my lazy ways of searching for jobs while snuggled in bed all day, and not getting dressed until mid-afternoon!

Speaking of job searching, I had my second job centre interview of the year yesterday. I've been going there for a while now, and so I'm being referred to the 'Work Programme', whatever that is.
I sat down with my 'advisor' and almost immediately I was asked if I had an agent. I replied 'No, not at the moment.' I was then asked why I didn't have an agent. I was slightly stunned by her questioning. She asked me in a manner that made me feel like I was stupid. It was as if she was saying that I wasn't a real actor because I don't have one. It didn't seem to matter that I've found all of my own acting work for the past five years, and many of my friends hardly get any work through their agent anyway.

She asked me how I was finding work to apply for. I told her that I am on various casting websites and that companies that I have worked for before have asked me to go back. Despite this, she still insisted on printing off a list of websites that would be helpful to me. I smiled politely and said and did what I had to do to get out of there as quickly as I could.

This afternoon I thought that I would take a look at this list to see if any would indeed be helpful. To be fair, the list did have some good websites on them, but they were already ones that I have my profile on and am a frequent user of.
And then I found some beauties. Sites like 'angelstages.com', 'istarnext.com' and 'famestreet.com'.

The names alone were enough to put me off but I had a browse just so that I could tell the lady that I had actually done what was asked of me, she could even ask me questions about it if she wished.

And there they were, all of the fame-hungry wannabes dressed in bikinis, with their duck-face photos taken in the mirror on their iPhones, inches of make-up on and even more inches of flesh on show. I wasn't entirely sure my headshot would fit in.

I kept with it and clicked on the 'jobs' pages. There it was, the first 'casting' at the top of the page: 'Contestants wanted for HUGE reality TV show'.

Is this what life has become for TV? Of course it is, I know that, I'm not stupid. Don't get me wrong, I love watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'The Biggest Loser', but seeing the profile pictures of the people on the site, I could probably guess that it would be something along the lines of TOWIE, which I have NEVER watched and never will.

I was quite angry just looking at the site, and then my anger levels rose when I realised that the job centre actually want me to look at these sites in order to get work.

I moved away from everything for three years of my life to a completely different area of the country, not knowing a single person who would be there, spent thousands of pounds training to become an actor, have worked my arse off for the last five years to get a decent acting CV, and now you're pointing me in the direction of a website where the best 'jobs' on there are to become a reality TV star or to be in 'the next big girl group'?

You just have to look at me to know that I'm not a blonde bimbo type who will take her top off for five minutes of fame, so why on earth would I be interested in something like that? Last year, like thousands of others, I auditioned to be a part of the Paralympics Opening Ceremony. I got in, I knuckled down in rehearsals like everybody else and didn't even mention what I did for a living unless people asked me. I wanted to do something special with my life, and that performance is the best thing I have ever done in all of my 27 years. Yes, I might joke about how I was seen on TV, and laugh along when people make jokes about how I'm a 'celebrity', but it's not about that. I never in a million years thought that I would be shown on TV, I was there to do something that I love and that I want to do for the rest of my life.

So if people ask me if I want to be on television, my answer will be 'yes'. But I will not be seen on a reality TV show, I want to be in a high quality drama series thank you very much. I know I'm good at what I do, that's why people keep hiring me. So you can stick your ridiculous 'casting' websites where the sun doesn't shine, I'm going to carry on doing what I do, and I'll get there, agent or not.

Nxxx