Lines… and lying
Lines. I’m good at learning them. I don’t know how I do it, but they magically stick in my head and I’m able to recall them for many many months. I have performed in ‘The Tempest’ twice, playing the same roles, for 3 months at a time, in the years of 2008 and 2009. When it came to the 2009 shows, I only had to glance over the script once to find that all of my lines were still firmly embedded from the year before.
It makes me sound like a naughty actor, but it doesn’t take me long to learn lines at all, which is why I rarely turn up to a job fully off script. Bad Natalie! :/
Despite my wonderful talent for storing lines in my head, I’m often baffled as to why other things don’t stay in my head. I wouldn’t be able to recall the conversation I had with the job centre lady this afternoon, and don’t even ask me what I did yesterday. My brain is a very strange place to be.
I’ve just taken a glance at my acting CV for the year so far, and it looks like people are starting to get hold of the fact that I don’t learn lines before a job… I have managed to get 9 jobs on my CV so far this year, and only 2 of them have required me to actually learn the lines! I’ve done an audiobook, which was just reading out loud, 4 rehearsed readings which were script in hand, an improvised murder mystery, which was just made up as we went along, leaving me with 2 short films in which I barely spoke at all. Am I now just being hired for my facial expressions?!?
I’ve now been in my normal person job for around a month. I’ve managed to keep my age a secret for a while now, but gradually it’s been noted that I’m well above the average age of people in my area. Thankfully they have all been lovely (or good liars) and all of them have thought that I’m around 20 years old, the sweethearts! On Sunday just passed, there was a gigantic group of Scouts, Beavers and Cubs in the park, and a handful of them came down to play on the rides. I was working the log flume, and the boys were obsessed with it, riding round continuously for around half an hour. I’m surprised they weren’t bored, as well as being soaked to the skin. Their man in charge (Akela?) came over to the ride to persuade them to leave and to go on something else.
I indulged him in some polite conversation until he said to me, “What school have you escaped from then?” Baffled, I replied, “Sorry?” He repeated his question. “School? I’m 27!” Now I know people say I don’t look my age, but I’m pretty sure I’m not suffering from a case of the Benjamin Button. He looked stunned for a second before replying “Oh, I thought this place was run by kids.” Brilliant, I’m now a child. He continued, “So what was your employment before this then?” “Oh, I’m an actress, I’m just here to get a bit of money.”
EPIC FAIL.
As you can probably tell by the conversation above, this man has opinions and isn’t afraid to voice them. This was the worst thing I could have said to him. He was one of those people who think they know everything about everything, and promptly launched into a monologue of things he thought he knew about the industry and didn’t stop. I couldn’t even get a word in edgeways. All I could was politely smile and nod as I occasionally pressed the green button to make the boats move.
I thought I would have learned by now. I’ve been acting for almost 6 years now, and every time someone gets wind of what I do, they go on and on about things that they just don’t understand, because they’ve seen a film or watch TV, or have maybe gone to the theatre. To those people, I say please stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m too polite to stop you mid-flow to correct you, because I don’t want to embarrass you.
So, my mind is made up. I will announce my career no more. If people wish to believe I am still in school, then in school I will be. I can go back to being 20 years old, I can be a child running a theme park. I often think that acting is about being a good liar, I’m just going to take it into real life.
I’m regressing and turning everything in my life into a huge drama and put it all over Facebook, that seems to be the norm these days!
Nxxx
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