And On To The Next Big Push

So Nightmarish Responsibility No. 2 is now extremely imminent. It would be much less nightmarish had I been a bit more prepared but this is the real world and I don't do prepared. I barely manage to get up and get showered and dressed in the morning so it is unsurprising that I struggle a bit with anything that requires more organisation than just getting out the door every day. I feel bad that my lack of organisation impacts on other people but I have been part of a team from the very beginning so it isn't all my fault. I've just come out from my work appraisal where the recurring theme was "seriously, stop beating yourself up about stuff" which is a reflection of the fact that I really do know how to pile guilt on. Anyway, I've got a free evening tonight, during which I have nothing to except mend my costume from a play I was in 8 years ago (sounds like a stupid thing to do but we're doing an extract, innit), run through one set of lines, pile another set of lines (plus dubious French accent) on top of that in my brain, make an actual list as if I were an organised person, make a few phone calls meaning that me and Big Blue may well be in competition for the phone this evening for different bits of the same event, do a load of washing, make sure that I know exactly what is going on, where and when, and watch Dollhouse. Well, it's not like the latter is really contributing anything but I really, really want to watch it. Dammit.

Anyway, the dodgy French bit, which has nothing to do with Nightmarish Responsibility No. 2, is necessary because it's the bit that starts immediately after that one finishes. I'm in the unusual position of having a first rehearsal for something where I have to turn up with all of my lines learned and not really knowing the other people involved apart from having seen them on stage a few times. I guess it's like being an actual professional-type person. I wouldn't mind the line-learning thing but I quite like to hide behind the script for the first few rehearsals just to disguise the fact that I'm really terrified. I'm finding this particularly daunting because I'd like to make a good impression in order to be able to work with them again. I'd also like to be good out of sheer stubborn pride. I'm also scared because it's really tricky stuff to do with people you don't know very well - lots of physical contact - snogging and caressing and stuff. I'm expecting to be blushing for the whole rehearsal. However, I just read an interview with Michael Sheen for an Orange promotion, which I'll get back to after I have a mini-rant about due it being extraordinarily badly edited and proofread. I don't mind interviews that sound as though the interviewee is genuinely talking normally - it's quite charming. But, there's a way to do it that doesn't make the person who's typing it look like a moron. If he mentions Stephen Frears, maybe, just maybe, remember that it's spelt Stephen and make sure that you don't switch backwards from a ph to a v back to a ph. And, the biggest issue for me - this is a promotion. You are paying an actor to take part. You want to promote the actor and yourself. You know what makes you look really, really stupid? Referring to Michael Sheen as Martin in your promotional material. Twats. Deep breath, and continue. He said the following:

M: There is one other person I would like to talk about... which is the Director Declan Donnellan, who runs a theatre company called Cheek By Jowl. He had a huge effect on me as well. A lot of what I learnt about acting, I learnt from him, the stuff that I use all the time...
I remember him describing acting as being essentially "a really frightening experience," which is why everyone says, “I don’t know how you can be an actor”. A lot of what actors do is try to make themselves feel more comfortable and Declan always said, “don’t do it. Don't try and make yourself more comfortable. That's a mistake and all bad acting is based on trying to make yourself more comfortable in a frightening experience, during a frightening situation, and you have to do what you can to stop that. To allow it to be frightening and allow it to make you feel anxious and vulnerable and exposed. And that had a huge effect on me. If there was one note that anyone had ever given me in my life in terms of acting, that would be it. Don't base what you do in your work, or how you live your life, on trying to pretend that you're not frightened. Life is fairly frightening and the more you try to pretend that it's not, the more you start living an inauthentic life, and you become a more dishonest actor and dishonest storyteller... You can't connect to any emotion as an actor authentically if you can't connect to what you’re actually feeling at the moment. How can you pretend to be feeling what a character’s feeling if you're not acknowledging the essential truth of the moment, which is that you're doing something that's quite frightening?