Hello! First things first… after all my recent posts, you’ll be glad to hear that this one isn’t about my broken head. It’s about my broken friendships. JUST KIDDING! It’s about friendship. Friendship and acting.
A few months ago, I was talking to a woman who I love very dearly, and whose opinion I value very much. The conversation turned (I’ve no idea HOW) to Reality TV. More specifically, our mutual loathing of it. I’m not going to go into all the things that I don’t like about reality TV, because this is a blog post and if it turns into “War and Peace” there ain’t nobody going to have the time or the inclination to read it. One of the things she mentioned as an irritation was how people, after only knowing each other for a week or so, would bleat on about the ‘life-long’ friendship they had forged, and this particular thing, is not one of the things that I hate about it. I will tell you why….
I have forged amazing friendships with people I have worked with for two months, two weeks, five days…. You do in this industry.
For those who aren’t in ‘The Industry’, one huge part of being an actor is having to allow yourself to be very open, very trusting and very vulnerable in a very short space of time. And that does something to the way you *are* with the people you’re in that situation with.
You have to be vulnerable and open? Why? Because the audience has to be able to believe that that person gave birth to you, or has been your best friend since you were 3, or was having sex with you last night. You have a limited amount of time in a rehearsal room, so you don’t have the luxury of allowing that comfort and intimacy to develop. You don’t have time to allow that person to prise their way in and see you at your most radiant and most ugly, your most joyful and most broken. On Day One, you have to let them see that. You walk in there, and show them “this is what I look like to others when I’m the happiest I can be” (gorgeous), “this is what I look like when my world is ripped out from under feet” (hideous), this is what I look like when someone is mean about Ed Miliband (fucking flaming from my ears and nostrils). These are the faces we hide from most people. Faces we save for our nearest and dearest in our most private moments. It’s self preservation.
But when you only have a fortnight (or less) of rehearsals, you just don’t have the luxury of time, and so, very quickly, you get to know each other very intimately…
And then you go out in front of an audience together. Now you have to trust those people to look after you, and they have to trust you to look after them. You’re going to stand up on a stage with them night after night for weeks on end and trust that they’re not going to make you look like a dick. And they have to trust you to do the same. If you don’t trust the person you’re acting with, it just ain’t gonna work. If they forget a line, you save them. If you forget yours, they do the saving. When the footlights are on, and the auditorium is dark, everyone’s focus is on you as a group: and if you make a mistake, you can’t edit it out at a later stage. You’ve got to deal with it in real time. And that is exciting. And terrifying. And the adrenaline rushes. And emotions run high. And for the duration of that job you’re in a little bubble. Together. And believe me, at the risk of sounding like a total wanker, it’s intoxicating. It really is.
Don’t get me wrong, all that emotion, adrenaline and vulnerability also means you can create a lifelong enemy over the period of a week, because as well as some incredible people, you do sometimes work with some nobends (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) …. but that’s another post.
This post was originally published as ‘The Anxious Actor”
My Name is Not Debbie 