Considering this whole blog doodad is first and foremost about my acting "career" (Geddit) I figured my past roles and experiences deserved a mention, if only to talk about how they've helped me learn and evolve as an "actor".
The thing is, I've done this and that but I've never had any professional experience, which isn't a travesty for somebody who's only 19 but it is a bit disheartening. As such, anything I talk about here will be unprofessional work. Obviously. Idiot.
I attended Top Hat Stage school for a few years when I was younger, but dropped it when I got tired of doing more dancing and singing than actual acting. I don't think there's any point talking about the performance of "Singing in the Rain" I did with my class at Top Hat when I was about 5 but I feel it's worth a little mention because it's the first performance I can remember doing. So, yeah. Little mention. I never really got to do much in my primary school plays until my year became top of the school, and we were going to perform Oliver. I was a tad upset I didn't get the Artful Dodger but then the school realised they forgot to ask permission to even perform the damn thing anyway and we had to do a new play about music through the ages or something. I wasn't the Artful Dodger in that play either, I was Elvis Presley, which is admittedly pretty awesome, but it's not "consider yourself, at home" awesome now is it?
Fast forward to secondary school and the next role of note that I had. Our school entered the Shakespeare School's Festival, and was thus tasked with producing a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays to be performed at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage. Our director, the head of drama at my school, decided on the scottish play, "Macbeth", and I was given the lead. This was huge, my first lead role in a real production, being performed at a national theatre no less, a packed national theatre. Being on stage in front of all those people was a rush, I'd compare it to how adrenaline junkies must feel when they go skydiving or something but I don't know what that feels like, so I'll just say it was cool. Supposedly our production was deemed the best but we could have been told that to spare our feelings or something. Either way, it was an experience I will never forget, I still have the shirt.
I performed in a few more productions at secondary school, mostly for my drama A-levels as school took up a lot of my time, including "Teechers", in which I played Saxon, and Noel Coward's "Private Lives", in which I played Victor. The latter proved far more entertaining for me than the former, but I thoroughly enjoyed both.
I also performed in two short films that were produced for my film studies class, one of which was my own group's film, and the other was one I was asked to work on. My film was entitled "Blackout" and was a handheld horror film about a group of teenagers who discover and old WWII bunker and decide to go in, you know, because teenagers. We actually did go to an old bunker in the country at around 10pm. We half expected to be stabbed rather than haunted. The other was a film by a friend about a killer who targeted women (My character, naturally. I look the psycho type.) I think it was called "Red" but I have no idea if I just made that name up or not...
I also agreed to take the role of Orsino in a production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" to be performed at the Ware Priory in order to celebrate the great bed of Ware's return to the aforementioned town. The production went ahead as planned, until the venue was rained out (It was an outside stage.) but we did still perform the play indoors at my school, for the younger children and some staff from the Ware Priory.
Since then, I kinda finished my A-levels and have been trying to keep doing stuff. I managed to land an agent shortly after finishing school last year, and ended up attending classes he ran in London. However, I never received any communication whatsoever from him, apart from a phone call from his secretary telling me he couldn't represent me anymore. That was fun. I'm currently attendeing a course with the London Actor's Workshop or LAW, which I feel deserves its own post, but I will say here that I thoroughly recommend it.
I've also applied to to acting schools, LAMDA and RADA, despite not thinking even for a second I'd get in that is. Again, I feel this deserves its own post so expect that some time.
As for the future? I have no idea. A co-worker of my mum's is producing a short film to be sent to film festivals and he wants me to be in it, which is great! (The guy's done special effects work for Sony dude!) I've been talking to some friends about maybe producing a web series, short film or play to keep ourselves busy, but whether that will come about remains to be seen. Aside from that? It's kinda scary to be so sure about your future aspirations and yet so unsure about your future. But this is the kind of life I've chosen, I'm expecting to be asking myself what I'll be doing next for the rest of my life, and despite the fact it terrifies me, it's also pretty wonderful.
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