Where Are We Now? (or ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Career?’) – part two

Continuing my article surveying my fellow graduates from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Class of 1998…

Fritha Goodey in ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ at the National Theatre

What were our expectations of training and the life beyond LAMDA? And how reasonable were they? Were we really prepared for the realities of the profession?

I think we all knew it was a tough world, and we had all heard those oft-repeated statistics about how many actors are out of work at any given time. But I wonder if most of us thought, ‘Well yes, but that won’t be me – I’ll be fine’. I know I did. After all, I’d been chosen from thousands to attend one of the world’s finest drama schools, that had to count for something, didn’t it? And what’s more, I loved acting – we all did. But, to quote the big man himself, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’… What happens if your love isn’t requited?

 

 

Joanna Van Kampen in ‘The Magna Carta Plays’ at Salisbury Playhouse

Giles Fagan in ‘Absent Friends’ at the Union Theatre

Katharine Burford in ‘Fen’ at the Finborough Theatre

More than half of my respondents no longer regularly act, although things aren’t always quite so clear cut when I ask if they still call themselves actors:

– I call myself self-employed – that’s it.
– Hmmm… Sometimes!
– I never say never. I’m not acting and don’t plan to, but I might start again in my sixties!
– I don’t know. It is still something that I want to do, have a passion to do, hope to do, crave to do, but don’t do. Are you entitled to keep the title after so many years?

 

 

Jack Tarlton in ‘City of Glass’ at the Lyric Hammersmith

Emma Bernbach in ‘Beer and Nuts’ for Port Adriano Productions

Norman Naudain in ‘Speed The Plow’

Of those still in the profession, only one said they had funded themselves solely from acting in the 19 years since we graduated. Other answers ranged from ‘ZERO’ to ‘about 7 years’. I liked this response:

– It took me 16 years to make a living.

All but one of those still in the profession said they have, or have had second-string jobs alongside acting, ranging from copywriter to fitness instructor – although as one respondent says, ‘These are jobs though, not crafts or careers.’ Another friend points out, the ratio between acting work and other jobs ‘differs month to month, year to year’, and the same is undoubtedly true for all of us:

– Currently 5% acting and 95% the other work.
– About 50/50.
– I’m now lucky enough to be acting 100% of the time.

 

 

Gregory Jarvis

Kirsty Bushell in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Shakespeare’s Globe

Ayesha Mirza in ‘The Art of Success’

Of those who no longer act, most stopped within ten years of graduating from LAMDA, and their reasons were mostly to do with changes in lifestyle:

– The requirement of securing a regular income to support a young family.
– I wanted stability for my kids.
– I had got married… My lifestyle and outlook had changed.

Although ‘the pram in the hall’ wasn’t the only culprit:

– It just wasn’t going anywhere.
– I fell in love with directing.

One response will strike a chord with many actors, I’m sure:

– I just became jaded by the business… I was in a play and I remember a fellow actor in his late 60s without any money/house/family, and he was saying, ‘This time next year I’ll be in films…’. I didn’t want to be like that.

When asked if they regret stopping, most said they didn’t, although some still feel a pang…

– Yes, enormously. It felt, and still feels to a certain extent, like something of a bereavement.

 

 

Richard Armitage in ‘The Crucible’ at the Old Vic Theatre

Claudia Solti directing for Yale Opera

Branwell Donaghey in ‘Black Sea’ for Focus Productions

And again, when asked if they hoped to return to the profession, most said no but some were more ambiguous:

– Always.
– I never say never.
– Yes, I have so many stories and ideas whirling around.

When we were students, going to the theatre was an essential part of our lives – to professional productions, as well as endless in-house shows at LAMDA. I shall never forget one performance of ‘Macbeth’ by some of the One-Year students, in which the witches’ brew made a particularly gruesome crunching sound as the weird sisters stirred it up. Unfortunately, we discovered that the cause of this grisly effect was nothing more than a handful of Wotsits, revealed when some rather over-enthusiastic grinding caused one to fly out of the cauldron and land on the floor. My friend Jack Tarlton and I spent the rest of the show waiting with bated breath to see who would tread on the offending cheesy snack first… In the end, as I recall, it was the Scottish King himself. Cursed from the very start.

We probably saw more plays in those three years than most people will see in their whole lives, but I wanted to know how frequently my fellow 1998-ers visit the theatre today:

– By choice I’d never go, but I’d go to the cinema every day if I could!
– Straight theatre rarely.
– Once a month.
– Between 6 & 10 times a year if I’m lucky.
– Hardly ever! Not because I’ve lost interest, but I have 4 young children.
– When I can afford to, or if mates can get me in cheaply.
– NOT ENOUGH!!!! A few times a year…3 or 4.
– At the moment, only once or twice a month. But usually I try to go more than that. It’s really important.
– 2/3 times per month.
– 4 or 5 times in the last 16 years.
– 3, 4 times a month on average.
– I never used to go as it was too painful – watching others doing the thing I wanted to do – but now I go as often as I can.

 

 

Caroline Wardle in ‘The Cherry Orchard’

David Oyelowo in ‘Othello’ at New York Theatre Workshop

Your author in ‘The Woman In Black’ at the Fortune Theatre

In many ways, it feels like a lifetime since we left LAMDA, but all those who still act said that they consciously use elements of their training when they work:

– I use my training all the time.
– DEFINITELY.
– It feels more integrated than that now, but yes, my training has influenced who I am as an actor.

Those among my respondents who no longer act felt that the training was useful in other areas too:

– It gave me the confidence as I grew older to stop judging myself.
– Awareness on so many levels.
– Drama school improved me. Made me a better version of myself.
– It taught me about me.

 

 

Sandra Paternostro in ‘Kvetch’ at Etcetera Theatre

Richard Morrison as Puck in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for British Shakespeare Company

Mali Tudno Jones in ‘Moll Flanders’ for Mappa Mundi

So maybe a drama qualification is just another applicable skill after all. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect it to lead to an actual acting career. Come to think of it, I do remember one of my year being told that their training could still be useful, ‘even for amateur acting’… Those skills that make a good actor – confidence, sensitivity, an understanding of human nature – are eminently transferable and highly valued by employers. And after the indifference of the acting world to most of its fellows, and so much relentless rejection, it is good to feel appreciated at last.

When I think of those 28 people I trained with, I know that they are the most capable, intelligent and talented people I have ever met, any one of whom had the skills to have a thriving acting career. But they also were capable enough to have a good career in any other walk of life, as many of them have since proved.

 

 

Sushil Chudasama in ‘Scott and Bailey’ (ITV)

Annabel Capper in ‘Macbeth’ at Philadelphia Shakespeare

Robert Page with Sandra Paternostro in ‘Pericles’

It is hard sometimes to think of any other profession that trains its students to such a level, that boasts so proudly of the talent within its ranks – indeed, claims to be the best in the world – and yet offers so little support to those talented people as they try to develop and maintain their careers. I have written about this before, but I really feel that, if the showbusiness world values its actors so much, it should do more to stop so many of them from giving up. Or, as one of my respondents observed in Part One, it should consider training fewer students in the first place.

Perhaps this is all just so much luvvie whinging. Nobody said it was easy, snowflakes! Life is hard, get used to it, etc. True, you really should enter a career as insane as acting with your eyes open. But that’s harder than it seems, certainly at the beginning. Everything about the profession is seductive. Oh, the lights, the glamour, the applause… A good drama school like LAMDA inevitably offers an idealised view of the profession. For three years, you are constantly ‘in work’, playing good parts that challenge and stretch you. How many actual careers can ever match up to that?

 

 

James Hurn in ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’

Iain Howland in ‘My Boy Jack’ for Loughton Amateur Dramatic Society

Priyanga Burford in ‘Consent’ at the National Theatre

In such an unequal, unfair walk of life, it is hard to stay positive and resist cynicism. I wanted to know how my friends – whether still acting or not – viewed other actors, and the profession as a whole:

– I am quite weary with the industry but still not at the point of turning my back on it – though I am close.
– I’m amazed at actors’ bravery… Full of admiration.
– I have the utmost respect for actors.
– I’m most moved and impressed by those who consistently produce work of great sensitivity and integrity, though they are often not truly recognised for it.
– I don’t really follow what happens any more.
– I will always treat other actors with total compassion. I see them as so delicate.
– The profession is brutal and requires an enormous amount of work and dedication. I respect actors who put in the work and I recognise the shysters a lot quicker.
– I realise how much you have to do to generate work, and how important it is to network. I couldn’t bear that before – I used to hide in the loo after shows at LAMDA when the agents came. As for other actors – I think I’m less judgemental now.
– I am less scared, I feel less competitive.
– It’s painful but today I’m far better at championing others – if one of us gets there (wherever there is) then that’s something to celebrate, isn’t it?
– It’s the ones from our year and countless others… who still yearn to tread the boards, those guys are the ones I admire.
– I also have huge respect for anyone that has had the guts and perseverance to stick at it.
– I was living the dream…but reality will hit you hard in the face once you leave those walls of safety! Good luck to them if they go into it not expecting anything. Because more than likely the skills you learn won’t be for the industry you want to be in!

 

 

Adrian Penketh in ‘Hair’

Neil Howman in ‘Uncle Vanya’

Trying to maintain any creative career is a journey of constant rediscovery, of questioning yourself and asking if you still want it. Even though there are certainly days when I’ve had my fill, and often given serious thought to what else I could be doing with my life, it doesn’t take much to reaffirm my love for the job.

But, at nearly twenty years distance from our graduation, all the illusions we once held about the acting world have fallen away:

– I put a strange pressure on myself when I trained. I kept trying to be what I thought they wanted. It’s taken me time to reconnect with my own instincts.
– Fame is bullshit. Nobody should do this if they want to be famous – go on Big Brother, because it’s just a lot easier.

As far as sticking with the job is concerned, does it really just come down to that one rather patronising cliché, ‘You have to want it enough’? Should it not be, ‘Is there anything you want more’? To stay in the profession for 20 years means making sacrifices in many areas of life – family life, holidays, money – all of these things can suffer or just pass you by entirely.

Finally, to address the question in my title, ‘Where Are We Now?’ – the answer is that we are all over the world. My fellow 1998-ers who are still treading the boards could be found this year on stage at the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Lyric Hammersmith and overseas in Boston Bridge Repertory Company and on Broadway. Others have headed for the screen, and featured in recent major TV hits such as ‘The Night Manager’, ‘Hannibal’ and ‘London Spy’, and films like ‘Selma’ and ‘The Imitation Game’. Those who have stopped acting have carved out a wide variety of careers: some have stayed in the arts as writers, directors and film-makers, while others run successful businesses as varied as production companies, ice cream parlours and fashion houses. I’m deeply proud of all of them.

 

Alison Hinds in ‘The Cherry Orchard’

Matt Grist in ‘Two’ at Westacre Theatre

 

I’ll bring this to a close with two of my respondents who have very contrasting attitudes to life as an actor. The first left the profession, the second is still acting:

– I failed at being an actor because it wasn’t the last thing I thought about at night or the first thing I thought about when I woke up. I wasn’t in love with acting. I wasn’t in love with being an actor.
– I still think working with a great bunch of like-minded actors on something that everyone is excited by is one of the best things ever to do in life.

Many thanks to all my respondents for their contributions.