This podcast is changing how I think about acting.
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News
Hello, I started a newsletter! I did this so that I can plug things when I have things to plug. I’m assuming that if you signed up you either like my work or are in the industry. Or both. So that’s what I’ll be writing about, going more granular about what I’m doing and what I’m finding helpful than I would on social media. I find the specifics of the job get hidden away from most conversations about acting so my theory is that talking about them as I continue to try to figure them out will be helpful. I promise only to write when I have something to say.
At time of writing, 26 of you have subscribed. That’s about half the capacity of the Hen and Chickens Theatre in Islington. Pretty good for one day’s notice! If you get to the end of this and think of somebody who would like this newsletter, please let them know. If you get to the end of this and decide this kind of thing is not for your inbox, no hard feelings.
Mostly this month I’ve been organising voice-reel recordings (demos if you’re in America). I’ve been lucky to find work in podcast audio drama and indie games and I’m trying to branch out to connected fields. To that end, I’ve booked a commercial reel and a video game reel with Soho Voices and I’ve been taking Zoom classes tailored to those areas. Typically voice agents need a commercial reel before they’ll consider you for their books so I’m hoping this will crack a few doors. I’m recording them over four sessions in August and September.
I got a haircut. This is not always newsworthy but I went from shoulder-length to short so I needed new headshots. The headshots are by Marlow Photography. It was a quick and comfortable shoot using natural light and I’m very pleased with the result.
As of a few months ago, I am managed in the US by Revenant Entertainment.
How to Lie to Yourself Better
Over lockdown, the touring theatre company Cheek by Jowl began releasing the podcast Not True, But Useful. In each episode, the creative directors discuss how they approach different aspects of their job. They are short, well produced and informative episodes and I will tell you why.
But first I want to tell you why I’m angry with Bohr diagrams.
I learnt the Bohr diagram of atoms as a teenager in Science class. You probably did too. I liked Science because it was hands on. When doing experiments, the process was much more interesting to me than the result. In my class there were bunsen burners, an OHP at the front, and gas taps on every desk. There was a cactus for our mental health.
So Bohr diagrams.
A refresher: in the middle of Bohr diagrams go the protons and neutrons. Electrons sit on rings around the outside. You look at the numbers and make the circles. I decided that Bohr diagrams are a good thing because they are fun to draw.
(NB. There are four other fun to draw things at school. They are Venn diagrams, organic chemistry molecules, doodles, and the long line that separates the top half from the bottom half of the quadratic formula. Drawing in Art class is not fun: it is pressure.)
And then one day your Science teacher takes their glasses off like they’re Control and tells you it’s all fake, Smiley. Atoms don’t look like that. They had to teach you the Bohr lie before they could trust you with the truth. It wasn’t real knowledge, it was a stepping stone.
After that betrayal, I turned up the collar of my trench coat (in my family we call it a usual coat) and left the Circus to become an actor. I never found out the truth about Bohr diagrams.
Cheek by Jowl’s approach to making theatre has a direct connection with Niels Bohr’s model of atoms. The principles they use aren’t necessarily true but they are useful. Thus: the podcast. According to the interviews, they tweak their methods each time to figure out what will help the acting come alive. They don’t worry too much with whether or not they’ve found some universal theory of acting but keep trying until it works. And they do it in about twenty different languages.
The process I’m describing is called ‘rehearsal’. But as an actor I sometimes run the risk of getting precious about my own processes rather than asking whether I have complete tools or just a handful of Bohr diagrams.
I’m not sure complete tools exist.
Acting is applied neuroscience. We use our brain to pretend to be someone else’s brain. In our own way, we are building an AI. Until scientists can build a human brain from scratch, reliably creating one inside our own is science fiction. That’s why you can’t write a universal theory of acting.
I have often heard actors and acting teachers refer to the skills of the job as a toolbelt from which to pull whatever works for us individually (think words and phrases like warm-ups, actions, inside-out v outside-in, sense memory, physicality, knowing what the character had for breakfast v just getting the damn thing on its feet, improv, finding your clown, getting out of your head, getting into your body, objectives and obstacles, …). They are all useful for different performers in different situations. But even though these tools are useful, they doesn’t necessarily describe the whole of their nature. They might actually be the corner of a tool. An edge. A shadow. They might be drawing from a deeper truth that we can’t fully see yet. We always have space to let go and play with our technique.
Not True, But Useful unlocked this idea for me. In the podcast the only sacred text is the script. All the individual approaches to working with it are broken down and re-examined. New vocabulary is suggested (which we are encouraged not to cling to too tightly incase it becomes dogma). Old certainties are rethought from different perspectives. Please don’t worry that this all has to happen in the course of one show though: they are building on decades of experience of play. I’ve been having fun trying out some of their ideas on bits of text for the entertainment of my phone camera. And, I guess, the neighbours. It’s been hugely helpful to have these specific things to work through.
Not only does the podcast provide fresh ways of approaching character, it provides a model of curiosity about all those little Bohr diagrams spinning on my toolbelt.
If you’d like a taster episode, I suggest Season 1 Episode 6 Why We Do What We Do which suggests that we can be a bit less worried about a character’s motivation than we might think. Follow that up with Season 4 Bonus Episode 8: Impostor Syndrome.
Where you can find me
I played a time travelling Aristotle in a short film called Jenna the Great. Get it on Amazon.
I’ve been working with Six to Start’s Zombies, Run! for about ten years now. I play Phil, a radio co-host in the zombie apocalypse who is trying his best.
There are two seasons out of mine and Zach Fortais-Gomm’s absurdist found footage comedy Quid Pro Euro of which I’m absurdistly proud. Season 1 is structured as instructional videos. Season 2 is a point and click adventure.
We released the last series of Wooden Overcoats earlier this year. For four seasons I played a terrible man with a heart of, at best, bronze, and we did it both in audio and onstage. It was the best.