Job Dreams: Actor

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As part of our Job Dreams series, we speak to professionals from different careers and share their advice with you. Last month, we found out what it’s like to work in renewable energy. This month, we spoke to David, who’s an actor!

Tell us a brief summary about you, and your background, and how you got to where you are today:
I’m a 60-year-old-actor. I joined a youth theatre at 20, whilst doing additional A Levels and applying to many drama schools. I’ve not had constant work, so when I wasn’t acting, I was a stay at home parent for my three children. I then helped care for my father-in-law, and am now involved in the care of my mother-in-law too. Work goes quiet for actors when we hit 40 or 50. However, my theatre work rallied during my mid 50’s, but then COVID-19 hit and it’s gone very quiet again.

Could you tell us what a typical day looks like for an actor?
The first days in theatre rehearsal tend to start at around lunch to allow for actors travelling to the town where the show is being rehearsed. There’s normally a meet and greet followed by a first read through, and then an early finish so the actors can get to their digs (accommodation) and settle in. The rest of the working days start between 9.30am and 10am and last until about 6pm, where you’ll be learning lines, and songs if it's a musical. Rehearsal periods are often four to five weeks, but can be as short as two!

In tech week, the day will be as long as it takes, starting at 9am and sometimes going through to 11pm. We are supposed to have at least ten hours break between finishing and starting the following day. My last theatre job was a new play and we had a tech week followed by a week of re-jigging lines, sometimes entire scenes depending on how the show was working, which made for a very tiring fortnight where it felt like we never saw daylight.

A show day starts around 6pm until the curtain comes down. If there’s a matinee, it starts around 12.30pm, depending on the amount of warm up required, which in turn is determined by the action of the play. All fights or difficult set pieces are practised every day before the pre-show vocal and physical warm-ups.

Tours will vary. Once on the road, you’ll turn up at the theatre on a Monday to familiarise yourself with the new building and dressing rooms, then go to your digs to drop off luggage, before coming back in to do a brief technical rehearsal.  Then we come in as usual, per show. If it's a small-scale tour, you’ll be part of the crew helping to fit up the set then taking it down after the show. If it’s a Theatre in Education tour, you may have almost no set, which is a mixed blessing as there’s less graft, but not as much help with creating the atmosphere of the play.

Scripts for TV and film usually come at least a week before filming commences, so you’ll be learning lines ready for the first day's shoot. Soaps are shot in two week blocks for each episode, with scripts coming on the Thursday before the Monday, so you have to hope you’ve no big scenes first thing Monday! The days start as early as 7am, where you’ll go into costume and makeup, then be on set for 8am. You’ll work until your scenes for the day are done, waiting in a long caravan with small separate rooms for each cast member. Depending on the budget, you’ll sometimes share with others, which is my personal preference as I enjoy the company! If you’re only in a couple of scenes the day can be very short. The most frustrating is when you're in the first and last scenes of the day with nothing in between. On the long-term serial dramas there are dressing rooms in the studio buildings and green rooms where you can relax and chat to other cast members, and there’ll be a canteen on site to get food.

Radio is a more sedate affair. All the acting is done around microphones, shared or individually. Trying to create a rugby match in a studio was great fun. As sound recording has gotten better and studio hire has become more expensive, more audio dramas are recorded on location, so they feel a little more like TV. You can have a script in your hand but you have to be very familiar with it and well practised in synchronised page turning! 

What do you love most about being an actor?
Night shoots are a favourite of mine. They’re tiring, but I love the smell of the generators, the strange overlit world of the actual location, the cables for lamps, the sound and cameras across what would normally be a busy street or over a muddy field. Folk stood around with cups of hot drinks trying to keep warm and huge polystyrene boxes of hot food - sometimes soup or chocolate - brought to set in the middle of the night. With the cast and crew (that’s camera, sound, wardrobe, makeup) and then the extras, there can be up to a hundred people hanging around an inner-city warehouse or clifftop over the sea.

What do you find most challenging?
The waiting around, be it in a green room, a winnebago, or worse of all at home hoping a job will turn up.

What did you see yourself doing when you were a kid?
I thought I'd be a cowboy or possibly a spy who lived in a castle or stately home. I was confident I'd be very rich with no worries about money. Apparently, this is common among eight to ten year olds! Watching Jaque Custeau made me dream of adventuring. I wanted to go to America because of all the films I watched and to become that cowboy. In my early teens my aspirations shifted to being in The Eagles or a Bob Dylan-esque troubador or possibly a poet, then a rockstar like Mick Jagger. Having a family was also a part of this package.

What challenges did you face in reaching where you are today?
Keeping positive when there's no work. Having a compatible lifestyle. Instead of trying to be wealthy I learned to live on less and hang around with people of a similar income.

What are your hopes for the future of the acting industry, with young people in mind?
I hope young people on low incomes will be able to find a way in. There is more integrated casting now which is a good thing, but expenses are being cut and training is very expensive. I see more actors with independent incomes on the scene.

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first left school?
You don't have to be perfect. There are many reasons you won’t get a job other than your level of talent. Your eye colour might be a deciding factor, or the fact you don't quite fit alongside the main character. I was told by one producer that some actors were “too interesting and pulled focus from the lead”!

What advice would you give to someone interested in joining your industry?
Brace yourself. Learn your lines. Ignore negative people.