Why I act (despite appalling pay and conditions)
Or, how actors get to skip small talk and go straight to the big stuff.
Seeing as I gained the majority of my subscribers in the last three weeks, most of you will have missed my post on 1st September in which I shared an exposé I contributed to bringing attention to the appalling pay and conditions of screen actors in Singapore. Ours is a small industry but in a highly developed country that has, until recently, placed little to no value on creative labour. You can read the piece here: https://www.ricemedia.co/actors-dark-side-of-singapore-acting-industry/.
Why is this relevant? Because despite the horror stories uncovered by the excellent journalists at Rice Media I continue to act and last week I was reminded why.
As an ang moh in Singapore there are, naturally, a limited number of roles I can audition for. (Ang moh literally translated means red hair but is the colloquial term for all white folks regardless of hair colour. It is not usually derogatory but it depends who is using it and how). Anyway, I recently auditioned and won the role of a limping expat accused of murdering his employee to protect his fiancé in a a new cozy crime series for the national broadcaster. The role recurs in four episodes and last week we shot the first few scenes set in a diner.
Some of you may have recollections of rehearsing for a school or college theatre production but I'm betting most of you have never been on a set and here's the weird thing. You don't rehearse.
When you get a part in a film or TV show you are expected to go away and do the work of studying the text, building the character, learning your lines and rehearsing your part all by yourself. There are no intimate conversations with the director about their "vision" or your "motivation". Your job, to quote Tom Hanks, is to turn up on time, know your lines and have an idea (simple competence remains the most underrated asset in any job IMHO).
But here's the rub; having done all that preparatory work you must also be prepared to throw it all out when you get to set because in the time between getting the part and playing the part it is not uncommon for the lines and the character to have changed somewhat. Oh, and whatever movements you had practiced will be made redundant by the set which will inevitably be larger or smaller than you think and, surprisingly, not laid out like your living room! Suddenly all those improv classes, learning to think on your feet and adapt to infinite new stimuli make sense.
Make It Up In Makeup
So, you take your seat in the makeup chair and desperately try to learn your new lines from the script you've just been given whilst a makeup artist tries to hide all those parts of your face that you were already self-conscious about, and which they can now confirm are too horrifying to be seen on TV!
As you make your way through the new pages, still hot from the printer, you see that you have an intimate emotional or romantic scene with another actor who you haven't even met, until they turn up in the mirror, standing behind you waiting for the cover up treatment.
"Hi, I'm Neal."
"HI, I'm Bianca, nice to meet you."
"Are you my wife to be?"
"Yes, are you my husband to be?"
"Yes."
"Did you see the new script?"
"Oh my God, yes."
"Wanna run lines?"
"Please."
And this is your rehearsal.
Instant Engagement a.k.a. My 15-Minute Fiancé
Next you head down to set for a quick blocking with the director, which is essentially where he or she tells you where you start the scene, where you must end up and what route to take so you stay in the light and the frame. Then it's time for first take because time is money and there is never enough.
And that's when it happens. In this particular scene Bianca and I are playing a couple in love who are planning their wedding so the moment the director says, "Let's go for a take!", she threads her arm through mine, leans her head on my shoulder and we're in character. Can you imagine doing that with someone you have just met 15 minutes ago?
As the day continues we jump between scenes all set in the same location, finishing with one in which Bianca's character must reveal a big, dark secret to me. It is a highly emotional scene. Bianca is asked to cry on cue seven times for different takes at different angles and she is magnificent. In character we hug, I wipe tears from her face and we rest our foreheads against one another, our faces literally touching for an excruciating amount of time whilst additional shots are captured around us.
After about the fourth take Bianca asks me to tell her something about my family and I know instinctively what she wants. She is asking for stimulus, raw material to help her repeatedly reach the same emotional state. So whilst gaffers move ladders and lights around us and prop masters replace the food on the table in front of us and makeup artists sweep powder across our faces I start to tell her, quietly, about by mother-in-law who lives with my wife and I in the Asian fashion, but is bed-ridden with dementia. The sound recordist can hear all of this; intimate details of my life that I am sharing with him and Bianca because she needs to hear it and it’s exhilarating to be so vulnerable with people you just met because you know you can trust them.
Trust Games: Cringe or Crucial?
A big part of studying acting is trust games which, at the time, feel totally cringe (as the kids say), but their purpose becomes obvious on set. Acting is an exercise in vulnerability; in putting your voice, your body and your ideas in front of other people and trusting them not to undermine, humiliate or betray you. It is a process of skipping over the small talk and getting straight into the intimate, meaty, human stuff and I love it. Generally speaking I'm not interested in how your team’s doing or what your plans are for the holidays, but in polite society I must act interested. Ironically, when I’m acting, I can skip over all that BS because there just ain’t time!
Here's another example. As we sit, with our foreheads pressed against each other I say to Bianca, "Does it seem like our characters should kiss at this point?". Talk about vulnerable. My question could easily be misinterpreted, create an awkward atmosphere, even a rebuke; after all there is no kiss in the script.
I believe it is 100% incumbent upon the man in intimate scenes to ensure the comfort and safety of their scene partner so I always offer an opt-out, "If you don't think so, it's fine, we can come up with something else or end it like this." But Bianca agrees that it feels inauthentic for a betrothed couple to share an intimate emotional moment and not conclude it with a kiss. We do a couple more takes until the director is satisfied and there is a palpable sense of relief, not just that the scene is in the can, but that we took a risk and were rewarded with a more authentic outcome and no regrets because we dared to trust each other.
It is rare in life that we find people with whom we can forge instant intimate connections. We are living in an age of increasing loneliness that impacts both our mental and physical health and can even lead to early mortality. Acting enables me to accelerate the process of getting to know my fellow humans and create many more opportunities for vulnerability, intimacy and human connection. And that is the reason I continue to act.
Recommendations
Speaking of incredible acting, have you seen ‘Joan’ on BBC Player yet? Based on a true story Sophie Turner and Tom Riddle, sorry, Frank Dillane are extraordinary as the titular jewel thief and her lover:
FYI, I am in Sri Lanka this week for non-acting work, which means I am finally able to pick up a copy of ‘Colours of Colombo’ by my friend and photographer Nazly Ahmed. It’s not available outside of the island but I strongly recommend giving him a follow on Instagram so you can see this stunning country through his lens at https://www.instagram.com/nazlyahmed.
And if you want to keep up with my adventures there, you can follow me at https://www.instagram.com/nealpmoore.
Finally, in the spirit of celebrating human connections and showing love to my friends, I want welcome a newcomer to Substack (though not to me, I’ve know him nearly 25 years).
pens YA fiction and cultural observations from the view point of a graphic designer, VFX artist and thoroughly nice bloke!
That’ll do ya, Nx
That sounds like an interesting gig. Neal. Congrats on landing the role!
I used to work for an extras casting agency, so I've spent a lot of time on various sets. My husband and many of my friends worked in the film industry, too. (hmmm. I said "film industry." haha! film, what's that?)
Interesting, Neal. I can relate to parts of the process on set. I messed around as a "spear carrier" in my younger days. Except for a community play I only ever did extras work (movie, TV dramas, TV commercials, still shot photographs etc). I was always fascinated with the behind the scenes processes.