To train or not to train, that is the question. To paraphrase some little known writer, ahem. It is a debate that has raged on. The truth is, there is no easy answer. Frankly, studying at Cambridge will get you noticed but training at some random never-heard-of polytechnic won’t do you much good. In a recent Mark Strong Acting masterclass I went to Mark made the excellent point that it is not the training that is important, but the confidence it gives. Sometime people who don’t train have a chip on their shoulder, Mark said, much like people who don’t go to university think they missed out on something. It is all rubbish and in fact they did not miss anything at all, but the lack of confidence is there.
So, do you need three years worth of training? Especially with the exorbitant fees that universities now charge? The answer is yes, and no. There is still a hierarchy to acting. If you go to a school which is a brand name it will look great on your CV and open some doors. RADA is one, as is Central and LAMDA. Ditto Oxford and Cambridge. The acting industry is just as snobby as the wider world. People love brand names.
Some training is smart. Although I believe that acting is a talent you either have or don’t, but you can improve. Take classes, join improv groups, make your own work. Keeping up your skills as an actor is important but just doing three years of training for the sake of it is not. Many great actors have no formal training. You will also have the added bonus of not having any debt which will take you years to pay off.
In the end the decision is yours. Just don’t think that your acting career is over before it began just because you cannot go to a prestiges school. Not everyone has the money to do so and they only take a small number of applicants every year. Developing your skills is important but this can be done on the job, doing student films, fringe theatre, in drama classes and even in (shh) amateur dramatics. None of this has to go on your CV. Just get out there and work. The acting industry is not the closed shop it used to be. Go to the theatre, watch film and TV. Learn as much as possible. Actors who went to one of the top schools may get a head start but the good news is that the acting game is a marathon, not a sprint.
Catherine Balavage has been an actor for over ten years. Her book on acting, How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur, has gotten numerous five star reviews and has been called the ‘best advice available’ by numerous sources.
I interviewed a lot of great casting directors, actors, directors and experts in the acting industry for my book How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur. One of those interviews was with Emma Dyson who gives actors career advice for Spotlight, the main casting site for actors and casting directors. Spotlight is also the essential casting site for actors, if you are not in it, you are invisible. An extract from the interview is below. Read it and learn.
Emma Dyson works for the main casting website for actors in the United Kingdom, Spotlight. She also does one-on-one talks for Spotlight members to give them career advice.
So tell us about you.
I’ll tell you a bit about my background. I trained as an actor at the Guildford School of Acting in the 1990s and then, having got the training out of my system, I quickly realised I couldn’t be an actor. I probably didn’t have the talent or the perseverance or the backbone. Then I was an agent for six years. Then I left being an agent thinking that I would go into a different career, something entirely different, but every job that I was getting was pulling me back to the business so first of all I was working at my old drama school back at Guildford, I was the personal assistant for Peter Barlow who was the then assistant director, and then I left two weeks into the job because he was leaving. Subsequently a casting director put me in touch with Thea from United Agents, and I was temping at United Agents sort of off and on for about six months which is when I got the job here at Spotlight being the PR manager.
I used to do castings within the agencies and get the Spotlight breakdown and put roles and the actors that fit them together. It was interesting, having worked in an agency, because the first point of contact that you do in casting work is Spotlight. Now I am very happy here as PR manager and I go to the drama schools and talk about acting and Spotlight member benefits. How to get a good CV and photo, what type of letters to write to casting directors, agents. Time and time again they are incredibly green. They are in their final year of drama school and have hardly written any letters to agents or casting directors. They leave thinking ‘Here I am, come and get me!’ it just doesn’t work out like that. It’s really important and I empathise that it is very important to write letters, to hopefully reach your future employer, who will, across the course of your career, become your friends, and keep re-employing you.
It is such a shock when people leave drama school. They don’t really know what to do.
I know and it is such a shame. They go to Central, LAMDA and RADA. Those are very central London schools. They get so spoilt for choice because it’s awash with agents and casting directors, it carries the kudos of being at the best drama school. Where I was at Guildford we were terribly cut-off despite the facts it’s only a twenty minute train journey, but, we felt very cut-off. It’s a shame that schools that are not in central London get kind of left out and not thought of. There are some interesting actors in regional schools. The Welsh college is a very good school with a lot of good courses and a brilliant reputation. Conversely Rose Bruford has some really good students and that is in Kent.
I think you have got to train, you have got to workshops, you have got to keep classes going. Try to teach yourself as many skills and techniques as possible because the more skilled you are as an actor the more you should work. I always like the actors who go into musical theatre, straight theatre, film and do a bit of everything, And what we are noticing is that there is more of a vogue for musical theatre and films are being made from those musicals. I know of a few film directors who are making films which are musicals. It is kind of a renaissance or a nod to the 1950s. The MGM sort of musicals. Musicals are very popular.
So learn to sing
Learn to sing if you can, and if you can dance then I think you will probably work all the time.
Daryl Eisenberg, an American casting director, told me two things when I met her: One, you are not special. Don’t think you are more special than anyone else and are just going to make it, and two, whatever is stopping you from getting a job, remove it. So if you can’t dance then learn to dance, etc.
I think that is just a roundabout response to what I just said. If you do just keep yourself as skilled and as tuned in as possible then you will get work. You have to do as much theatre as you can and as much film as you can. Not only that but I extend it to: if you are a London actor or a London based actor see as much art as you can, culturally exploit everything which is on your doorstep. Because I think that tunes you in to everything. It keeps you aware of what is current. You pick up on working trends and that reflects across the arts.
Tell me about Spotlight events,
Yeah, we do events. Being PR manager. ..We did one in October in conjunction with the London Film Festival. I got three casting directors. I got Karen Lindsay Stewart and Lucinda Syson. It was held at the British Film Institute and it was chaired by Pippa, my boss, and myself, it was just about how to become a working actor, keeping your CV up to date, how to get an audition, and also I do seminars where I talk a lot about being a working actor, how to network, all of those things, and at Spotlight offices on every Monday we have Spotlight Mondays where I operate 20 minutes chats with people who are stuck in their careers. They are incredibly popular. They always sell out very, very quickly. And the seminars are sometimes in conjunction with Actors Expo or other bodies. We just hold little seminars in house.
How do you break through?
I think it depends because some actors burn out very quickly, and other actors, they see an opportunity and they become very successful and popular when they are in their forties. So I think it just depends because there is so much reliance on good luck and you have to have a lot of charisma, a lot of talent. But then the rest of it is luck. I think you can make your own luck, but a lot of it is out of your control. Probably one of the reasons that I didn’t become an actor was because I couldn’t stand being in a career with no control.
To answer your question, I think it depends on many things. They have to have a good agent behind them and the rest of it I think is luck.
What is the most common mistakes actors make?
Not being proactive, not writing letters to casting directors. Even with a good agent you should still do your own work. Not looking after themselves, not working out, not eating well, not networking, I think all of these things, the actor has to do that. It is part of their homework.
You are new and shiny. Take advantage of this. Casting directors will give you an audition just because they have never seen you before. Not so much after you have been auditioning for years. Getting noticed when you are new can really give you a foothold into the industry as every agent, producer and casting director wants to discover the Next Big Thing. You have about six months until the next wave of graduates enter the ring. Sounds brutal and unfair? That’s because it is.
Get An Accurate Headshot.
I cannot stress this enough. Get a headshot that looks like you. I have been on the other side of the casting divide and have always been shocked when an actor comes in with a headshot that is either ten years old or airbrushed into oblivion. You are an actor, not a supermodel. The key to a good headshot is to look like yourself, only better. Have spots and dark circles removed, nothing else. Actors are hired to play real people, not robots (usually). Not looking like your headshot is also the quickest way to upset a casting director. They will look bad in front of the producer or director. Many productions also cast from pictures and, if like the women who was hired to play 1980s era Madonna on a production I was also cast in, you now look completely different than you do in your picture that casting director will never hire you again.
Write To Every Casting Director Who Ever Lived.
Slight exaggeration but you get my point. Start your research. Watch TV and film and write down who the casting director is. Do the same for theatre. Do not just throw mud at the wall however, don’t contact casting directors who only do kids TV shows if you are 30. The key is to contact casting directors who cast your type. Be concise and to the point and remember to include your headshot and contact details. This brings me to my next point…
Know Your Type.
I know, I know. You are an actor dahling. You can play any role. But the acting industry does not work like that. Casting directors have to put you somewhere and the brutal truth is that the acting industry is probably the only industry that can actually discriminate on how you look. And it will. Catherine Zeta Jones may be a lass from the Welsh valley but she is frequently cast as Italian or Spanish because, in a superficial stereotypical world, that is what they think she looks like. I get cast in period roles a lot because I am slim and pale. So work out your type. Ask friends and family. Make a list of who you are and who you are not and market yourself accordingly. It is not all bad however, getting typecast means getting work, and you can always branch out into other roles later.
Catherine Balavage has been an actor for over ten years. Her book on acting, How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur, has gotten numerous five star reviews and has been called the ‘best advice available’ by numerous sources.
Here’s a challenge, describe Halo: Nightfall in multiples of two words.
Hmmm let’s see how about “Bad Ass”, “Computer Game”, “Action Movie” “Special effects” or “Xbox Classic”? How about “Mike Colter”, the actor who plays the role of “Agent Locke”?
In case you didn’t know Halo: Nightfall is set between the events of Halo 4 and the eagerly anticipated Halo 5: Guardians and is the second full-length live-action feature for the Halo franchise.
From Executive Producer Ridley Scott (Prometheus, Blade Runner) and award-winning Director Sergio Mimica-Gezzan (Battlestar Galactica, The Pillars Of The Earth), Halo: Nightfall features an all-star cast including Mike Colter (The Good Wife), Christina Chong (24: Live Another Day), Steven Waddington (Sleepy Hollow) and Luke Neal (Final Prayer).
Halo: Nightfall tells the personal story of Jameson Locke, a legendary manhunter and agent with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Earth’s most powerful and secretive military branch. The film provides the background to this pivotal new character in the Halo universe, who will play a key role in the next gaming instalment.
Whilst investigating terrorist “chatter” on the distant colony world of Sedra, Locke and his crew are caught in a horrific biological attack. Led by Locke, ONI agents are forced to coordinate with the local command who have a deep-rooted mistrust of ONI. As they unravel a plot that draws them to an ancient, hellish artefact, they are forced to fight for their survival and to make the ultimate choice between their loyalty and their lives.
I caught up with Mike to find out more about his experiences of playing a part in such a coveted franchise.
How was the experience filming Halo: Nightfall?
Well, it wasn’t a glamorous shoot. One word that comes to mind is rigid. It was a rigid, rigid shoot. We were filming in Iceland for most of it so the location was beautiful, but it turned out that the weather was not like what we were expecting – it rained the whole time. We were up against the elements, and I think this added to the overall essence of what we were looking for in this film, being destitute on a foreign planet without a way home. In this sense it helped, but at times walking around in heavy armor for hours was tough.
What was it like filming in Iceland?
Iceland was really phenomenal; I’d love to go back on a leisure journey or holiday. I went to the Blue Lagoon – actually, I went here about three times! It really helped my back. Soaking in that water is so wonderful and regenerative. Just sitting in there gave me so much energy and made me feel so relaxed. I definitely recommend it if you ever get a chance to visit Iceland – when you leave the airport get your driver to head straight for the Blue Lagoon, don’t even go to the hotels first. It’s a phenomenal experience with not that many tourists.
I like it here, there were times I’d be driving past waterfalls, volcanos and icecaps, its such wonderful scenery. It’s such a great place, I really like it a lot, the food is great and the people are very nice here.
What were your first thoughts when you were first presented with the role of Locke? And being part of the franchise. We’re you familiar with its huge global following?
Not really actually, just the basics, I knew that it was a popular game that people enjoyed which has a huge following; It’s a great brand that people are really dedicated to, and it always made me curious about it, to find out more. And so to be offered this part in Halo made me look deeper into what is was about. It gave me some opportunities to do things that I wanted to do, which was doing more action projects, like this, like sci-fi, to give me an opportunity to branch out and diversify and also get a chance to do a voice-over.
Did you prepare for the role by playing a lot of the Halo games and immersing yourself in that world, to help you become more familiar?
No, playing the game wouldn’t have helped me much, as my character, at that point, hasn’t been created or introduced in the video game. As far as the film, he was the only character who wasn’t a Spartan, and in the game it is primarily just Spartan super solders who can do these awesome things, that’s above everything humanly possible, and have these incredible suits on, I on the other hand, had to focus on my character’s journey and origin story, and what’s the fate of his team when he left the planet. It’s more of him only as a solder and not so much what he was going to be when he becomes a Spartan, which is where the video game picks up from. It’s more of a human story that we’re trying to tell. There are very little situations where I’m actually doing anything like the video game; it’s not very similar.
You started with getting the voice-over role in the game, which explicitly led to your role in the film, is that right?
It was actually the other way round. I signed up for the film and then that led to the video game and the motion caption character, which would then go into the video game. I was approached as an actor to audition for the role in the digital film, that was the first thing that happened, then we moved on to creating the character for the video game.
It must be quite a unique experience playing the same character in both the film and video game. Has their been much cross referencing and how have they correlated?
The first thing is that they are both so different, acting on film verses doing motion caption verses doing voice-over is all different medias, so it’s not the same as what your trying to convey. I’m used to acting, which relies on your total being in front of the camera trying to convey what the character is experiencing, but when your doing voiceover work you really have to get all that expression and emotion and everything through your voice and sometimes that can feel a little phony, because you’re trying to convey something that people can’t see and at times you feel like you’re doing too much, it was a bit weird at first but Amanda Wiseman, who directed the voice over sessions guided me through and you eventually get used to it. The motion caption was very technical thing and very subtle. You have to walk around in these funny suits with a camera right in your face, which can get a bit tedious at times. Watching it all back was surreal, the technology in these video games are incredible.
What can you tell us about your character in Halo: Nightfall?
Locke is a ‘think first, act later’ kind of guy; always making a decision based on the fact that it can affect so many people, so that is something that he doesn’t take lightly. He’s a very logical methodical man, and even though there are lives at stake, he always understands and knows that this is what he signed up for. I got in touch with my character, but I think it’s something that a lot of people would find hard to relate to – unless you’re in the military, people who put their lives on the line everyday – I’ve tried to understand that and try to feel what it would be like as a solider with nerves of steel and not be afraid.
What was it like working with the other cast members and crew?
We had a great time. They assembled a great tem – our production crew were some on the few that worked on the game, and in Iceland and some that had worked on The Game Of Thrones, so they were incredible, just used to working long hours and shooting in weird locations. They were very professional all the way through. The cast were great; a lot of the cast were actually from the UK, I got to meet a lot of people and still keep in touch with a few of them and formed some lifelong friends. We had a great time even though the elements were harsh, we still had a great time and a lot of laughs; it would be cold, raining and we’re stuck on a mountain, tired and sleepy but what can you do, it was great. We had a fun time.
You obviously enjoy energetic, action movie roles, but were you allowed to perform your own stunt & action scenes?
I’m getting quite a bit more ‘sign off’ to do more. Unless you could potentially die doing a scene or stunt then it’s usually ok. But I’ve never really been the type to throw myself in to do my own stunts, because stuntmen are trained and tend to be adrenaline junkies – they like it! One stunt guy wanted to fall from a large building, it was a huge fall. Huge! But he wanted to do it, but in the end we decided against it and used CGI. But that’s part of their job I guess, they love it. I do as much stunts as I can, when all the proper precautions are in place, because it’s not so much fun when you get hurt.
Do you think there are any pressures that come with a role in a film with the Halo brand, having such a huge fan base?
They’re trying to change a little bit of the narrative for Halo, and give it a story that would be able to connect to a reach a wider audience. One that would not have necessarily have been a fan of Halo video game series, and create a stand alone film that you could watch and connect to the characters and the story, and I guess generate an interest in the video game, regardless of who you are. I don’t think you have to just be a sc-fi fan or gamer to enjoy this.
Halo: Nightfall is released digitally on March 17 2015 and internationally on March 17th. Check out the trailer below for a taste.
Some actors find success easy and others struggle for years. Naomi Watts definitely falls into the latter category. The Oscar nominated actress used to drive for hours to pick up bad scripts people refused to send her. She regularly doubted that she would ever have a career after moving to Los Angeles as things were so tough.
“[I went from playing leads] to being someone who had to drive for two hours to get two pages of really bad dialogue in some TV movie, just because they couldn’t be bothered faxing me the pages. And I did that for pretty much ten years. When it was like, you know what, I can’t handle it, I’m giving up. But every time my bags were packed, I’d get a call saying, ‘You’ve got this part.'” she told InStyle magazine.
The 46-year-old actress took anything she was offered when she moved to LA.
“Oh, listen, I did not have any snobbery about anything. I just wanted to work. I always had the attitude that work begets work and one thing would roll to the next, I think I knew I had something. But I certainly had plenty of doubt.”
The star did not get her big break until David Lynch cast her in Mulholland Drive solely from her photograph.
Hotly anticipated espionage thriller, Damascus Cover, commences production from this week in Morocco starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Stonewall, Dracula, The Tudors, Mission: Impossible III) with confirmed cast including: Olivia Thirlby (Juno, No Strings Attached, Dredd), recently knighted Sir John Hurt (The Elephant Man, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Alien), Igal Naor (Green Zone, 300: Rise of an Empire, Munich), Jurgen Prochnow (Das Boot, The English Patient, The Da Vinci Code) and Navid Negahban (Homeland, Brothers, The Stoning of Soraya M, Charlie Wilson’s War).
Produced by UK-based production company, Big Book Media, Damascus Cover is based on the best-selling 1977 novel by Howard Kaplan. Directed by Daniel Berk (Sometimes They Come Back For More, Public Enemies), and produced by Hannah Leader (Lucky Number Slevin, Gosford Park, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Spider), the film is a tense espionage thriller, steeped in historical references and rich colour about the Syrian capital with furious action throughout. The screenplay is written by Samantha Newton and Daniel Berk.
Berlinale 2015 will mark the official sales launch of Damascus Cover when London-based Carnaby International, who are handling worldwide sales, begin pre-sales negotiations. With buyers recognising the film’s appeal as an intelligent action spy thriller, pre-sales interest has already been particularly strong with deals struck in several major territories, soon to be announced.
Producer, Hannah Leader said: “Damascus Cover is a great script – believable and brilliant. The characters and situations are vividly drawn and the Middle East setting really brings to life this spellbinding moment in history, which is both topical and timely. With Daniel at the helm, it’s going to be a beautiful picture.”
Fresh from filming Stonewall, a hotly tipped Oscar contender, Jonathan Rhys Meyers takes the lead in this fast-paced action thriller. Jonathan said: “I’m enormously excited about this role. This was a hugely significant time in the conflict in the Middle East, post-cold war and with the collapse of the Berlin Wall when an amount of spies were redeployed to the Middle East, where the theatre of covert operations would now take precedence. With a highly thoughtful and intelligent script by Daniel Berk and Samantha Newton I’m thrilled to be a part of this project and can’t wait to start shooting with a very gifted international cast and crew.”
Olivia Thirlby added “I’m thrilled to be a part of Damascus Cover. It’s an honour to collaborate with and work alongside such a diverse and talented group of individuals on a project that looks closely at a fascinating time in history. I am extremely excited to begin the shoot.”
Set in 1989, as the Berlin wall falls in Europe, the plot focuses on a veteran spy sent undercover in Syria to smuggle a chemical weapons scientist and his family out of Damascus. Within days of his arrival he realises he’s being followed. His partner doesn’t show, his local contact disappears, and a group of men are trying to kill him. It’s not long before his routine mission unravels to reveal a string of murderous conspirators. Marked for death and caught in a maddening puzzle, he must race for survival. The events and people in the script are based on true life events.
Damascus Cover commences principal photography in Casablanca, Morocco from 5th February – 23rd March. Supporting Big Book Media is local Moroccan production company, H Films, who recently shot Queen Of The Desert starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Pattinson, which has been selected in official competition for Berlinale 2015.
Join in the conversation @DamascusCover #TrustInNoOne
I know what you are thinking: what? That makes no sense. But bear with me. I have been acting for a long time. Since I was a teenager and in that time I have had some amazing parts, met amazing people and worked on projects that I was proud of. Also in that time I worked with a lot of jerks, had some terrible auditions, worked on awful projects and had some really awful experiences. My hair was always in a state of recovery because some over-zealous make up person had gone to town on it, my breasts were always being taped down by gaffer tape because costume people ‘didn’t know what to do with them’ and I was working too damn hard in an industry where the pay had not only not risen, but was actually the lowest in fourteen years. I kept almost getting the life-changing parts but lost out at the final hurdle. To put it frankly, I had had enough.
The last straw was working on a film on which I sustained a serious back injury. I damaged a disc and also had nerve damage. Over a year of painful physiotherapy followed. It was a nightmare. It was the last straw. ‘I quit’ I told my husband. ‘I just can’t do this anymore’. But it was only then the moment of clarity came; ‘Don’t quit’, my husband said, ‘You are too talented and have too much to offer. Take a break and then go back to it’. Cue the previously mentioned moment of clarity. He was right. Quit, but then go back.
The truth was, I just wasn’t into it anymore. I hated auditions, I hated working, I hated all of the BS that came with acting. So I quit, wrote my acting book, and by the time I was ready to go back I was in love with acting again. I wanted to make films again. I wanted to be on a television set. The break gave me the distance needed to realise why I had become an actor in the first place. I rediscovered all of the things I loved about working in the entertainment industry, which is the only way you can deal with all of the stuff you don’t love about it.
When your heart isn’t in something it comes across. You just have to take a break and go do something else for a while. Get a good-paying job and build up your bank account, travel, learn a new skill. Do anything but quit acting. It just might be the best thing for your acting career that you ever do.
The Sony Hacks revealed a lot of unpleasant things, and one of them was the unequal pay between men and women, even in Hollywood. One, amazing, ballsy, actress was having none of this however. Charlize Theron negotiated a $10 million pay rise after reading that male co-star Chris Hemsworth was to be paid millions more for The Huntsman. She will now be paid the same as her male co-star. What an inspiration. We need more honesty about pay so more women can get paid what they are worth, and certainly as much as men. The pay gap between men and women is still significantly unequal.
The hacked emails from Sony showed vast pay gaps between male and female stars. In American Hustle all of the male stars, and the male director, got 9 per cent of back-end profits. The two female stars, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence only got 7 per cent. This is despite the fact that Jennifer Lawrence was an Oscar-winning actress and that Amy Adams had been nominated four times.
At Sony things were not any better. Out of 6,000 employees, only one of the seventeen who made over $1 million or more was a woman. Even worse, while Michael De Luca and Hannah Minghella share a job as co-presidents of production at Columbia Pictures, De Luca makes almost $1 million more than Minghella.
In the UK the pay disparity between men and women is so great that women effectively work from November 4th until the end of the year for free. There are a number of social and feminist movements trying to make a difference. We must join them and do what we can. Find out how much men doing the same job are being paid and negotiate a better deal.
To train or not to train, that is the question. To paraphrase some little known writer, ahem. It is a debate that has raged on. The truth is, there is no easy answer. Frankly, studying at Cambridge will get you noticed but training at some random never-heard-of polytechnic won’t do you much good. In a recent Mark Strong Acting masterclass I went to Mark made the excellent point that it is not the training that is important, but the confidence it gives. Sometime people who don’t train have a chip on their shoulder, Mark said, much like people who don’t go to university think they missed out on something. It is all rubbish and in fact they did not miss anything at all, but the lack of confidence is there.
