Tag Archives: How did you get into acting?

Acting Up! Returning to a Life Less Ordinary

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Well, it’s been a funny old year. About this time in 2010, I was sitting at a desk in a soulless office, writing websites, drinking coffee and watching my life and my ambitions swirl slowly down the drain. I’d only taken the job to pay for my wedding and already it had taken over my life, and not in a good way.

I was depressed. This wasn’t me. I’d been touring theatre and producing shows since I was 17. I was a performer, a creative thinker. Now here I was, getting fatter, grumpier and watching my life hit a brick wall in teeth-shattering slow motion.

So I stopped. One day I just walked into work and told my employers, in an embarrassingly polite, wet liberal way, where they could stick their job (“Sorry! I hope it’s not too inconvenient, I know you’re busy.”)

Some people said that I was insane. Mind-bogglingly, eye-wateringly insane. I’d just resigned from a secure, reasonably well paid job in the middle of a recession. Insane!

But there were others who said something quite, quite different.

They said “Well done”. They even used the word, and I’m embarrassed to repeat it because I still don’t really believe them, “brave”.

Truth be told, I’m not insane. I’m not particularly brave either. I just made a choice. Move sideways into another dead end job or move forward into a career that I actually enjoyed. Simple really.

But has it worked? Am I happier, more fulfilled, more engaged and more successful now that I’m back in on stage and screen?

Well over the next few weeks I’m going to be sharing my experiences, thoughts, triumphs and failures with the readers of Frost Magazine. There have been good times, bad times and just-plain-weird times. I’ll also be sharing a bit of the wisdom I’ve learnt from casting directors and actors along the way.

But first, I’ll leave you with a question; What is the most impulsive choice you’ve ever made,… and did it work?

You can find out more about Tim Austin at his WordPress page; http://actortim.wordpress.com.

Check back next Wednesday for more Acting Up!

Jonathan Hansler on Goodbye: The Afterlife of Cook & Moore. {Acting}

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Tell me about GOODBYE: THE AFTERLIFE OF COOK & MOORE

Goodbye: The Afterlife of Cook & Moore started off life at the Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, and was on Mervyn Stutters’ Pick of the Fringe. A couple of years later in 2009, it gained rave reviews at the Leicester Square Theatre.

In the original play, Dudley Moore dies and finds himself in a bar in a comedians’ limbo run by his old sparring partner Peter Cook They need to resolve their differences, and are up for judgment for blasphemy for Derek & Clive. It features a cast of eight. Peter Cook & Dudley Moore leading Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Leonard Rossiter, Frankie Howerd, Kenneth Williams & Charles Hawtrey (all six played by one actor, Clive)

In the movie there is a cast of 50-odd, but apart from five leads, these are mainly small cameos, and we are looking for names for a lot of these. We have a lot of people we know and can call on as does the Director, Martin Gooch, who knows the world.

Clive will play Leonard Rossiter and I will play Peter Cook. The play is much enlarged in the film and there are The Great Programmer, Angels, Demons, Mary Whitehouse, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, John Belushi, Princess Persephone, Queen of Hades and many more. Basically, Alice in Wonderland meets Bedazzled – with the tagline: “You cant escape your comedic fate.”

How did you two meet?

Clive and I met many moons ago, probably doing murder mysteries.

How do you collaborate?

Clive sits at the laptop, I make tea and pace around the room. We tend to have a good creative crossover as writers.

How did you get into acting?

Wandering round the garden at three years old dressed in a towel thinking I was Julius Caesar may have been a clue. It was all I was good at. I was crap academically.  I went to a drama school which when I was there was very good, but due to two deaths a year later closed. Maybe I should have retrained.

What advice would you give to actors who are not as established as you?

Unless you are serious about this business and would kill a relative to do it, get out. It is tough. On the lower rungs, it can be full of the biggest egotistical, untalented two-faced people. It gets a lot better as you get higher up. People are good at what they do and are generally nicer.

It is an industry that is not well policed, although generally we have a good union. If you are serious and have just murdered your uncle, network, meet people, go to festivals like Cannes, and blag it. Find a good agent, ask people about theirs, be versatile – although that may be a curse. Being excellent, and versatile at what you do, scares people off sometimes.

How do you think the industry has changed?

It’s changed because films are made so incredibly cheaply today.. Fifteen years ago, hundreds of people were queuing up to do one student film, for no money. It would cost a minimum of £250 an hour to edit a movie. Showreels were hugely costly. With the advent of technology and tiny broadcast quality cameras today, people can make a movie cheaply and quickly.. There were of course no Casting Call Pro’s or any other online services. There were just casting directors and answerphones.

If you did a show you would mail 10 x 8 photos with CV, SAE and flyer in a hard backed envelope. I did 97 fringe shows and spent 20 years before getting my first TV break via a play I blagged the auditions for (they wanted names) playing Peter Cook, so you can imagine what that cost me. Nowadays there are many ways of attracting attention via the internet.

What’s next?

Well, we want to push Cook & Moore the movie and the play, and are probably going to do a reading of the film in front of an invited audience, including mates in the film industry. I have a couple of leads in features screening soon, and am shooting a feature a mate is directing in Jan as well as another in Malta in April/May.  I am currently in Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh playing Dr Fagan, an eccentric headmaster, at the Old Red Lion with Sylvester McCoy til 29th Jan.

Thank you Jonathan.

If you are interested in investing in the film. Jonathan Hansler would love to hear from you. Get in touch via Frost.