The Great Acting Blog: “Never Compromise”

The Great Acting Blog: “Never Compromise”

 

Checkout the video, it’s a 5 minute short film by Mike Leigh, “The Birth Of The Goalie Of The 2001 FA Cup Final”.

 

This week, I had a meeting which could’ve lead to some work, sadly however, when I arrived for the meeting, the director didn’t know my name. Oh dear. In any normal business meeting or job interview it is not only encumbent upon the employer,  but in the employer’s best interest to know at least something about the person he might be employing. Now, I have a policy that if you don’t know my name then I don’t want to work for you. Those of you reading this who are not in the acting profession but do some rational work, are probably dumbfounded that I even need to put such a policy in place. However, I unhappily report that such shoddy behavior is not unusual, and implies little respect for the skills and merit of each individual actor, and therefore for acting generally.

Why complain? There are millions of actors out there apparently, shouldn’t I simply be grateful for the chance to be seen? Surely everyone has to kiss some ass at some point, what does it matter if you get what you want in the end? I could sacrifice my principles for short term gain (I would question whether you’d actually gain something though), I could do that, it’s very easy,  infact, it’s far easier to do that than to actually adhere to the precepts I’ve laid down for myself. But the trouble is, this way of operating eats away at your soul (if you’ve got one that is), it affects you’re mindset, how you view your life and your work. All of the actors I know whose guiding principle is money, are unhappy. All of them. They have little or no interest in acting anymore, they sneer at the use of the term “artist”, they have forgotten why they became actors in the first place, they just don’t give a shit.

And here in lies the irony of “The Arts” –  many decide to become actors (or any kind of artist) because they want to escape the 9 to 5 salaried routine, they want more adventure, and they want to dedicate themselves to something which they love, something which gives their lives purpose and meaning. However, once that decision to be an actor has been made, many actors then strive to turn their acting careers into routine 9 to 5 jobs, they want to stamp out (having failed to learn to cope with) the insecurity brought forth by the very adventure they sought in the first place. Any kind of aesthetic, or artistic principle is thrown out the window in pursuit of a salary (that’s if principles were even articulated in the first place).

So it is I came away from my meeting feeling a little bit lost. I had betrayed my first principles because I thought I could trouser a couple of quid easily. My annoyance at the guy not knowing my name was a symptom of my unconcious knowledge that I was in the wrong the place, and by my own choosing at that. As with all actors, I’m trying to construct a body of work over time, and I’m doing it the best way I know how, a little straying from the path is not the end of the world so long as we learn from it.  But if I cannot construct that body work within a framework of aesthetic and ethical principles, then everything I do is worthless. This means that the actor must have a point of view on ALL ASPECTS OF PRODUCTION, and further, the actor must look at what type of culture the production he is working on at that moment, is contributing towards, in order to make decisions about which kind of work to do. Rarely if ever will the actor have control over a whole production, he is one part of it and should concentrate on doing his job as well as he can. But he should not be oblivious to the production as a whole, and how it marries with his own point of view. And if the actor developes the strength to continually refer to his principles and never stray, he is less likely to find himself in meetings with people who fail to remember his name.

As I was scratching around for inspiration this week, I stumbled upon Mike Leigh’s “Golden Rules”*, and after a 50 year career (and still counting), his number 1 Rule is: –

NEVER COMPROMISE

Good luck.

* Here’s the full list of Leigh’s Golden Rules. http://www.moviemakerdigital.com/moviemaker/iss91_vol18?pg=90#pg90