The Great Acting Blog: “Who I Want To Make Work For”

The Great Acting Blog: “Who I Want To Make Work For”

A strange dream recently, made me realise something.

In the dream, a friend of mine was sat in an old, dilapidated lorry. The wheels were shredded, it was falling apart. My friend was in the cab with a big smile on his face – he was turning the steering wheel, driving very short distances – for some reason the lorry could only travel ten feet forward, and ten feet in reverse, but he didn’t care, he was having a great time. There was another man sat in the passenger seat, and he was trying to sell the lorry to my friend, telling him how excellent it was, and explained that he only allowed the lorry to be driven such short distances when people were test driving it. My friend asked how much the lorry was:

“Ten thousand pounds”, the man replied.

My friend reached into his pocket, pulled out a £20 note, and held it up for the man to see, hoping for his approval.

“Yes, that’s ten thousand pounds”, the man said, with a big smile.

At which point in the dream, I arrived and pulled my friend out of the lorry, much to the seller’s disappointment, and then the dream ended.

The point is, my friend didn’t really care about the money, in fact, he seems to have had no real conception of it. Nor did he seem to care whether the lorry could perform it’s proper function. For him, the simple fact of being in the lorry and playing around with it, the simple fact of the interaction with the seller, was, to him, fascinating and wonderful, it was joyful for it’s own sake. As such, he left himself open to exploitation from the mendacious seller.

It’s sad but true that those who find the world to be intrinsically fascinating and wonderful, tend to drop their guard and are consequently exploited by the mendacious. If this happens often enough, the disappointment and pain mean that the sense of wonder is lost along with the openness, the guard goes up permanently.

The people who find the world intrinsically fascinating and wonderful, are the people I want to make work for. The goal is to strive to produce work which is not rapacious or exploitative or self-promoting, but which cares for this sense of wonder and fascination,  and which respects the vulnerability it brings about.

 

 

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