Dipping my toe back in

So!

To introduce myself back into the acting world, I helped a casting director friend out the other week with a new drama that I believe will be shown in 2014. I don't know if I'm allowed to say what it is so to be safe, I'm keeping schtum about what it was.

However, the morning itself was so much fun! Basically, it was a recall for 2 actors (though thankfully not for the same part #awks) and I was reading for them so they had someone to bounce off in their audition. Initially I thought it would be like any normal audition situation - the actor walks into a room where people are sat behind a desk and reads and then leaves. 

Was it like that??

Nooooo.

Instead, I found myself mime-sword fighting - thanks JH for my stage combat certificate, it finally came in handy! Mime-sword fighting whilst trying to play lines in a way that doesn't fuck up the actor you're playing against - it is their audition after all. Thankfully though, I've always been able to soak up lines like a sponge (provided there aren't shedloads) and so was able to flail my arm about in a what I hoped looked like a cool, professional sword-wielding way. 
Both actors auditioning were simply lovely and I was reminded what it was like being in a rehearsal room and that was rather thrilling!

The whole time we were doing these scenes, we were being filmed by the director, which I found unnerving and a new experience. But on reflection, I suppose it was a good one because now I'm prepared if it ever happens again!

In one scene (and there were many), myself and the other actor were playing ex-lovers and had to have a proper fight (whilst trying to stab eachother with swords) and by the end of it, we were screaming at eachother; when the director yelled "Cut!", we were both panting and my hands were shaking, which took me right back to rehearsing Antigone at the National earlier this year. I remember shaking when we finished a scene I had been shouting so much (saying that, that could have been the fact that it was the day after Press Night so...).

Anyway! Little blog about my first little venture back into the wild...

xxx