Four years ago I was in a room that doesn't exist anymore. This is a funny thing to remember. The walls were packed thick with asbestos and the wallpaper was that weird rice pudding texture. You could peel it off in great swathes, revealing a sort of greyish tumour of a flank of...well, asbestos I suppose. The floor was always filthy, but nevertheless, we were obliged to writhe and lie and sit all over it, obedient in semi-supine, taking great lungfuls of the not so fresh air to expand our ribcages and hone our tool.
The head of acting was a meglosaurus. She waddled like the meglosaurus must have waddled as it heaved itself out of the Thames in Bleak House. She clung on to strange, iconic habits like snuffling when she approved of something, closing her eyes when she didn't and using the word 'OK' not as an assent or thumbs up or a bridge from one subject to the next but as a plain full stop. She didn't understand the brilliance of 'OK' - it's simplicity, its economy, its brevity - but took it in the same vein as she would take a Shakespearian 'O' in some dastardly soliloquy; O- went on full and forever, so you would be dying, breathlessly waiting for the cliffhanging K......................................................................... k.
In between the OKs, she plopped and putted and shot out little nuggets of charged, gold tips for us. Our first day with her at Drama School was much like the next and the next. Fear imposed silence masquerading as reverence, deferential, obsequious laughter... and her, talking. Talking. Talking. Opining. Dictating. She would, by any means, get her message across. Her favourite tactic was to dispense smouldering and neat, grossly oversimplified rules and generalisations about 'The Business'. They were contradictory truisms that had us puzzling over them for the three years of our training. In the pub, in between lessons, or whilst comforting someone she had chosen to destroy momentarily we would spit "Fuck her, what does she know? She's a fucking drama school teacher! SHE's a failure!" Or we would say, "She says only the best people work and everyone else is unemployed, but then she ALSO says that everyone is unemployed at some point...so what does she mean?!"
This brings me to the crux of her argument; her favourite truism that she succeeded horribly in scarring us all with and that she would proclaim at any given opportunity. Ill try and remember it properly- so this is what she said:
"There are two categories of professional actors: The Top 25% and The Bottom 75%. You will notice that the same people tend to have constant work. They are the same people who are punctual to rehearsals and auditions, they never miss a performance or rehearsal; when they are sick they drag themselves to work and announce their arrival with beaming smiles and a ready energy; they don't complain about the cold, the long hours, the poor script. They will drop everything to do a job. They concern themselves with their own performances and maintaining a good relationship with their cast. They NEVER judge someone else's talent or performance. They go to the gym to make the most of their instrument, attend acting and voice classes religiously. They do two things a day to promote their careers, they write letters, go to see as much theatre as possible, notice who the top and up and coming directors are. They CREATE opportunities for themselves. They work hard, make good impressions everywhere and are totally dedicated to their craft.
"NOw, the BOTTOM 75% are the rest. What characterises them? Bitterness, laziness, a simple failure to commit themselves to the real demands of The Business. They are as talented as the Top 25%, but they lack discipline and professionalism. You will notice when you flick through Spotlight the enormous number of faces....faces you don't recognise, faces you do. Who falls into which category? The Bottom 75% are often out of work. They despair at their unemployment and languish in the 'unfairness' of the industry. They blame the industry, they blame their agents, but they won't blame themselves. They won't go out and self-promote, they turn down jobs that they think are beneath them, they bad mouth other actors, friends even who are more successful than they are. They take day jobs to support them when their not acting and lose their focus. They will not work. "
I, like many have, not unwittingly, fallen long and hard and headlong into the dreaded Bottom 75%. I laugh at it, I am tormented by it. There was a time, I suppose, when I was in the top 25%, but I took a tumble and fell... from morn I fell, from noon to dewy eve, a summer's day. I don't know if I accept it, but I suppose this is why I am writing, to find out.
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