Cameras, the inner Child and CHER!

Welcome to Week C of my Drama School blog. Sorry it's late, blame life.

Cameras:

As a child I loved to dress up in different costumes as a feast of characters. What made my favourite game of make believe even more special was the camera, my partner in crime.

This relationships with the camera dramatically changed when I stumbled upon a set of pictures online that attacked my looks and body. I was eleven and winded with humiliation to read, below the pictures t(hat had been taken of me without my consent, and posting without my knowledge) a stream of cruel comments from the people at school.

I had lost control of the camera and it became something more powerful than me, capable of capturing my ugliest and weakest moments. Even now taking my photo always spikes at something dark inside me, a shame and a need to hide away: so naturally I’ve decided to become an actor. The logic of my brain would make Einstein turn in his grave.

Headshots have a huge amount of power in the acting industry, just as those photos of me at eleven had huge influence in the playgrounds. They act as a powerful but mute means of communication between me and the people I’m trying to impress: In year seven, it was the kids that hurt me, in drama school its asking agents to consider signing me and making all my wildest dreams and glittery unicorns come true. NO PRESSURE THEN.

However, this week the camera was working with me. On the most beautiful crisp October morning the photographer Jon took my photo shoutout to London Headshots. Things don’t usually go to plan in life, so having perfect weather for photos felt like a karmic blessing. I felt as in tune with nature as the ladies from Venus Leg-Razor adverts. Jon had a huge talent for picking out all the ‘s’ aspects of my personality in a snapshot: sassy, smart, surprised, a tad sarcastic and more. I finally got even with the act of having my photo taken and yeah ... those shitty photos of me at school still exist in some dark corner of the internet, but now my headshots will exist too- TA DA and Mwah ha ha!

Inner Child:

A lot of the rumours I heard about drama school talked about a ‘toughening up’ process- and I thought I would enter GSA Han-Solo-style- thrust through the doors and into the icy world of drama school until I turned to ice and became in turn one of the ‘tough’. The opposite seems to have happened.

Just in the last week we’ve explored activities including learning to taste, sense, smell, react again as if for the first time. Or, performing the simple acts of ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ as if we are making the gestures for the first time. There’s a huge vulnerability involved in drama school exercises like this, and it can take you to some interesting places within you. It sounds lovey-dovey and pretentious and I’m sure some of it is, but most of it is actually really profound. I thought I grew out of being a nervous and apologetic little shadow and into this full light of a bubbly personality who was ultra-confident. But I’m now realising through thinking about who I am at my core- who my inner child truly is: that that was all an act- I’m actually not tough at all in that way: I’m the most empathetic and sensitive feather that feels like I’m constantly being blown about in a tornado of feelings. And I’m learning that that’s okay, and I’m trying really hard to heal that child inside me that prefers to live in her imagination or with her best friends Doris Day and Julie Andrews, I wasn't made to harden myself up -who was?

Acting does require being tough at times, but I think what makes a good actor a truly sensational one is: Sensitivity, Kindness, a talent for Empathy, a knack for Gentleness. I could be wrong but I’m going to try to stop second guessing my opinions: I believe I’m right. I also believe in life after love- even if I don’t think I’m strong enough. Segway into Cher:

CHER:

My messiah, the angel, the legend: CHER. Bedazzled in glitter I sang my lungs dry at the Cher concert and it was pure heaven. I was asked by a classmate why I loved Cher so much and the answer I believe links back to something we've been learning in Acting class:

Cher is a character who cannot be knocked down, she is loved for being excellent at being Cher. Cher has spoken down about herself in the past, saying she wasn’t a great singer or a great actress, she was merely a performer. Will Smith corrected her in one famous interview that yes, people may be better at singing that her, but:

“They’re not Cher”.

And as actors, we can't endeavour to be the BEST actor, the next Meryl Streep or reincarnation of Heath Ledger, we just have to be like Cher and commit to offering ourselves as the one thing we offer that doesn't belong to anyone else.

In a class that explored the exposure of being vulnerable we were asked to sit on a chair and say the first thing that came into our head while taking in the rest of the class observing us in silence. I rather bizarrely confessed: "a lot of the time I feel sad”- but then felt the impetus to add: “but then I listen to Cher and it gets better”.

Seeing Cher this week reminded me that as performers we need to endeavour to be the best versions of ourselves, because when that happens the result is pure MAGIC. As I sat in the chair feeling all the doubts that hit you at drama school I reflected on the power and persistence of Cher and the unapologetic vibrancy of her music and was reminded of that famous quote by JK Rowling:

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times,

If one only remembers to turn on the Cher”

Albus Dumbledore.