WEEK SIX IN THE ACTORS' STUDIO

Stanislavski apparently said that the worst thing an actor can do is look in the mirror. Well, this was certainly true this morning. I am ageing. Daily. Nightly. Oh GOD. Oh STAN! The problem with being an actor (I hardly dare say that, yet, given that I haven’t actually been paid to perform yet) is that you become even more ('tis possible?) paranoid about your appearance. And the problem of training to be an actor is that you are constantly comparing yourself to other people around you: flaunting their bodies all the time. Their wrinkles, their muscles, their tone, their hair (did I see a note of grey?), their flexibility, their physical-corporeal-everything. Suddenly it all matters so much more than when just a civilian-being. You realise that you are on sale. Putting yourself out there to be looked at, studied, criticised, adored? Yikes. Not that Stan was actually talking about vanity, which I am, unsung Narcissus as I am. As we all are, we attention seeking needy beings.

Anyway, this wasn’t helped by two instances this week. Firstly one rather irritatingly polished peer has had his portfolio shots done professionally and was flashing them around modestly after the movement class. Whilst I was struggling back into my jeans and stuffing sweaty gym kit into my rucksack he was beside me complementing the photographer on her skills, showing the black and white shots of his torso and rakish cheekbones. There was even just a shot of his calves, looking honed and athletic. Apparently the calves were considered the most beautiful part of a man in the Elizabethan era. Really? So much to choose from and they go for calves? There’s no accounting for taste. Or fashion. I need not dwell on the nauseation of this mock appraisal of the photographer’s skill – clearly we were supposed to be looking at him. And despite myself I had to admit he looked rather good. Wonder if said photographer could do a job on me? Note to self: if I do this must not be seen to be doing it.

Secondly, in all the movement classes at the beginning of term the teachers saw fit to photocopy anatomical drawings of the skeleton, as if we weren’t sure what was inside us and how important this was for our thinking about using our bodies to act. One of them even bought a rather unconvincing hang-up full size plastic one in which one of us (not me) tried to dance with and got told off. God forbid we should mock the theory – it’s the only thing these teachers have got to hang on to. Anyway, this character took it one step further and we set off on a class trip to see ‘Bodyworks’ at the O2 centre to study the human body. This trip was unremittingly grim, not only was it minging with children and their irritated parents, but the exhibition itself was an absolute horror. Why on earth would one want to see inside people’s bodies? I don’t even like looking down my throat when I’ve got tonsillitis. My god. And the punters were loving it, whilst I was retching quietly in a corner. It was supposed to help us … well, I don’t’ actually know how to finish that sentence. It just made me think about death and why one shouldn’t go to public exhibition centres in half term. That, and a class trip to seeing poor old Ralph Fiennes shouting and yelping his way through Oedipus. Not sure what was more gory, the painful directing or Oedipus eye-less or bodyworks. Or indeed my deepening laughter lines. Most definitely the latter.