Learn from Masterchef the professionals. It's not just about cooking...

I love watching Masterchef (and all other cooking shows).
I love it because I love food.  I love making it, I love eating it, I love learning about it, I love watching it inspire passion and opinions in others.  I love that moment when someone pops that first mouthful into their mouth and the look of ecstasy on their faee is because of something I (or someone else mostly) has made for them.  However I digress.
Masterchef can not only teach us how to make a malt-vinaigrette foam.  It teaches us about humans.
Theres a few interesting things that we all need to remember about reality tv though - one its almost always a competition and people have their serious competitive hats on, and that editing is very clever, and we only see 1-2 hours out of hundreds of hours of footage.  We need to keep these in mind before we judge their tv performance as gospel.  But.  I watch it and I notice a few things, those who take risks because of passion and not ego usually get our vote.  They show personal touches, and humanity.  They let their guards down long enough for us to see a smile, or a worried look.  We like this as audiences because we relate to them.  We want to eat their food.  We want to invite them into our homes and drink wine with them.
I also notice that people hide behind a facade of confidence and arrogance and they make it hard to 'direct'.  A simple suggestion from the hosts of MC is often sneered at and taken the wrong way.
Contestants also seem to be so afraid of showing their personality - its as if they are taking everything so seriously that they forget to have fun and remember the delight that brought them there in the first place.
What does this have to do with acting?  Acting is about being human.  It's about telling the truth and not hiding.  It's about being warm and personable and likeable.  It's about getting people on your side and on board.  If contestants on reality shows stopped hiding we probably wouldn't yell at the tv so much.  Masterchef I know is about food and not about personality, but personality can easily be injected into the food they make.  We can all learn something from Masterchef - be yourself, make your food your own, and smile once in awhile!
xo

You just need something on your resume really....

Lats year I learned a lot of lessons.  These lessons were on the path of trying to do things that would help my career, but instead of completing the tasks I set out to do, I ended up learning (through doing it the wrong way) what I should have done.  Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am an advocate of team-work and socialising and have a real comradely approach to all things in life.  This is great it turns out as a human - but as a business woman it lacks power.
If you want to get a show up - do one.  Don't wait until that other actor is free to meet up over a glass of wine and talk about a plan for writing a show.  Do it.  Now.
If you want to write a show. Do it.
It took me a long time to learn that the first draft will never be perfect, and that your idea IS good.  It also took me a long time to learn that the best actors I know are just always doing stuff.  Their resume looks incredible, and they don't dread the question 'So, what are you in?  or 'Have you done anything lately?'  They love it when people ask because they have a response of 'Yes- I recently did this/or wrote this or directed this'  No-one ever checks up and says 'Was it good', 'How much money did you make? or 'Did you have a speaking role?'  They just like that you have an answer that is positive and interesting and are usually generally impressed that you have been busy as an actor.
There's no question an actor dreads (well, actors like me who are no-where near as busy as they want to be!) than 'Are you in anything at the moment'.  How does one avoid squirming out of this line of questioning?  By doing something.
How do you do it?
You put pen to paper, or speech to dictaphone or idea to film and you develop it and you get your friends/fellow actors/anyone who says yes - and you put on a show.  Do it in a park, do it in a theatre, do it on the street do it wherever the hell you want,  just make sure that you do it.  Put it on your resume and be proud to be doing something.  You won't win an oscar for it, but you will win that delicious sense of being a part of something you love.
P.S Nike really should sponser me.........
xoxoxoox

Can't art just be beautiful?

Recently I went away with a group of friends to an area that is surrounded by National Parks and beautiful beaches.  We rented (well they rented and I now owe them my life...)  a beautiful house in a beautiful part of a beautiful Bay.  With this beauty comes tourists renting out holiday houses and with this comes the inevitable beach themed art.  Now I don't care what your personal taste is and what you want to put in your home and whether or not you and your partner had a fight over whether it would go with the bench tiles or not.  But I do care that this simple act of hanging a picture on the wall will prompt everyone to have an opinion about it.  Which is exactly what this picture did.  It begun the debate that WILL NEVER BE WON (as long as people keep thinking that their opinions are better than others even though it is subjective) about what makes art 'good'.  Among us was an art teacher who's arguments were much more structured than the rest of us (even though much wine had been consumed) tried to explain that fine art was the result of something - an idea, a theme or whatever it is that the artist is doing - growing and constantly evolving.  Which for acting is ridiculously true!  Actors that stay stagnate and stop learning are their own worst enemy!  My point today is not about acting, rather just the form of any sort of art being allowed to simply 'be'.  To simply be allowed to be beautiful or ugly or world changing.  In individual eyes or public shared eyes.  Art shouldn't always be (although it always WILL be)subjected to the opinion of having to have a 'point, reason or emotion' behind it.  Art and religion and propaganda have always gone hand in hand and they will continue to do so.  Art however individually should be allowed to exist as beauty, or a passion or stress relief.  Personal opinions will always vary and you don't have to like it, but you can't stand in the way of someone else liking it.  Otherwise we would all have the same pictures on our wall and the same music in our (insert personal music player here) and the same movies.  That is boring.
The reason I bring this up is because this morning I was watching 'The Newsroom' and I was really overcome with the power of humanity of one of the characters.  It really was beautiful.  And although a political act started the act of humanity, the result was a moment in television that was simply just beautiful.  This moment needed no explanation, no hype, no pat on the back - no debate.  It was allowed to be.  the artful moment when silence said everything, was simple allowed to exist.  Maybe some people hated it and though it showed a wekness in someone who was introduced as an asshole.  Maybe others though it predictable and sentimental.  That in itself is what should give art the right to 'be'.