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'.

Lately I've been creatively frustrated.  And surprisingly not due to anything but time constraints!  Anyway here is an article I recently wrote for the Actor's Pulse newsletter which I am sharing with you because every actor will reach a point in their life when they feel a block.

I also urge ALL of you to read Jonah Lehrer's 'Imagine: The Science of Creativity'.  It is pure gold to anyone who wants to create on any level.

‘I was an accomplice in my own frustration’. - Peter Shaffer.

Think about this.  We all get frustrated, we all get annoyed, we all want things - or don’t want the things we have.  What does this mean for Actors? Take a breath, calm down and look at what’s really going on.  Stop blaming that other actor, or the script or the train.

How could we turn our frustration into contentment?  Well, the answer to that question is as individual as how you like your coffee and I am by no means pretending to be a self help book.  

Frustration however is the feeling of dissatisfaction, often caused by unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs.  Frustration in a more everyday sense is the prevention or hindering of a potentially satisfying activity. With such frustration comes emotion.  And with such emotion comes movement.  Let’s think about what this means though in terms of creativity.  A man who more succinctly summed up my argument long before I even knew what I was going to say said ‘The act of feeling frustrated is an essential part of the creative process.

Before we can find the answer — before we can even know the question — we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. We need to have wrestled with the problem and lost. Because it’s only after we stop searching that an answer may arrive.’

Don’t you all wish you’d said that?  Frustrating isn’t it! But what a beautiful point.  You will only ever succeed if you know what failure/frustration/struggle/conflict is.  People rarely tell the whole story in terms of success, they often leave out the beginning struggle and the constant setbacks and the times when they just didn’t think that what they wanted was possible.  They skip to the eureka moment and the instant success.  How many times have we all told the happy ‘I won’ moment first, then glazed over the details of the hard journey there?

It is human nature to demonstrate success, but never forget what got you there.

Frustration means you are human, it means you have wants, desires, needs, that you care, and that you want to accomplish something.  This is an excellent quality to possess if you want to be an actor. But we all must learn to harness our frustration and use it to propel us forward into success, and to remember the frustrating times in our creative journey and talk of them fondly to others who choose to walk the same path. 

You just never know. So do it.

So I got disillusioned with my blog because I thought no-one read it.  I thought, 'there are so many actors (and other people) out there with the same problems' - why would they want to read about their life in my blog.  Well, in this thing to pass the time we do called life I am constantly not only being proved wrong by peoples enthusiasm and passion, but I'm always inspired to do better because other people are bettering themselves.
Confused yet?  Intrigued?
After I had thrown in the blog idea due to self preservation and ego damage, I had three separate people tell me that they always read my blog and that 'why hadn't I written anything for ages?'.
Didn't have anything to say to that did I?!  Except thanks and mumble excuses about being so busy and not a second to spare - unfortunately the mumbling was directly after I had confessed to not being in any shows at the moment.  Excellent timing!
I also had an offer from a good friend of mine to do some writing for her based on my blog - which she didn't know was mine until about half way through when she looked at the photo. 
So my long winded rambling new shiny blog post DOES have a point!
No matter what you do, no matter how insignificant you think it is.  If you keep doing it, if you love doing it.  Someone, somewhere will appreciate you for it.  And somewhere there will be someone who is inspired or moved or smiling.
If we want to be actors, (or better people, or public spokespeople or politicians or lawyers or whoever we aspire to be)  If we don't start thinking that what we do NOW makes a difference, what will we think when more people know of us, or need us, or love us?
What you do counts (whether it be positive or negative - remember that!) so make it count, do it because you love it, not because you need praise or recognition.
A bientot !
xoxoxo

Les Liaisons Dangerous.

The other night I was lucky enough to go with a very dear friend to see 'Les Liaisons Dangerous' at the Wharf Theatre.  It was excellent.  Everything about this production was superb, the acting, the set, the costumes, the everything. there was one man who you couldn't take your eyes off though.  He was enigmatic, brilliant, and always in the very moment he was supposed to be in.  this actor happens to be a very famous Aussie actor, some may even go so far as to say a 'film star'.  But that didn't matter.  I (and nor did my friend) sit there and only see a film star.  We saw an actor who had such stage presence that we couldn't look away from him.  You wanted to constantly know what he was doing,  or what he was going to do next.
How does one 'get' stage presence?  I don't think anyone really knows, but I am going to suggest some stuff that wouldn't hurt.
Know what your doing - know who your character is, what they are doing where they are.  Know where you came from.  Know what you want.
Be prepared for change, expect anything.
Love what you do.

You don't have to be Hugo Weaving to achieve this :
xoxoxo

God it's just been too long!

Hello
I'm not used to this blogging thing yet.  I keep forgetting that someone somewhere may want something to read.  So instead I think to myself 'I'll write that later'.  Then I forget, or something else needs doing, or I am waiting for someone to get back to me with the thing I want to blog about.....
Which brings me to the current point I want to talk about.  I seem to have spent this year waiting for other people to get their act together so I can get mine.  WHY.  Why did I do that? I know from years of experience that if you want something done (whether it be properly or not) YOU HAVE TO DO IT YOURSELF.  Or at least organise everyone else yourself.  It is so pointless and tedious waiting around for an answer, or a 'yes' or whatever you need from someone else to do something YOU should do.  The person responsible for the NIKE ad 'Just Do It' was really on the money with that one.
Anyone trying to be an actor -or a writer or dancer or anything involved in the arts - needs to remember every day that in this modern era of selfishness and 'I'm too busy' you have to create your own opportunities.  You cant wait for the phone to ring, you cant wait to be discovered in the park reading your monologue book, you also cant become bitter about not succeeding when you have done nothing to put yourself on the radar.
Recently I was so disappointed in myself for not having achieved my goals for the year yet.  Then I sat back and realised I had put all the pressure of MY success on SOMEONE ELSE.  Just make that phone call, just film that scene, just make that decision.  Really - just do it - yourself.
Until next time - unless I cant find anyone to write my Blog for me.... ;)