Staying in character

Always Stay in Character

The following blog is primarily about two rules of acting, which are as follows:

Rule 7: In An Audition, Always Say Yes (or IAAASY as no-one abbreviates it to). It makes some kind of sense. The last thing you want when you trek to an audition is to cut yourself out of the running immediately by saying you can’t do what they need you to do. There are a few exceptions to this - I’m unlikely to say I can do something when attempting it will likely end my life or at least present a few major months of physical therapy (things like fire juggling, lion taming or using the crossing outside Ealing Broadway station). Nor will I take my clothes off. When drunk, yes. At castings, no. That’s what’s called having principles, people. Anyway, with that in mind, when I was asked by my agent if I could come up with a comedy character for some filming the next morning, despite the fact that I was gigging and knew I wouldn’t get home till 11pm at the earliest, I said “yes”.

Rule 19: Always Stay in Character (or ASC as……or forget it). This is based on the assumption (often true) that producers/casting directors etc can only see you IN the part if you come to the audition AS the part. So when told to come to the filming as the comedy character I’ve prepared (as mentioned above - come on, keep up) I thought “no problemo”. Cos my brain’s so awesome it adds “o” to already perfectly serviceable words.

So, I get to the location and we start filming (I’m going to skip the fact that they were running three hours late and I was attempting to pull off this filming during the one-hour lunch break from my day job - true but irrelevant).
There’s a panel of people and they are interviewing my character, who I’ve decided is from Bristol - something about it sounding slightly dappy but endearing. They’re asking me questions; I’ve pre-prepared some answers to other questions so twist their questions to fit my own answers. All seems to be going well. Not brilliantly, I’ll admit. Neither of them has done more than smile at what I think is a completely acceptable comedy character given the hour or so I’ve had to come up with him. But, given my own low parameters, it’s going well. They ask another question. I answer it.

I mentally pause.

My mouth goes dry. My brain freezes, but as my mental functions are going into shut-down mode, I have enough time to think:

“Did I just say that in a cockney accent?”

I’ve been asked another question. Somewhere my brain has registered this (well done, brain) and has uttered the only time-delaying response available to it, due to the aforementioned brain-freeze:

“Er……”

Balls. Even that sounded cockney. If not cockney, certainly not from a specific region of the south-west.
My brain has seemingly recovered from melt-down and is now working in overdrive (ironic really, as my brain is the thing that’s caused this horrendous problem by deciding to spontaneously switch accent - a problem it could easily solve if it would stop being so bloody useless). I’m mentally running through every possible sound in the English language but, in my stupid head, they’re all coming out cockney. Hilariously, it’s not even good cockney. It sounds like Dick Van Dyke has taken up permanent residence in my skull.
You know when a song gets stuck in your head and, try as you might, you just can’t remove it? And how, even if you think of the words to another song, somehow you fit those words to the tune that you’re failing to dislodge from your internal radio station? It was like that. In front of two rather famous people. Being filmed.
By this point I’ve been asked three more questions. I honestly don’t know if I’ve answered them, acknowledged their asking or whether the panel are, just out of sheer pity, asking questions in an attempt to get to the end of the interview in the swiftest time possible. What I DO know is that I can actually answer these questions - despite minimal prep time, I’ve actually come up with a vaguely rounded character. He’s got a day job. I know the names of his parents. I know what his favourite video game is. He’s certainly rounded enough to get through ten minutes of cursory hot-seating. It’s just, well, now I don’t give two shits about the answers to the questions. I care about the accent in which the answers are given. I’d be happy just to ask the panel to repeat the question for ten minutes as long as I ask it in a GOD-DAMN BRISTONIAN ACCENT!
I don’t really know what I’m doing at this point (though I’m fairly certain there’s a short moment where I go to put my head between my legs in preparation for a crash-landing, but I fortunately recognise this and pull myself out of it quickly). I’m clearly saying words, though still in a London accent.
A part of my brain (yes, it’s still there) remembers that I’m just acting and I could stop this hell by saying (in a normal accent):

“Sorry, chaps, I seem to have lost the accent I started in. Can you give me a second to get it back and then we’ll run over those last few questions again?”

Even if that would be a massive acting faux pas (I can even hear the overly dramatic intakes of breath from fellow actors reading this), at least it would stop this senseless horror.
But no, rule number 19! I was told to do this in character and even though he seems to have relocated 117 miles to the east (thank you, Google maps) he’s still the character. So my brain (what a bastard it’s turned out to be) clicks into a gear. A new gear. A decidedly London-based gear. But it’s back. I’m firing off answers to everything. I’m like the Kung-Fu Panda of question-answering. Pow! Pow! Pow! The character seems to have become somewhat more sinister and aggressive since his accent shift, but at least he’s talking again.
After what seems to be another eternity (there must have been at least 5 of those in this interview already), it’s all over. The panel politely applauds and I walk off camera. I’m within ten metres of ending this horrific experience when the director calls out that we need to just run through a couple of those questions again, due to some background noise affecting the mics, so can I pop back onto my interview spot? No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Rule number 7, Gareth.

Balls.

“Yes”

Um, what was that? Did that “yes” just sound like it was from Bristol? Did I just switch BACK to the accent I started with? Having embraced the ridiculous cockney twang, has Bristonian come storming back into my life? Yes. Yes, it has. This is getting stupid. But this time no panic sets in - it’s actually encouraging. For one, I’ve not totally lost the ability to do a particular accent (always something to be thankful for, as an actor). Secondly, I can redo some of the material we’ve already covered, but this time in the accent I originally intended which means in the edit I may not look like a schizophrenic moron (though I suppose I could always say it’s a character choice).
The interview actually finishes well - the panel seem happier and I, despite being shaken by the whole ordeal, have managed to get to the end of it without dropping character. Accent, yes, character, no.

Once again, I find myself walking towards the beautiful, beautiful exit (it’s a worn, wooden door in an old town hall - but it’s beautiful to me) and once again the director pipes up, stopping me in my tracks (I was SO CLOSE!).

“You a Bristol lad, then?”

What? Dost mine ears deceive me? Did he just ask if I was from Bristol? Some kind of over-whelming love wells up inside me for this man who, despite my massive slip into a totally different accent for at least 40% of the interview process, believes I’m actually from Bristol. I’m elated, over-joyed, and the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

No. No, I’m not. I’m from Cornwall. But even then, I don’t have a Cornish accent. I’ve got a middle-of-the-road, Southern accent. It’s quite posh. I’m just lying now. Lying in character, hoping to take away something positive from what has turned out to be a woefully depressing day. I don’t even know why I’m lying - what am I hoping to gain by agreeing with his barmy assumption that I’m actually from Bristol? Maybe I’m hoping he’ll offer me a pint, or a regular slot on the show, or perhaps a part in his new movie about the construction of Broadmead Shopping Centre - all because I’ve told him I’m from Bristol, when I’m not. Even if one of these actually occurs, it would then involve me having to perpetuate my stupid fallacy. I’d have to carry on shimmying between a Bristonian and cockney accent for as long as the friendship lasted. How long do you let a lie like that carry on? Days? Months? Years? What if we become best mates and I’m invited to be the best man at his wedding? What then? I’d have to either do a speech in a Bristonian accent in front of all his friends and family (which, if this blog is anything to go by, I clearly can’t do in front of two people, let alone a hundred) or I’d have to pipe up and tell him I’d been lying all these years. That I’m actually from a couple of counties to the south-west. Awkward!

“Oh, whereabouts?”

Balls!

I’m panicked now. He clearly knows Bristol. I don’t know Bristol. I’m not from there. We’ve already established that I’m NOT FROM BRISTOL. I’ve been there a few times but there’s no bloody way any of the names of any of the boroughs are going to spring into my mind now.

“Oh, um, north…?”

I say, with that slight upward inflection which indicates either a question or an intrinsic plea to accept my answer and not take this any further.

“No, no, which part.”

BALLS!

Did you not hear the intrinsic plea? You should have. It was intrinsic. Perversely, the interview is over and I’m sure I could get out of this by just explaining that the character was from Bristol but I’m actually not, I was just doing an (admittedly dubious) accent. Is my brain going to let me do this, though?

Nope.

“Oh, well, y’know, I’m not from right in the middle of Bristol. Actually a few towns away. To the north. Of Bristol. Y’know?”

So for some reason I can admit to lying about being from Bristol but I can only lie about it in character and I can only extend that lie by a few miles. My lie has a limited radius. I’m an idiot.

Fortunately at this point the director senses the massive level of unease between us (FINALLY) and says with a nonchalant shrug:

“Oh, well, I used to be from Bristol.”

Which is a bizarre way of putting it (surely you’re still from Bristol, right? How would that change?) but at least he’s acknowledged that there is nothing more to be gained from this exchange and I am free to go about my daily business (such as hurry back to work and somehow explain why I’ve just taken a 3 hour lunch break).

So off I stroll. Wearing a binliner and red monster-slippers (don’t ask) my head held……well, not high exactly. But not low either. More tilted to one side in a state of utter bewilderment. I’m not quite sure how one can view a performance such as the one I just gave. Where I dropped my accent more times than my nephew drops his spaghetti on the floor. Or the more times I lied to cover my ass, the more times it got me in trouble (ooh, moral! Moral!!!)

But one thing I do know is this: I stayed in character.

My drama teachers would be proud.

My accent coach would not.