BETWEEN JOBS

BETWEEN JOBS

This one's a hard piece. Because most actors won't talk honestly about this part of the job. I will.

For someone who becomes totally lost when not doing what they love — being between jobs is painful. Genuinely painful. I have had several gaps in my career. A month. Two months. Three months. Six months. An awful year at one point. And I want to tell the truth about what that's actually like, because the public sees the West End credits and assumes the rest takes care of itself. It doesn't.

Let me take you to a specific one. I finished in Phantom in London, around April 1997. When I came out of that show, I was in a bad place in my head. I felt the world was against me. I still wanted to be in the West End — but all good things come to an end. Lesson one of this business.

I didn't know what to do. Where to go. Do I stay in London? No — I can't afford it anymore without my West End job. So home to Wales it is. And that in itself is horrendous.

I had somewhere to stay, which I was lucky to have. But coming out of the bubble was hard. That's lesson two. The bubble. I wasn't a superstar or anything like that — but in the West End I felt good about myself. I liked the buzz. I liked the city — not the tubes, smelly disgusting things — but the rest of it, yes. I had purpose. At home it was just normal. Nothing happened. Quiet.

And then comes lesson three. When people know you're home.

"Oh — what are you doing next?"

Do I fake it. Do I lie. Do I just say the truth. It's the feeling of failure. Almost like you've been sent to the back of the class with a "try harder, D minus." And some people genuinely relish in your misfortune. Knowing you are no longer in the West End. Jealousy. Bitchiness. People who will never do what you have done — or probably achieve anything near to it — and you can see it on their faces.

I became numb. Staying up later and later. Procrastinating. Getting up late. In my head, as a young actor, I always believed something would come along — and I didn't want to do an ordinary job. Luckily I was being fed and had a bed to sleep in. But this wasn't laziness. It was something else. If I accepted it and made it the reality — I could get lost in it.

And I'll tell you what happened to me once I did exactly that. This was after my West End years — but it's an example of the danger. I came home for what was meant to be a short while and I took a job in a call centre. I liked it there. Good crowd. It became the norm. Bad mistake. I think I was there for nearly two years. It just flew by.

That is exactly why I didn't take an ordinary job during my West End years. Because I knew. I knew if I did, that would happen. The ordinary would absorb me. I knew it and I wasn't going to let it happen.

There was no structure when I came out of Phantom. I got involved with some bits and bobs in amateur dramatics. I played Jesus in the local society in the Grand Theatre, Swansea. A role I would never get professionally — which is exactly why I did it. But it fed my theatrical juices. It kept something alive.

And this is where I have to say something honest about other people I knew. Some were never going to make it. That's not a scathing remark — it's the truth. Some were talented but didn't try hard enough. Some got sidetracked by other interests and dropped the dream altogether. There isn't one individual I'm talking about, but you have to live and breathe this dream to achieve it. I did.

I would sometimes just live on hope, naively. The "it will find me" kind of vibe. And in a way it sort of did — but there was always work to do, you had to push yourself to be in the right places, to interact. I find networking very hard. Others thrive on it. I did the bare minimum because to me it is so fake. I wanted to get there on my own merit.

I would see people I'd been at college with who'd wanted the dream at the time. Marriage and kids happened to some — they made the decision to get an ordinary job. That was right for them. Maybe some regret. I don't knock them for it.

But others — like me — realised something. I may never get another chance to go for this. Because those kinds of things don't happen to people like me. So when I saw my avenue, I took it and ran with it. Or I would have been full of regret for a lifetime.

And there were some I bumped into later — ex-college friends. Some I was surprised hadn't followed through. Others, looking back, I could kind of see they had other things tying them down. Those people end up doing am dram — which, by the way, is bloody great in Swansea — and that became their release alongside real life. Not theatrical life. Real life.

I used to feel great shame when questions were asked about my career between jobs. Nobody wants to explain why they're not still in the West End. Even I didn't know exactly why. It just happens that way. You're back on the conveyor belt trying to get a good audition. And when I came out of Phantom I didn't have an agent either — which made it doubly difficult.

If you're talking to hardened theatre folk, you can be honest. You can tell them you left, or the contract didn't get renewed, or whatever happened. They understand. But to other people you just need them to know you're still in the game. So you say things like — "auditions? Oh, nothing right now, I'm just trying to get a new agent." Which is the truth.

But what you can't say — what you really want to say — is: "I am pulling my hair out. I miss it every day. Is this it. Has my good luck passed already." That kind of thing. You can't say that to most people. You smile. You make sure people know you have not given up. Not by a long shot.

So this is the part of an actor's life nobody puts on the highlight reel. The flat in Wales. The call centre that nearly swallowed me. The Jesus role in Swansea Grand to keep myself sane. The cousins and old schoolmates wanting to know what's next when there is no next. The lying-awake at four in the morning wondering if your one shot has already been and gone.

For some lucky actors — they go job to job. For the rest of us, there are these gaps. And some don't make it through them. They drift into the ordinary job and the ordinary life and the dream quietly dies. There's no shame in that. But you have to be honest about what's happening before you can stop it.

Live and breathe the dream. Don't let the ordinary absorb you. And when someone asks what you're doing next — smile, say you're auditioning, and keep going.

Because the alternative is the version of yourself that never tries again. And that is the worst ending of all.

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