An Actors Life For Me?

It's no wonder that all actors are as mad as a particularly mad bucket of frogs when you think about it.

I mean first off - their chosen profession is to put on a load of silly clothes and pretend to be someone else for two hours every evening.  That's bound to send you doolally.

Add to that the fact that about 80% of actors are out of work at any given time and meet so many new people that they are forced to refer to everyone they meet as "love" to cover the social embarrassment of never remembering anyone's names...

And that's just when they're treading the boards - you wait until you get one that goes from theatre into TV or cinema.  Even though both have been around for a good hundred years there must be a special "Disdain" class reserved in the halls of RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) for mass entertainment, as every actor who ever makes in on the screen inevitably yearns for the "real work" of the stage, where they forever take part in obscure plays by Ibsen that are dull but worthy - rather than the popularist claptrap they take on to pay their way

Also - there's the knife edge of success.  Because in any other job you pretty much want what you are doing to be a success - and it's only in acting that if what you are doing is so much of a success that you become associated with that role when you will suddenly find yourself either type-cast or never working again: forever trotting out the same tired catchphrase, like "I shall return..." - or something that a US Governor once said that was very similar to that at any rate

And always assuming that you DO make it big and DO Become so successful that the mere mention of your name turns people's legs into jelly and the paparazzi hang around your bins trying to find out what type of chewing gum you eat: surely that kind of day to day adoration must buy you a one way ticket on the train to Loopeyville, via Insane Town and a quick visit for a trampoline session on Oprah's settee whilst you're at it.

And then, of course, the rules of who can be famous keep changing every five seconds.  Take George Formby (no, seriously - take him.  We've seen his films enough times and the Albanians have moved on to Norman Wisdom) - in his day he was a major star, but if he appeared on The X Factor with his Banjolele singing about his stick of Blackpool Rock today - well, Simon Cowell would tell him he didn't look beautiful enough to be a recording artist and send him packing.  THEN who would star in daft propaganda films where the hero gets mistaken for a soldier and changes the face of the Gulf War?  Susan Boyle?? We think not!

If I ever got famous, which seems increasingly unlikely, I intend to hire a "No" Man (or woman) - someone who I'm unable to sack and who's job it is every time I start getting a bit poncy and full of myself to give me a stern talking to and tell me not to be such an arse.