method 1 June 2010
There are times when I am glad I am not a Method Actor – that’s basically an actor who LIVES the part – for example, Daniel Day LEwis famously WAS Christy in My Left Foot all day long even when not filming (and it worked for him and was a BRILLIANT performance). The flip side is the story of Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier with Dustin having to be entirely breathless for a scene and running around the block forever to get that way and asking Olivier later for advice as to how to do it and Olivier replied ‘try pretending’. And I have often wondered if a Method Actor played a serial killer would they have to go out there and kill people?? (actually there’s a book/thriller in there, eh!) Tomorrow I am going into work to be electrocuted…I’m hoping acting will cover it and the electrodes aren’t actually hooked up to any power source…I guess it depends on whether or not I’ve pissed anyone off in the last wee while…I’ll let ye know, or not, as the case may be (I may be a dribbling fool by lunchtime) – it’s the only scene I am slated to do tomorrow, which also might be a bad omen…
scandanavia 31 May 2010
The Husband has gone mad into Scandanavian films of late – even as I type I can hear the hip music blaring of some rapper style tale he’s stuck into tonight (and actually it sounds great and very tuneful). I have been avoiding them so far as I’m not in the mood for any moodiness, if you know what I mean. I always ask ‘is it going to be sad?’ and if he cannot give me a yes or no then I won’t watch it. Last night he had a dour one about teenagers growing up and falling in love and I think I felt it was a little too ROMEO AND JULIET for me – a play I cannot tkae seriously as it’s about 2 14year olds falling in love and I think ‘they’ll grow out of it…’ I just want ‘up’ stuff right now. So, my choice for early evening viewing was the lowish budget, US hit, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER which I enjoyed greatly – well made, well written, well acted, funny, and just touching enough not to be soppy or sad. It also had a real LOOK to it – styled, stylish and thoughtful.
In the meantime the rain is LASHING down outside so it’s wallowing in bed under the lovely duvet in the warmth time
therapy 30 May 2010
I haven’t tackled the back garden for a long while and that has been a mistake on many levels. I love a bit of gardening – even if it is really just me in perpetual battle with the weeds, really – and I chat to myself while I’m about it and always feel better during and after it. Isn’t there the idea that if you can’t be happy in a garden you can’t be happy anywhere? Anyhow, because of the builders using it as a rubbish tip (for 14 rather than 6 months over the last 2 years), me working away from home a lot and the back wall falling down I decided to have it all re-hauled and therefore neglected it on the grounds that it was all going to be changed anyhow and made low maintenance. I decided to get rid of the grass because, as the G cat is gone, some harder surfaces will be easier to care for, particularly if Richard is in charge ‘cos he doesn’t have the gardening bug like I do. I am saving up my money for all this and in the meantime it has gone to rack and ruin and is quite wild. Today I broke and went out and cut the grass with the shears ‘by hand’ and it didn’t take much to put a bit of order on the place and it felt GREAT. It lifted my jaded spirits and I realise I have needed to get back to this all along – it was one of the necessary pleasures I had forgotten but, oh, how it lifts a gal…I was stupid not to think of it before this.
eurovision 29 May 2010
I am a gay man trapped in a woman’s body, as you all know. Camp was invented to describe me. SO Eurovision is my idea of a TOTALLY tremendous night out/in. I didn’t LOVE the German entry though it was the winner tonight. And I can’t believe the glorious Niamh Kavanagh, who was BRILLIANT for Ireland, did so badly…However, hurrah for that great song contest! And the flash mob interval entertainment was just fantastic.
RIP Dennis Hopper – who can believe he made it to 74, though, after all the shenanigans he got up to all his life – well done him! As we heard in SPINAL TAP*, the move, ‘have a good time ALL the time’ – I kinda feel Dennis did…
*no, he wasn’t in that one…!
passport 28 May 2010
I went through immigration at Dublin airport tonight in the company of the wonderful Keith Duffy of BOYZONE and CORONATION STREET – oh yes, my friends, I can name drop with the best! – he was a lot more organised than me and had the passport ready at the picture page etc (you know the drill) and when I started shuffling for mine, the lovely female policewoman (we call her a Garda in Ireland) said ‘you’re alright’ and waved me on just as I got the thing open and in front of her…I moved on, as instructed, and heard a man behind me say ‘if I pretend I’m Pauline McLynn, can I whizz through too?” AAWWWW. Can I assure all that I really did show her the photo etc on my passport, it was TIGHT is all, and I think (THINK) she might have trusted who I was…but it didn’t come to that and who knows? As I wrote before here, it ain’t always that way – there was the man Garda who insisted I stood for ages as he checked my photo against me before letting me ‘enter the country’ and when I looked back the man behind me said ‘welcome home’…
description 27 May 2010
There was a great description of an actress’s action in the script we filmed from today – it said she’s sucking on a lollipop like she ‘wants to corrupt it’…and believe me that’s just what she did. It was followed a few lines later with another direction ‘naughty lolly!’, which made me think that would be a great name for a lipstick colour…leave it with me and watch out for the Slap Range from Yours Truly…
tangle 26 May 2010
The make -up department used a thing on my hair today that looked like an ordinary brush but was, in fact, a Tangle Teaser…and it worked. I’d had one of those (veh veh) early mornings where finding a comb to run through my hair was a task too far (at 5.45am that can happen) and so I arrived with a whin bush upon my head. Anyhow, the Tangle Teaser gently teased the tresses while not appearing to put too much effort in and it occurred to me that somewhere, sometime, someplace, an engineering graduate probably designed this with great and vivid accuracy, using all of his/her college learning – the placing of the bristles is not random but highly deliberate (and spot on, may I report, from usage). And so, my friends, yet again I say to you EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION – never wasted, only adapted…
shoes 25 May 2010
Oh the joys of shopping, especially when it’s for work (you spend money because you have to and you get to wear what’s bought but didn’t have to pay for it yourself – though it’s probably only a true pleasure when the character is allowed wear halfway decent stuff…). I got to go shoe shopping for Libby Croker, now of the Chatsworth, today – utter bliss. The only thing that beats shoe shopping (which is not too invasive, unlike jeans shopping, say, which is painful and involves getting out of your own clothes regularly and not knowing which style to start with and all that and is usually VEH VEH dispiriting) is handbag shopping which is simply picking up a bag and knowing that it’s ‘you’ – no divesting of garments or anything at all. I love handbag shopping…a little too much…
What I should then have spent my off time doing was vacuuming the flat – I did not. I cannot feel guilty about this. I refuse to. I have no idea what I did instead as I have nothing to show for myself. My punishment is a 6.20am pick-up tomorrow. Ah well, the rough and the smooth, I guess…
zombie 24 May 2010
Today was my first back on the Chatsworth Estate for Series 8 of SHAMELESS. I had a leisurely start then went on to have 2 short ‘looking around’ scenes before WURDS in the afternoon and, dare I also say it, The Acting. And though it wasn’t the heaviest of schedules I still found myself having to start some sentences a few times at the end of the day – not on-camera, thank goodness, but practical Life Stuff with other human beings…brain in repose…strange that that state kicked back in so quickly. Anyhow, it was lovely, even if I had to get down to me scanties – hey, until the rewrite I had to get all me kit off so RESULT for the P Mc not having to get into the nuddy entirely (though I had worked myself up to that notion and was READY).
Manchester still BOILING hot – if this is a taster for the menopause, I’m not ‘loving’ it…
boating 23 May 2010
My wonderful brother, Phil, and sister-in-law, Rebecca, brought me on a fantastic boat trip up the Thames yesterday. We were in a flotilla of 3 inflatables with outboard engines and travelled at teatime from Putney Bridge up to Brentford, back a tad to Barnes (or thereabouts) for a wonderful pub dinner and back to town in the dark. The return journey was SO beautiful as the river was calm and the moonlight looked lovely on the water and each boat had a lantern so it was really romantic and joyous.
Strangest event of the trip, though, was on the outward leg – I spotted a friend in another small boat with his wife and their doggy. We hardly encountered any other boats at all but here was one with a mate I’d gone to college with and who is now an actor too. What were the chances of that? We all pulled up together and had a lovely chat. Want to do it all over again now BUT it’s time to go to Manchester because tomorrow we start filming SHAMELESS series 8. To soften this old lady’s cough I am scheduled to take my clothes off in front of a lovely young member of the cast (oh, and a full crew) tomorrow afternoon for your future televisual delight – or at least it’ll make you laugh…