When life gives you a golden opportunity...

Okay I have a bit of time, so I am going to share a little story with you as to how I landed this TV role in Belgium. There is a moral to the story and some of you who are not familiar with how the TV industry works may be interested as to how one lands roles like that - especially if it is in a different country.

It started about two weeks ago, when I got an email from my agent confirming my availability for the first week of January and she said that there was a French TV production company who may be interested in seeing me to do a reading. Sure enough, my agent followed up with a script and I had an appointment to go see a casting director later that week.

You watch TV but do you know how programmes are made?

I memorised my script and went to that casting enthusiastically, only to be disappointed when I tried to speak French to the casting director and she replied, "Oh I don't speak much French, all these videos will be emailed to the production people in France and Belgium and then they will decide, I just film this and email them over."

So I did my reading and never heard back from them. My agent chased up and got the polite reply, "He was great, it was a pleasure to meet him but he was not our first choice." I thought, fair enough, you can't win them all, no big deal. Christmas was approaching and I had travelled to Scotland to spend Christmas here.

Then on the last working day of the year here, the 21st December Friday, I got a phone call at about 2 pm from my agent. I was out hill-walking, far away from civilisation, in a forest reserve and I surprised that I was able to even get a mobile phone signal in the forest! My agent said, "They want you for that job. Long story, but I have just checked your rehearsal dates for the play and they don't clash. What say you, do you still want to do this?"

My phone rang shortly after this photo was taken - I was in the forest!

Of course I said yes and she said she would call me back with more details. She then asked me, "Can you text me your passport details please? The shoot is in Belgium."

Ah. My passport is in a drawer in my flat in London and here I am in Scotland, in the middle of nowhere in the forest - how could I possibly give her my passport details? Luckily, I remembered that she had arranged for me to travel to Slovakia for another shoot last summer and I asked her if she could dig out the emails from last summer as one of them would have all my passport details there for the flight. She found it - phew.

I then got a text at about 4 pm saying that everything is confirmed and both the production manager in Belgium and London will be in touch shortly. Sure enough, by 5 pm, they both got in touch. The lady in London Kathy was making my travel arrangements and the lady in Brussels was dealing with the details of my script, costume fittings, translations, arranging my transport for the hotel to the set etc.

I will be in Liege in Belgium for this shoot. 

Although the last day of the shoot was Friday the 11th January, I asked Kathy if she could put me on the last Eurostar back on Sunday the 13th January so I could spend the weekend in Belgium. After all, I was going to do a play immediately after that, which meant no holidays until April so I really wanted to make the most of my time in Belgium. She was so sweet and obliging that I decided to ask her another question.

"Kathy, I know I wasn't your first choice - I am so curious as to what happened to your first choice, did he drop out? What made him give up this amazing opportunity to do such a big role for such good money like that? It seems crazy, any actor would be mad to give up a chance like this..."

And she replied, "Don't take it personally, but you were our second choice, it was a hard decision. You are so experienced, your CV is so long but you're slightly older than what we had in mind to be honest. The character was meant to be in his early 20s and you look more like you're in your late 20s or early 30s. It's not vital - but the age difference did play a part. The guy we chose originally was a fresh face, virtually no experience, only 21 years old. Unlike you, he didn't even have an agent - he came to us via a friend of a friend. This character is meant to be wild, eccentric, somewhat crazy and there was something about him the moment he walked into the room. You were very professional and polite - whilst his eyes were wild, dancing around the room, bursting with energy. You were calm and confident, he was edgy and restless."

The director wanted someone wild and eccentric.

"We had a long and hard think about it, with long conference calls between the teams in London and Brussels to decide whom to cast - the older, more experienced safe pair of hands, or the younger guy who needed his first big break. We voted and the younger guy narrowly beat you. So we went along with him,  as he didn't have an agent I was dealing with him directly. We thought he'd be thrilled to work with us, but I was surprised."

"I was getting endless emails, phone calls and texts from him - he was asking so many questions like he didn't trust us. He made demands - some of which were reasonable, others were not. He wanted to talk to the director, I said it would be possible but only in January. He wanted to change parts of the script, I said it was not usual for actors to make changes like that, but I would be happy to feed his suggestions back to the rest of the team. He then demanded more money and I was telling him that they deal is already very good and the budgets are set - he was very unhappy and didn't take no for an answer. That's just not the way we do things in our industry, I told him but he didn't trust me. Then he demanded that we change the shoot dates to suit his schedule and I said no, that's impossible - the dates are not just for you but all the cast and crew; everyone from the director to the producer to the technicians to the rest of the cast are committed to those dates - but he didn't get it. He was driving me up the wall. He was very difficult to deal with, his attitude was very immature."

This guy drove Kathy up the wall. 

"It was one demand after another - is he being naive? Is he being a diva? Did he think that he was entitled to act like that just because he landed a fairly big role (a guest lead in an episode of a sitcom)? Or is he just paranoid about working with us for the first time? Was he worried about going to Belgium? Did he think he could get away with this attitude? I don't know - maybe it was a mixture of all of the above. Experienced actors would never behave the way he did - that's for sure. Anyway, it got to the point where I just said to him, the office is winding down for Christmas, I will deal with your questions in January. Then he threw this massive tantrum and shouted at me on the phone, scolding me - he was very rude and I don't think I ever had an actor behave like that with me in all my years in television. Who did he think he was? He was a 21 year old with no track record, he was no George Clooney, Hugh Grant or Brad Pitt!

"After that phone call, I thought, that's it, I can't deal with him any more. Enough is enough, I had to cut my losses. I don't care if it's 21st December Friday, I am going to replace him by the end of this afternoon. I then got a text from that 21 year old guy, I thought he was going to apologize but he actually said that he had a better offer for that week and he had better things to do than to go to Belgium so he was pulling out. Can you believe this guy? I didn't believe him of course, I thought he was jumping before he was pushed - but him pulling out was just as well, it saved me having to fire him. That would have been far more complex. I actually think he bottled out - first big part, but it is abroad, you have to get on a train, go turn up at a set in another country where everyone is speaking a different language and you have to deal with it all. For you, it's no big deal, you've done it all before in various countries - but for a 21 year old who is doing it for the first time, maybe it was all just too much and he bottled out."

Was working in Belgium too daunting for this 21 year old?

"That's why we called your agent so last minute and you have actually saved us by agreeing to do this at such short notice. That is why I am upgrading your Eurostar tickets to Standard Premier as a gesture of goodwill, just to thank you for helping us out like that. It is a nightmare of a situation to be in, having to find a last minute replacement and you couldn't have been more professional. I feel confident we now have you on board and it is something I am learning from the experience."

"There is a difference between getting an actor to play a character who is eccentric, wild and crazy and actually hiring a person who is actually eccentric, wild and crazy in real life. You may come across as polite, even corporate in your demeanour but when you are in character, yes you can go wild and crazy. That's acting and you're good at it. Now that's not the same as someone who is actually wild and crazy all the time - he's not acting at all, he's simply being himself and yes there is an element of that in TV. In 'The Wire', the American crime drama series, yes they got some criminals to play the part of criminals, rather than get some rich kid who has gone to the finest drama schools in America to play those parts. Sometimes this kind of casting works, other times it doesn't. This is the latter - I have learnt my lesson the hard way. I am sure you will have a great shoot in Belgium - I hope we can work together again in the future."

I heard Kathy's story and said, "I won't let you down. I wouldn't be in this industry after this many years if I behaved anything like this 21 year old young man. His loss is my gain and you made the right decision by coming to me. I speak fluent French and a little Dutch - it would be a pleasure to work with your colleagues in Belgium in January." That's my story - it seems crazy that a 21 year old can behave in such an irrational manner and throw away what is a golden opportunity, his first big break. Whereas for me, I've been there and done it all, worked on TV, films, music videos and ads all over Europe and the Middle East and frankly, he needs this more than I do. But there you go, I hope this little anecdote on Christmas eve has given you some food for thought - if life gives you a good opportunity, for goodness' sake, don't squander it! You never know when you may next get a golden opportunity like that.

Sending you all festive greetings from Scotland. No snow, highs of about 7 degrees, lows of about 3 at night, shame. Here's the sunset from yesterday for you.