The now – That’s all there is.

Since my last post on March 6th, the world changed. Here’s where I am now.

I’ll start with how grateful I am that I am sitting here in my new 2020 home on a very quiet street in South East London. I have a nonessential job which means I don’t come across that many people or take public transport every day. I have a nonessential job – I know people who lost theirs. I have a body I can do yoga poses with (please read my cousin Nora’s story), I have my microphone and an awesome closet I can sit and do my voiceover auditions in. I can still buy my vegan cheese and my audiobooks (currently Stephen Fry reading Mythos). I can watch vintage Kristen Stewart movies (check her out in Welcome to the Rileys and The Cake Eaters, wow), and Outrivals’ workouts. I can also follow career advice by Jodie Bentley. It’s the apocalypse with internet.

Stay fit, that’s what they recommend. Take a walk, work out at home, use your brain. What does this mean for actors, filmmakers, theatre makers? How do we stay fit? How do we stay fit for the day when casting starts up again and they will be hungry for new faces, new energy, when it will be such a joy to just sit across from a fellow actor, look deeply into their eyes, and film that - that’s a scene right there.

This idea of staying fit is not very different from what was before. The goal as an actor between roles is to stay ready, physically and mentally, for when the next opportunity comes. What we are missing now is physical contact, but what we can do today is dig deeper: take these extra hours in the day and ask, why am I an actor in the first place? What is this new learned speech really saying, how can I truly make it mine? Who is the true me that casting will see the next time I’m in the room with them? Ah, the room! The time we have is not just for doing, but also for reflecting, going deeper into ourselves. A day spent being bored, questioning and noticing new things is not a day lost. It also belongs to the actor’s life.

Until very recently, the whole “all you need is love” philosophy seemed cliché. But as Eckhart Tolle will say, the present moment is all you will ever have. The only thing that is sure is that you’re going to breathe in in a split second. Whether we’ll be isolated for another month or another year is uncertain, so all you can do is work with what you have now, nurture the loving feelings around you and remain at ease. One breath at a time.

Hey, I’m not saying I do this all the time! But I realise now that that’s all there is. I am okay, and that’s all there is.

I will finish by posting two short films I created and some behind the scenes photos to show how beautifully busy our film sets were. We’ll be back soon!

Un Dimanche (French, 5 minutes) (dir. me)

Der Gugelhupf (German, 5 minutes) (dir. me and Hannah Rogers)

Thanks for reading and by the way, did you notice my new website design and pictures?

Wherever you are, sending much Love!

Publishing my short film “Sunday”… this Sunday

Hello dear readers, I hope you had a wonderful month of February. It was a busy one, right?

First, there was the Oscars. Parasite! My opinion is that the Academy didn’t want to reward a period piece this time. So the foreign film won! This is surprising, refreshing, and a shift in the industry. Also this shows what I believe: we want to see more stories about today.

Then, I acted in a short film called The Truth (made by passionate and professional students from Hertfordshire University). The film is currently being edited and I am grateful and proud to be part of it. If the script comes to life as I imagine it, it’s going to be tense and gloomy – a true dystopian piece. My character is a woman living in a squat and hoping for a better life that can only be given to her by creepy bureaucrats.

I also got pictures taken in Greenwich Park with photographer Anna Rakhvalova. The photos will be ready in a few days, and I can’t wait to share them.

I was back on stage for three days at the Hen and Chickens for One From the Heart, revisiting a role I had played a few months before. I got to love my moody and frustrated character Beatrice even more.

Finally, Un Dimanche! My French short film will be published on YouTube this Sunday. I do want to celebrate this, as it was a true passion project and I am super flattered that so many people stepped in to shoot it. Stay tuned this Sunday on my social media. If you can’t wait that long, you can see one scene on my French showreel on Spotlight.

Until then, here is a still.

Toodloo!

Let’s go 2020

Happy new year! I’m a bit late, I know, but this month has flown by. This is therefore my official 2020 kick-off. So what’s been up?

UN DIMANCHE – French short film shoot as writer, director, producer and actor.

One of my acting goals for 2019 was to be cast in a French-speaking project so I could start branding myself as a French actress, going back to my roots. When that didn’t happen, I faced the facts. If I want it, I’d better make it happen myself. So I took out one of the rough stories I had written and started working on it, contacting Clem Nachbauer in the process, asking him to DP for me. Thanks to his experience and access to equipment, he got a great camera team together. I got Cristian on as sound recordist, who I had worked with on a previous project. Andrea Ratti, who I’ve known since DEAR MUM, is my go-to 1st AD, and I was pleased he connected to the script and wanted to be on board. Finally, an important part of my film is music, and composer Oleta Haffner also stepped in, offering her services as a runner on the day too.

Pre-production: I enjoyed working closely with my DP and chatting to him regularly over Christmas to ensure we were on the same page in terms of what we wanted to get out from the scenes. As a director, preparing a storyboard (a schematic plan of what the shots will look like) is a big help for everyone, but Clem also gave his own input, contributing his camera and lighting knowledge. My original script had the camera backing out of a room through a window – well, we didn’t quite manage that. That kind of trick is a big deal to organise, as you will see in this YouTube video.

In the few days leading up to the shoot, I went through a few stressful moments involving a van pickup and insurance, but I did make it to bed by 10pm the night before the shoot which is pretty impressive.

Production: kudos to actors who direct themselves in feature films! The two roles are opposites in my opinion, as the director always has the big picture in mind, while the actor should be in the moment, and certainly not aware of the clock ticking. I enjoyed calling “cut” at the end of scenes, and “action” in the one shot I did not appear in. One day, if someone will let me, I’d like to direct without acting.

Post-production: I’ve seen one rough cut which my editor now has my notes on. In a few weeks, I hope to have the final cut, and send it to Oleta for her to compose music. We’ve run into a continuity issue (this means a link in the story that could take the audience out of it as they can no longer follow what’s going on) - nothing we can’t solve, fingers crossed. This definitely came from me not insisting on a certain shot. The story will not tell itself – every single shot counts!

The month ahead

This month, I am preparing to take some full-body photos with an awesome photographer, shooting a few scenes in a dystopian short film called THE TRUTH and returning to the stage in ONE FROM THE HEART, PART II, as the group returns after our successful run in November 2019. You can find tickets here. The show runs from February 24th to 26th in Islington, London.

Thank you dear reader for making it through this long article. Toodloo!

Next week, I’ll be directing a new short film

Directing

Last month I mentioned that I will be shooting a French scene I wrote. Well, this scene has now turned into a short story that we will be filming on 7th January. I will be acting alongside French actor Alex Kengne (that’s him in the picture), and I am supported by 1st AD Andrea Ratti, as well as the talented cinematographer Clem Nachbauer and composer Oleta Haffner. I will announce the full crew once… it’s done! Don’t want to jinx anything.

I’ve had a lot of free time over this break, not travelling anywhere, and have been finding inspiration in old and new films over the past ten days. Indeed, my story contains flashbacks and objects that change over time. I do hope my audience leans in.

As I have a very low budget, I am lucky to be using a friend’s sitting room to shoot, and have made sure I didn’t write in anything that I couldn’t source easily! During Der Gugelhupf, a prop fell in the mud. This time, important props were bought twice. Fingers crossed!

Acting

Looking back over this year in acting, it was about more stage and less screen, with my favourite role being Carol in “Orpheus Descending”. The short film I acted in was “Tiny Kernel of Dark Joy” by Andrea Ratti which you can watch here. Do you also think it is quite meditative and calm?

2020 starts, after my French short, with a screen workshop as well as a short dystopian film called “The Truth”, shooting in February. I am also moving house which is no small thing.

To my readers, a wonderful and happy new year 2020, a lucky number!

Toodles.

New agent and another year older

As November comes to a close, I am preparing to celebrate American Thanksgiving with my family and also… my birthday! More importantly, as the end of the decade also nears, this is a time to look back at the past ten years and think about what we are truly grateful for. Did you know that 2020 is my tenth year in London?

This year I was back on the stage

As I mentioned last month, 2019 was a year of performing monologues. A few weeks ago, I performed solo in “One from the Heart”. I so enjoyed my character and how the play I was in made the audience question themselves. A magical moment was when in rehearsal, two days before the show, I went through the text once more, letting it all hang out. This led to a new understanding of certain lines and opened up my movement. That’s what they mean by the beauty of rehearsal time.

Speaking of monologues, some of you may remember that I played Carol Cutrere in Orpheus Descending last Spring. I finally put one of her speeches on tape, which you can watch on the left.

French scene

I will be shooting a French scene that I wrote in early January alongside Axel Kengne which I am very excited about. The crew is just forming now.

New agent

Following the Monologue Slam, I met with Michael Moor from RD Casting who is now representing me as an actress. Expect new images and promotional material soon. Let’s go!

Thank you for reading!