To Err is Human
Hi, I’m Dave and I’m an actor.
Now if you are a casting agent, producer or director looking to hire a 40-something year old Caucasian male, 6ft, average build, with a panache for accents and voices, then I am actually called David Anthony Green. Please do have a look at my CV.
If not, then Dave will be just fine.
Whenever I tell anyone I’m an actor, I usually hear one of three questions. The most often is “Have I seen you in anything?”
The response I’d like to give a lot of the time is “I do not know, I don’t live in your head nor see through your eyes”. But mostly I’ll tell them about my cycling appearance in a Halfords ad or the back of my head appearing in The Crown, and they mostly seem happy with the answer.
Another question I get is “Why did you want to get into acting?” The quick answer is that I like to entertain people, make an audience react whether to make them laugh, love, cry or hate and to help take their minds off the real world for a while. The longer answer may come in a future post!
The third question I get is rather unique to me. When you first speak to me, it can be difficult. I am naturally shy, not immediately sociable with new people and can come off a little bit up myself as a result.
While arrogance is a term frequently used to describe actors, it is not one I like to be thought of. To dissipate that, I try to engage in some kind of chat. What that chat ends up being like of course would depend on the situation. If it’s an informal one, such as a gathering with family and friends, I would be relaxed with my speech.
Therein lies the problem — I’m a mumbler. A stammerer. If a thought doesn’t present itself quickly enough to vocalise, the sound of “ERRRRR” makes an unwanted appearance. And most annoyingly, I speak way too quickly. The worry of filling in gaps of silence makes me needy to fill those gaps, no matter how unintelligible it may come out.
So the third and most often asked question of me when people discover I am an actor — and in some cases after they’ve seen me perform onstage — is “How come you’re so clear when you’re performing, yet so unclear speaking now?”
The answer is simple — I know what I’m going to say.
Oh for a life where the script is there ready for you when you wake up. A quick flick through the dialogue, toss the sheets aside and on you go through your day knowing exactly what you will say when the moment arises.
Alas that will never happen, but I would like to think a lot of those habits have improved over the years.
Through this blog, I’ll go through various jobs I’ve had over the years and situations I have found myself in, which may or may not have helped me grow as a person or changed these habits of being able to communicate clearly without a script.
I’ll try not to be too hard on myself throughout it though. After all, to ERRRR is human.
