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It’s a big week for my new career at a film star. On Wednesday I am going to the premiere of
Giddy Stratospheres in which I play Nick Helm’s dad and today I watched the rough cut of Real Love in which I play Nick Helm’s uncle (does that make me an Uncle’s uncle?).
I watched the latter at about 5.30am after waking up early, finding it in my inbox and realising I wasn’t going to get back to sleep. We filmed it back in January in a freezing cold castle in Wales, after I’d unnecessarily damaged my car and whilst I was mildly worried about my weird large testicle. I’d googled the symptoms just before leaving for Wales and somehow come away with the conclusion that it was probably nothing to worry about, but I think a part of me had read the internet properly and knew I should be concerned. I spent cold nights sleeping in a bunk bed designed for students touching myself. And not in a good way. Though probably also in a good way.
Anyway maybe that helped inform the slightly lost character of Uncle Keith and unusually I did not find my own performance to be clunky or embarrassing. It seemed pretty real. A couple of bits where I thought I’d been particularly funny had been truncated to much shorter scenes, but some other bits that I’d almost forgotten that we’d done were longer. And Jamie Adams, the director, has done an incredible job of putting this improvised film together and giving pretty much everyone a decent storyline. It’s a bit crazy, but it’s funny and engaging and rather sweet. Even if you get to see my boobs.
In the original storyline (which was thrown away on the first night as Jamie decided to rejig the whole thing) my character ended up half naked and possibly dead (and I wish he’d still got to build to a breakdown moment as his life melted down, but maybe it’s better than it’s more subtle). In hindsight I would have liked it if my soon to be shorn bollocks had made it on to film, so that I could look back at them and remember them in their pomp (though maybe their pomp was actually when one of them wasn’t made solely of cancer), but it was not to be.
I hope to get to do a bit more acting. I lost my acting balls long before I lost my actual one. At University I did loads of plays, taking lead roles and throwing myself into stuff with confidence. But the much documented events of the Fringe 1988 did much to destroy that self belief and I was out of my depth when we moved into the real world and was undermined both deliberately and accidentally by the people I worked with. In the last few years I have felt a lot better about my acting ability and done a few roles now where I felt that I’d done a good job, probably starting with
While You Were Away which I am really pleased with (the only bit I’d change is when I indicate to my wife that she should sit down - which doesn’t feel real to me). So I am excited to see how Giddy Stratospheres turns out (I’ve heard very positive reports about the whole film from the people who’ve seen it) and to see what kind of reception Real Love will get.
I wouldn’t like to just be an actor and I see myself principally as a comedian and writer (correctly so) but I slightly regret that my loss of confidence meant I didn’t get to do a bit more acting as a younger man and it’d be cool if I can pick up a few roles in this, my third act. I mean they’ll all be of broken men, using prostitutes or damaging their own genitals, but someone has to play those roles.
Our village burst into life tonight. The local pub has opened up under new management, having been shut since the first lockdown and there was a hog roast and face painting and a man singing Oasis songs. It feels (possibly incorrectly) that life is returning to normal and with the football tomorrow the country feels on the edge of catharsis that borders on a jolly purge (mixed with a deadly virus), where all laws will be ignored and there will be nothing the police can do. Winning this competition might be the best and worst thing that could happen to us. God help us either way.
