Twice the Classes!

For December, in addition to my usual Tuesday night acting classes, I also get Wednesday nights 🙂 Suzanna only had 3 people sign up for that session, so she had a few of us volunteer to take extra classes, which I obviously jumped on. Years ago, after Carolyne had been transferred to the Advanced Tuesday night class and I was still in Thursday afternoons, she came and did a month with us for the same reason. I thought she was so lucky and hoped that I would one day be someone Suzanna would offer bonus classes to. Two nights is substantially less than I will be getting next month, when it will be acting all day every day (for weekdays at least) but I am still excited.

On Tuesday, I got two scenes. We had suggested doing Christmas scenes since it is December, but one girl had asked for a gritty scene where she would have to break down. In the end, I am doing a scene from The Holiday with Carolyne, and one from Rachel Getting Married with Ashleigh. Since I have two scenes, Suzanna made sure one would be easy, so I am literally playing “Iris’ friend”. I do a lot of listening, which is actually something I have a bit of trouble with (not the listening, but knowing how to listen on camera for long, extended periods of time, such as a monologue on unrequited love). Carolyne doesn’t want to do a British accent, and has thus far resisted all of my attempts at peer pressure, but I am kind of afraid to do one without her, even though it would make words like ‘shagging’ and ‘blooming laundry’ sound less odd. We shall see where my courage leaves me next week 😉

For Rachel Getting Married, I play the sister who isn’t getting married, but has a whole lot of issues. Anne Hathaway portrayed her in the film, and was nominated for it. When Suzanna said my scene involved crying and screaming and breaking down on my part as well as Ashleigh’s (who had requested the gritty scene) I was slightly terrified. If you’ve been following me for a while on here, you’ll know that I struggle and rarely succeed in crying on camera. For this scene, however, I really think I just have to be willing to go there. It isn’t trying to cry on cue, or because of some silly reason I can’t relate to. It is truly a heartbreaking moment and if I do the work and really consider what Kym is going through, I think it will be really good.

On Wednesday, someone cancelled, so I wasn’t really needed after all, but I was there and someone else was missing a week, so I got to do a scene from Carol with Nir. It is a period scene, so my voice automatically does this thing where I talk different, maybe more proper and articulate, which is weird, but I really like the scene, and working with Nir instead of just being his reader is also really fun. I think it will be a lot better once I have worked on it and made who everyone is to me more clear, but it’s good so far as well 🙂

“The more you do your homework, the more you’re free to be intuitive; but you’ve got to put the work in.”

-Edward Norton