On the side...

Because what is an actor without a day job...

I went to get my haircut a few weeks ago. I opted for a new hair place because my usual one is an absolute trek away and I wanted to make the most out of my daughter being at holiday club. The thing is, a new hairdresser means going through THE TALK again. No, not why it has been so long since I last got my hair cut (which yes, we did have and, yes, I took 6 months off the real answer), but about what I do for a living.

It must be great to tell someone you’re an actor without a stream of caveats afterwards. How nice to just say it plainly rather than a short admission followed by 20 minutes of explanations as you squirm your way through your disappointing CV and pitiful lack of work. I was also very impressed to hear that I’m still capable of very calmly blaming the pandemic for things being quite and for also drawing on a role that I did a year ago as ‘recent’. If only a casting director had been sat in the chair next to me to witness my exemplary lying acting skills.

But what’s really demoralising is having to explain that you also have a day job. At the age of ‘flailing and screaming down a greasy hill very quickly towards 40’, I did not expect to still be explaining my acting career through what I do to just about make a living. When the stars align and there’s a good prevailing win, acting probably pays me around £500 a month, which doesn’t even come close to covering rent, let alone everything else, and so here I am, still doing a side job and pretending it’s not my real job when really it is my main job and acting is my side job. It’s a bitter pill to swallow sometimes (all the time), especially when you realise you’ve got to very nearly 40 and are still at the same stage of your career as when you graduated from drama school 17 years ago.

So, what do we do? Well, firstly, we have to accept that day jobs/side jobs/side hustles/desperately working for cash is as synonymous with acting as being asked why you don’t just write to EastEnders and ask for a part. Whilst it is utterly demoralising to work at something for years and still have to prop it up with a job that you probably never wanted to do, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. It’s often touted as a glorious Hollywood tale to be spotted by some creepy big-shot as you pour your 437th coffee of the day, but no one at drama school is selling the dream of sitting in a call centre or working FOH or delivering groceries or waiting tables.

I conducted an extremely unscientific poll on Twitter to ask how many actors had day jobs. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of people that voted were just there to see the results, which is probably about accurate. I remember a few months after graduating from drama school, I bumped into the head of the school outside Sainsbury’s. Rather than asking me how I was finding being out in the big wide world, she was only interested in how I was financially supporting myself. Genuinely, I vividly remember her asking, ‘But what are you doing to support yourself financially?’ And, do you know what, if drama school had spent more time telling us about the realities of needing a day job and that we were very unlikely to land a lucrative role within weeks of graduating rather than practically forcing me to appear topless in my graduation film, I may not have felt such a disappointment in admitting that I working on the phones at a takeaway in Fulham.

When I look back at all the day jobs I’ve had, I could wistfully pretend that they have offered me a wealth of life experience, but in truth they have mainly been a series of jobs that allow the public to shout at me. Call centres, customer service, market research, I’ve done a surprising amount of phone-based jobs given I am an absolute millennial and the thought of talking to someone on the seems about as ridiculous as not having avocado on my toast (or whatever they say about us these days…) There have been some jobs I’ve surprisingly loved (working in the mail room at a record company) and others that I’ve detested (selling blinds), but they all played a vital role in allowing me to continue my ridiculous pursuit of acting.

Now, post-pandemic and with a 5-year-old who requires a daily level of fruit that would make Whipsnade weep, the day job has now become The Job. It is not a job that any child in any dimension would go to their careers advisor about, and whilst I’m grateful for the fact it keeps us in blueberries and plums, it is so far from the dream that it is alarmingly awake and leaves about 90 seconds a day for me to focus on creative stuff, hence why this Substack has become a garbled mess.

Look, what I’m trying to say is that day jobs are a fact of life for the majority of us, regardless of what we’re in pursuit of. So, whether you are selling wine, teaching kids to dance, stopping people in the street to raise money or delivering groceries, you are not alone and my hope for all of you is that one day these jobs will be condensed to but a sentence in a fawningly overwritten Sunday supplement article about your rise to greatness and that for now they help you keep going.